Immigrants upset over Credentialing Process

by Alex Dobrota

Stephen Harper's government has abandoned its promise to create a federal agency to examine and recognize the work credentials of newcomers and will instead set up an office to direct immigrants to provincial bodies that assess their skills. The reversal, outlined in Monday's federal budget, could hurt the Conservatives in immigrant communities, where the Tories hope to gain support in the next election. "I am disappointed," said Joshua Thambiraj, president of the Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, which represents more than 5,000 foreign-trained doctors in the province. "We find that there is a kind of dissonance between acknowledging the problem and finding a solution. That dissonance has manifested again." Mr. Thambiraj, a native of Malaysia, has been trying for five years to get status as a pediatric surgeon in Canada. But while he passed all the exams required in Ontario, his credentials have yet to be recognized, he said.

During the last election campaign, Prime Minister Harper pledged to speed up that process for Mr. Thambiraj and the estimated 350,000 immigrants in similar situations. The Tories said they would create an agency to assess and to recognize credentials at the federal level. They enshrined that promise in the 2006 budget and buttressed it with a $18-million investment over two years. But Monday's budget said that instead of assessing and recognizing, a new foreign-credential office will "provide immigrants with pathfinding and referral services to identify and connect with the appropriate assessment bodies." The funding for the initiative for this year also fell from $12-million planned in 2006 to $6-million. A spokesman for Immigration Minister Diane Finley denied the government was breaking any promise, even as he acknowledged that foreign-credential assessment recognition is a provincial responsibility. "Foreign-credential recognition is a complex system in this country," Mike Fraser said. "Our new office will provide newcomers with a clear path to where to get their credentials assessed." Opposition critics lambasted the proposal. "A campaign promise made is not a promise delivered," said Olivia Chow, the New Democratic Party immigration critic. "They have just decided to create a storefront to pass the buck," echoed her counterpart in the Liberal Party, Omar Alghabra.The Conference Board of Canada estimates as many as 350,000 immigrants have taken jobs below their qualifications, which is costing the economy between $3-billion and $5-billion a year.

Augustine to be Ont. Advocate for Foreign Workers

source: toronto.ctv.ca

A former federal cabinet minister has been nominated by the Ontario government as the first so-called fairness commissioner to advocate on behalf of foreign-trained professionals who want their credentials recognized. Jean Augustine's nomination for the new position comes after a career that has been focused on dealing with the issue. "(I am) really very honoured and pleased to be nominated for that position because it is an issue and an area that I have worked with all of my life in Canada," Augustine told CTV.ca Tuesday morning. Augustine came to Canada from Grenada in 1962. She had trained to be a school teacher, but Oxford and Cambridge overseas school certificates failed to convince Ontario's teachers' college that her academic credentials were valid. "I've never forgotten that little struggle to get the acknowledgement and to have someone who understands what the British overseas educational system was and how that equated to Canada," she said. While working other jobs she earned an Ontario Teacher's Certificate. Eventually Augustine received a Master of Education degree and became a school principal. In 1993, she was the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons, winning the Etobicoke-Lakeshore riding for the federal Liberals. She held the seat until 2006 when she announced her retirement from politics. In Parliament, Augustine became a member of several standing committees and became Secretary of state for multiculturalism and the status of women in 2002.

In 2003, she became minister of state for both responsibilities. As she met professional success, Augustine never forgot the feeling of having her credentials questioned. Ontario, and Toronto in particular, is the first point of entry for many newcomers to Canada. Augustine said programs for new immigrants with professional qualifications have come a long way and there is recognition that a "comprehensive plan" is needed. "We have to have some fair access so that they can get into these regulated professions." Augustine said the commissioner's role will be to "oversee regular audits to ensure better registration practices of regulated professions are transparent, objective, impartial and fair." But she is not in the job yet. While Ontario's Fair Access to Regulated Professions Act - which created the commissioner's job - became law two weeks ago, her nomination will be scrutinized by the Standing Committee on Government Agencies. Ontario's Citizenship and Immigration Minister Mike Colle said Augustine's experiences make her the "right person to take on this vitally important job." Augustine is preparing for the committee's review and is looking forward to tackling the job. "I'm pleased to see that Ontario has some steps to help people along the way, so I think that this commissioner's role is really to help that along."

