Why Canada needs more immigrants now
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Why Canada Needs
More Immigrants—Now
For many reasons immigration policies are a hot topic these days, but the fact remains that some of our future success will have to be imported
Studies in Canada have shown that job creation increases and the economy improves as the number of immigrants swells. Immigrants are, as a group, better educated than Canadians and since 1967, when the government introduced its point system, the selection process favours those with marketable skills.
Is there a market here for skilled labour? Actually, Canada is seeing signs of worker shortages in several professions – including engineers, doctors and nurses, to name a few. Added to this is the fact that the population in some provinces is shrinking, and employers are having difficulty filling their rosters with skilled help. Paul Darby, director of the Conference Board of Canada, estimates a shortfall of 3 million skilled workers by the year 2020.
Boosting immigration could be a very effective way of helping to ease the shortage, but there are other impediments.
Immigrants often have difficulty working in their fields after they arrive. On average, it takes 10 years for immigrants to get hired in jobs for which they have skills and, even then, they are not necessarily working at the skill level to which they have been trained. In March, Jeffrey Reitz of University of Toronto’s Centre for Industrial Relations, released a study showing that immigrants whose skills are underused cost the Canadian economy $2.4 billion yearly. He also estimated that they are underpaid to the tune of $12.6 billion every year. No type of job is exempt. "We used comparisons across the labour force," says Reitz.
Some organizations are answering the growing demand by helping immigrants become licensed to work in Canada after they arrive. The Ontario Ministry of Education, for example, is spending $12 million over three years to help get more foreign-trained medical professionals – nurses, doctors and pharmacists – into their professions. The money is given to local professionals associations to recruit and retain personnel. Another $3.5 million is being spent by the province to train foreign professionals to ensure they meet Canadian standards.
Yet, at the same time, experts are worried that the flow of immigrants is about to dry up, thanks to legislation coming into effect in June that changes the rules for people hoping to enter the county. Reitz says the proposed guidelines constitute a much more stringent selection criteria. He theorizes that the government hopes to eliminate a backlog of applicants, which numbers about 660,000 people. The Association of Immigration Counsel of Canada has run dozens of scenarios to determine how many of the 660,000 would be eligible under the new guidelines. "We anticipate that only five to eight percent will be allowed in," he says. The problem, adds Reitz, is when the backlog is gone but the need for skilled workers remains.
Growing demand for skilled labour is not limited to Canada. In India and China, for instance, the high-tech industry is developing. Workers from those countries who might have had to emigrate to ply their job skills in the past, now have a better chance of finding work at home. Even after skilled workers arrive, it can be a challenge to keep them here: the United States is also eager to attract the best and the brightest.
According to a survey by Canada’s Federation of Independent Business, one out of 20 jobs remains unfilled because of an inability to find suitably skilled labour. This represents about 250,000 to 300,000 vacant jobs in small- and medium-sized businesses alone. The lack is not just in professions that require higher education. The worst off are employers looking for skilled construction workers, who reported 7.7 percent of jobs went unfilled. They are followed closely by the business services and agriculture sectors. Hospitals and the personal service sector ranked tenth at 3.8 percent.
The need is greatest in Manitoba, Ontario and Alberta.
BY ALISON RAMSEY
Filipino nurses declare important
victory!
Through the hard and committed struggle of the Filipino Nurses Support Group (FNSG), Registered Nurses trapped under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) can now apply to the BC Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) without jeopardizing their immigration status.
"This is a very exciting step forward in our struggle for our rights and welfare here in Canada!" exclaims Joyce Lovitos, a Filipino nurse who came to Canada under the LCP. "Our over 300 members really came together to mobilize, lobby, and assert our right to enter the BC PNP. As a program designed to bring more nurses and needed professionals into British Columbia, it was blatant racism that Filipino nurses already here in BC were being denied the right to enter the program."
FNSG members were originally told by provincial government officials that Registered Nurses doing 24-hour domestic and home support work under the LCP were not allowed to apply to the PNP. "I was told that the government did not want to put one employer before another, so I wasn't allowed to apply to the PNP," explains Cielo Ebio an RN who was trapped in the LCP. "But who do they need most after all, nannies or nurses?"
FNSG met with Health Services Minister Sindi Hawkins and George Abbott, Minister of Community, Aboriginal, and Women's Services, to discuss their discriminatory policy regarding entrance into the PNP. "It was only after this meeting and numerous letters that the provincial government finally agreed to stop discriminating against qualified Filipino nurses," explains Rachel Rosen, an advocate with the FNSG.
This was the point the next barrier surfaced: "Citizenship and Immigration Canada told me that if I leave the LCP to enter the PNP, I would imperil my chances of being granted landed immigrant status," explains Ebio.
Ebio, like thousands of other Filipinos, was forced to leave the Philippines because of dire poverty and massive unemployment caused by the chronic political and economic crisis in the Philippines. Over 2,000 Filipinos leave the Philippines every single day.
"Forced out of the Philippines for their very survival, Filipino nurses have no option for entering Canada except the LCP. Nurses are granted zero occupational points when applying as independent immigrants," states Rosen. "By threatening their immigration status, Filipino nurses were literally coerced to stay in segregated and exploitative working conditions in the LCP."
FNSG continued to lobby CIC and in January 2002 received word from CIC that Filipino and other foreign-trained nurses' right to apply to the PNP without jeopardizing their application for permanent residency was upheld. At least two members of FNSG are now pursuing the PNP program, and others will follow.
"While this victory will make a major difference in the lives of Filipino nurses, we really need to question the reluctance of both levels of government to address the barriers to Filipino and other foreign-trained nurses practicing their profession here in Canada," explains Leah Diana, an RN and a member of FNSG. "With hundreds, even thousands, of foreign-trained nurses in Canada, the government and other institutions are still not facilitating their entry into the nursing workforce. There is an urgent need to look at their policies, which are being used to exploit Filipino and other foreign trained nurses as highly skilled, but cheap labour."
"Being granted our right to enter the PNP is evidence of the collective strength of our FNSG," exclaims Lovitos. "We will build on this victory to continue to join together in the struggle against our exploitation as cheap labour, against systemic racism, and for our right to practice as nurses."
Kowser
Omer-Hashi (Education)
Kowser Omer-Hashi, came to Canada in 1986 from Somalia. With a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from an American university, she was hired as a health educator at the Birth Control and Venereal Disease Information Centre (BC & VD) in Toronto in 1988. From this work Kowser heard stories about the intimidation and discomfort many women, especially Somali women, who have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) feel when dealing with the Canadian health system.
Through her efforts, Kowser created greater access to information on FGM, birth control, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS and pregnancy for students and the immigrant and refugee community. She has helped educate the general public by participating in television programs, talk shows and documentaries on a number of topics including the plight of foreign-trained nurses and the issues around FGM. She has also written extensively on FGM for medical journals. Currently Kowser is a board member at Women Working with Immigrant Women, the Toronto Birth Centre, the Ontario FGM Prevention Task Force and is co-chair of the Task Force Health Committee. She participates in advisory committees with the Intergenerational Conflict Mediation Project for Somalis, the Family Services Association Somali Project and the Women’s Health Bureau and is a guest editorial board member with the Canadian Women’s Studies Journal. Kowser has been a pioneer in creating greater public awareness about health care issues and women’s reproductive rights internationally.
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