Employing skilled immigrants essential to Canada’s economic recovery post-COVID-19
Every year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many of them highly skilled, choose to make Canada their home. However, far too often skilled newcomers struggle to find work in their professions. They face significant financial and regulatory barriers that impact their ability to fully integrate into the Canadian labour market and the sectors where their skills, training and experience are desperately needed.
This policy short sightedness affects real people and their families. And it puts a damper on the Canadian economy. Thankfully new Ontario legislation may help speed up licencing for skilled newcomers — but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
We recently met Moez, a trained pharmacist who immigrated from India to Canada in 2015; despite working two jobs, packaging orders at restaurants in Calgary, he was not able to afford the high cost of relicensing to practice pharmacy in Canada. His skills were not being put to use.
Sadly, this story is very common among immigrants to Canada. We’ve all heard or personally met internationally-trained doctors, nurses or engineers who make a living driving taxis because they simply cannot get the certifications they need to work here.
At the same time, Canada, is facing severe generational labour shortages in critical sectors such as healthcare. We need doctors, nurses, pharmacists and many other skilled professionals across the country. The federal government has estimated a shortage of 160,000 registered nurses by 2026, and the pandemic has only exacerbated this already acute need.
According to Statistics Canada, one out of five vacancies in the first quarter of this year was in the healthcare and social assistance sector. Many other sectors of our economy are facing similar growing labour shortages. We are at a critical juncture and our ability to employ skilled immigrants to fill these gaps is essential to Canada’s economic recovery post-COVID-19.
The good news is that recent legislation in Ontario amending The Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act will significantly reduce licensing barriers for skilled newcomers. This first of its kind legislation in the country will help eliminate Canadian work experience requirements for certain professional registrations and licensing and reduce the duplication of official language proficiency testing, thus making newcomers employable faster in Canada.
While this legislation is a positive step forward, we also need to continue addressing the financial barriers many newcomers face in the licensing and reaccreditation process. Relicensing costs are often too high, and the process can take years to complete.
Let’s return to Moez. Fortunately, his story has a happy ending. He was referred to our national charity, Windmill Microlending, where he was able to obtain both the advice and the financial support to get the certification he needed to become a pharmacist in Canada.
Moez is now employed by Public Health Alberta and works specifically in COVID-19 case investigations.
Organizations like Windmill can help newcomers by providing affordable loans, coaching, mentoring and help immigrants get the credentials they need to jumpstart their careers in Canada. Over 50 per cent of Windmill’s clients are employed in the healthcare sector — a windfall for Canada.
And a windfall for newcomers. Over the past 16 years, Windmill has provided well over 6,000 loans to immigrants, newcomers and refugees across the country and facilitated their labour market integration, helping them more than triple their original incomes on average, when they gain full-time employment.
Talent is in short supply globally and countries that prioritize the attraction, development and labour market integration of internationally trained talent will be best positioned to compete. Canada already has a competitive advantage by welcoming hundreds of thousands of skilled immigrants every year.
It is time that we all do more and support innovative solutions to ensure skilled immigrants and refugees can put their immense talents to use where they are critically needed. The new legislation tabled by the Government of Ontario is certainly a good start in the right direction — and an example that should be emulated across Canada.
Photo courtesy of iStock