StatsCan releases new immigration information

by Allison Barnes

The statistics show 31.6-million people call Canada home and that immigration is fuelling a population boom in the country. Between 2001 and 2006, Canada had the fastest growth rate of any G8 country, with most of that growth attributed to the arrival of more than one-million immigrants. And, with our aging population, Statistics Canada analyst Laurent Martel said Canada is reaching the point where population growth will be 100 per cent dependent on immigration. The numbers also reveal more people are choosing to live in car-dependent suburbs than transit-friendly cities, a trend fuelled in part by young families who work in urban centre,s but seek cheaper homes in outlying areas.

Immigration issue is not just about jobs

by Lillian Rose

C-SPAN recently aired a Judiciary hearing on the topic of immigration. Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-Fla.) asked Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and the Director of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, what were the reasons for the overflowing recent immigration? By recent we assume he meant in the past 10 or so years. Both Gutierrez and Chertoff agreed that there was a market demand for foreign labor due to the shortage of labor here in the United States. In reality, the answer is more complicated. Policy makers and citizens still think that immigrant workers from countries such as Mexico come because of low wages in their countries and high wages here. Wage differentials by themselves do not explain completely the overwhelming growth of international migration. According to a news article by Octavio Ruiz in the Minnesota Star-Tribune on April 21, 2006, “Immigrant surge is tied to the failure of NAFTA.” He goes further to state that those coming across the border are the same people who “were promised the possibilities of a decent living with NAFTA.” The North American Free Trade Agreement was signed on Jan. 1, 1994, and the agreement covered Canada, the United States and Mexico in a free trade zone. Free trade means opening markets by eliminating taxes and tariffs on products being imported and exported, creating one large economy where everyone competes. On the one hand NAFTA advocated a continental-wide free trade zone for goods, capital and information. On the other hand, it never intended to create a labor movement. But the market mechanisms that were put in place served to replace older ones and in the process replaced workers from their former livelihoods and threw them into uncertain labor markets. NAFTA was a radical experiment that was great theory, but in truth launched a race to decrease wages, destroyed hundreds of jobs here in the United States and in Mexico, and undermined control of domestic policy-making that to this day threatens health, food and environment standards.

Douglas S. Massey, professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, has published extensively on the U.S.-Mexico migration and he points out that in ratifying NAFTA, the United States was agreeing with an economic model “ that would unleash social, political and economic transformations.” Government bureaucracies shed urban workers in record numbers. So did state-owned firms and private companies; all in the name of globalization and downsizing. In the rural areas, subsistence farmers were wiped out by privatization, land consolidation and mechanization. The Mexican Revolution had called for land reform, taking large tracts of land from the rich landowners and handing them over to disadvantaged farmers to work it for themselves so they could eke out a living. With mega-international farming companies coming into their areas of production, free of tariffs and free of taxes, the little farmer could not compete. They also could not compete because farmers here in the U.S. were subsidized, so their corn was imported or “dumped” on Mexico, undercutting the value of local crops. Some researchers claim that 1.5 million rural families in Mexico were driven out of business. In the last 10 years unemployment has risen in Mexico due to NAFTA and according to the Pew Hispanic Center, “the annual number of immigrants from Mexico increased by more than 61 percent.” Following in the footsteps of NAFTA Congress signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in 2005. The idea was to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas, and the talks on the Andean Free Trade Agreement have not yet reached a conclusion. The countries involved are Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. These trade agreements are on shaky ground. The American Continent is not the European Union, the countries in these trade agreements are not in the same levels of development. If policy makers really want to address immigration they should think twice before giving in to big business lobbies that have driven these agreements. More than trade agreements they are investment agreements allowing large corporations, under the guise of foreign investment, to go into a country free of restrictions and with powerful mechanisms undermine local government laws on the environment, privatize forests, deplete marine resources, under value local agricultural crops and race wages to the bottom, while reaping large corporate profits. Rather than destroying people's livelihoods here in the United States and in Mexico, Canada, the countries of Central America and the Dominican Republic, policymakers should engage not in building fences at the border but in implementing trade policies that raise the standard of living for all nations. Hopefully the days of unfettered free trade agreements are coming to a close. Otherwise, the yellow brick road to the north will continue to beckon.

