Dream fades for many Immigrants

by Glenn Kauth

Despite Fort McMurray’s famed labour shortages, immigrants to the region struggle just as much as newcomers elsewhere to earn a decent income, says the co-ordinator of a local settlement agency. “That is something that is Canada-wide,” said the YMCA’s Myra MacKay, reacting to a new Statistics Canada report showing immigrants were more likely to earn low incomes in 2004 than at any time during the 1990s. While Fort McMurray continues its economic boom, MacKay said many of the immigrants she sees aren’t cashing in. “What we’re seeing here in Fort McMurray is the idea that you’re going to have the dream job,” she said, noting she regularly has clients show up in her office who declare, “I just drove in today” from Toronto without securing a job or housing first. Often, MacKay added, it’s the new immigrant who was underemployed in Toronto who comes here to break out of the cycle of working a survival job. However, without Canadian experience and with limited language skills, they’ll still struggle to get the professional job they did back in their home country. Fort McMurray, MacKay said, is “saturated with foreign-trained professionals.” And, of course, once they get here they quickly realize they have to take any job to get by. “They’re becoming the working poor because they have to meet the basic needs of their family. Their hope for the future basically becomes their children.”

That means, MacKay said, that a lot of immigrants trained in professions like engineering and teaching are cleaning houses, working as labourers and retail jobs or driving taxis.MacKay’s comments echo the Statistics Canada study, which puts the probability of new immigrants experiencing poverty at between 34 and 46 per cent, depending on the year they arrived. The study covered the years 1992 to 2004. The higher poverty levels continued throughout those years despite the fact that changes to immigration rules in 1993 meant more and more highly-skilled and well-educated people began coming to Canada. While MacKay, whose agency is often a first point of contact for immigrants arriving in Fort McMurray, estimated about 60 per cent of her clients are underunemployed. Sandra Bessey sees a rosier picture at Keyano College’s English for Skilled Immigrants program. “We have had a very high percentage (of students) that have a type of job with their training,” she said. “In other words, if they were an engineer in Egypt, then they become an engineer in Fort McMurray.” She, too, has students working at places like Wal-Mart and Tim Hortons, but because they’re getting language and communication skills training at the same time, they have an easier transition to their professions. Once they get their English up to speed and their education credentials assessed, many companies will often accept their work at Wal-Mart as Canadian experience, Bessey said. As a result, about 80 per cent of the 30 students she sees a year get a job related to their field within six months. The issue, said MacKay, is preparation. Those immigrants who do their research about job requirements and the cost of living before they come to Fort McMurray, tend to do better. any, though, have unrealistic expectations. “They’ve been led to believe that the job is just waiting for them to walk into,” said MacKay.