Toronto must do more to keep People

by Susan O'neill

Although Toronto remains Canada's largest urban centre, the city's population growth is flagging and that doesn't bode well for the local business community, Glen Stone of the Toronto Board of Trade said Wednesday in response to the latest census data. Stone, the board's public affairs manager, said the city and province need to do more to attract residents and retain businesses in Toronto, which has lost 100,000 jobs to communities in the 905 region over the past 15 years. According to Statistics Canada, the suburbs are booming, while Toronto's population grew by only 0.9 per cent since 2001. "The idea of the population in general moving to the 905 is not surprising," said Stone. who pointed out the business community is also moving to the 905. Stone reported that 600,000 to 800,000 jobs have been created in the 905 since the early 1990s.

"The No. 1 reason people give (for relocating to the suburbs) is the cost of doing business in the city," Stone said. "It's a lot cheaper to do business in the outer ring than it is in the core," he said, adding that Toronto is "in danger of turning into a jobs doughnut." So what should the city be doing to attract and retain residents and businesses? Stone said Toronto is already doing some of the right things. The mayor has set up an economic advisory committee that is working to adjust the business tax ratio, he said, noting the city has pledged to bring it down to the provincial average over the next 12 years. But those rates will continue to increase during that time frame, Stone said, explaining the city needs to reduce its own tax rates to a competitive level.

Toronto also has a role to play in convincing the province, which charges Toronto businesses 23 per cent more per square foot in taxes, to address the tax differential between the city and the outlying regions. "There's no reason those business taxes should be higher in Toronto, but they are," Stone said. When you add it up, it's tempting for business owners to relocate elsewhere, he said. "You can literally look across the road and see your competitor paying 40 per cent lower taxes," he said. Stone also said more needs to be done to address the needs of immigrants, the driving force behind Canada's population increase. Newcomers bring new investments, new ideas and new businesses, Stone said, noting that credential recognition is key so foreign trained professionals have access to suitable jobs. "We are so dependant on new Canadians, for not just our population growth, but our economic growth," he said, adding that newcomers must be given the opportunity to succeed.

Immigration fuels two-thirds of Canada's recent growth

Canada's fast-growing population saw two-thirds of its increase over the past five years come from immigration — a force that in coming decades will make up almost all of the country's growth, according to census figures released Tuesday. The 2006 data released by Statistics Canada shows overall population growth of 5.4 percent, reflecting the highest rate among the Group of Eight industrialized nations. Canada now has 31.6 million people. Among the G8 countries, only the United States, at 5.0 percent, approaches Canada's growth. France and Italy grew 3.1 percent and Britain, 1.9 percent; but growth for Japan and Germany was near zero and Russia shrank 2.4 percent over the same five-year period. With an almost flat birth rate, the country is reaching a unique situation, said Laurent Martel, a Statistics Canada analyst. "We're heading towards a point where immigration will be the only source of growth in Canada," Martel said. About 1.2 million new immigrants were behind Canada's growth, far outpacing 400,000 native-born citizens.

Canada's net migration, per capita, is among the world's highest. The country had a net migration of 6.5 migrants per 1,000 population between 2000-2004, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Unlike the United States, where the immigration issue has sparked major policy debates and legal challenges as states and municipalities work unilaterally to deal with an influx of illegal immigrants, there is little public debate in Canada on the dramatic shift. "We have not strategically thought through how we should manage our largest single source of population for net growth," Michael Bloom, a vice president with the Conference Board of Canada, told The Canadian Press. Canada's shift toward immigration being its only source of growth is still a couple of decades away. That point will not be reached until after 2030, when the peak of the baby boomers born in the 1950s and early 1960s reach the end of their lives. "You're going to see an increase in the number of deaths in Canada, and the number of deaths will exceed the number of births — so natural increase will become negative," said Martel. "The only factor of growth will then be immigration."

Canada's national birthrate is about 1.5 children per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. The country's growth over the past five years was up from 4 percent in the previous five-year census period, which had been the slowest half-decade in modern Canadian history. Immigrants are largely settling in Canada's largest cities, which attract more than 80 percent of newcomers. The census figures show Toronto remains Canada's biggest metropolitan area, with 5.1 million people. Montreal has 3.6 million, and Vancouver has 2.1 million. About 35 percent of Canada's population lives in the three metropolitan regions. The OECD has found that Canada, relative to its geographic expanse, has the most geographically concentrated population in the world. The overall census response rate was about 97 percent, which is normal, said census director general Anil Arora. Canada's estimated current population is actually around 33 million, but the census figure for May 16, 2006, shows 31,612,897 Canadians because the census count reflects only enumerated households.