Immigration is good — if dealt with correctly

Immigrants we have need access to adequate jobs, John E. Trent writes.

When the government of Canada announced this month that it is increasing the number of Canadian immigrants by 10,000 a year to reach 340,000 annually by 2020, it was once again stressing quantity over quality.

Don’t get me wrong. My wife is noted for helping to integrate countless refugees and immigrants over the past 40 years. So we are not against Canada receiving more immigration. What worries us is the way we treat them. There are two enormous problems: We confirm to prospective immigrants that there are great opportunities waiting for them in Canada, then we stop them from getting adequate jobs.

We knew one doctor, who had specialized training in the United States and practised in Colombia for 15 years, who was forced to go back to the beginning of his studies in Ontario. Another doctor from Australia, who specialized in England, was never allowed to specialize in British Columbia. My neighbour just bought a car from a microbiologist from Burundi who trained at Laval University, a refrigerator from a researcher who did his studies in Europe, and a table from an engineer from Turkey.

I know. You are going to tell me these are anecdotes. But hasn’t everyone met a taxi driver who has a PhD from a foreign country? And what about the figures they were reporting a few years ago that showed there were 1,000 foreign-trained doctors unable to practise in Quebec and another 1,000 in Alberta when both provinces needed about 1,000 doctors each? Do we not still read every day of a terrible lack of doctors in Ontario and Quebec?

So my Canadian doctor friend asked me how I would like to be treated by a presumed doctor from Africa or India. My answer was, if I am travelling in Africa or India and I fall sick, am I going to refuse treatment from a local doctor?

And would it not be a service to our whole health system if we had doctors with foreign languages to serve all the other immigrants?

So far, I have talked about doctors. But we have also met electricians and painters from France who had to return home because they could not break into construction in Quebec. And we have met professionally trained veterinarians who took years to get a licence, then more years to be accepted as full-time vets. Don’t even think about law.

In all these cases, it is a question of professional associations or their university colleagues that are blocking foreigners from getting the jobs for which they have been trained. A few years ago, a Quebec minister ordered the doctors’ association to find positions, only to have universities refuse to give the additional training.

It is our governments that give universities and professional associations the right to regulate themselves — but not to be exclusive. It is quite possible for governments to oblige them to look after new arrivals. We are cutting off our nose to spite our face by not making immediate testing and special remedial courses available for new Canadians.

We must look after the immigrants we have and not think about bringing in more until we have a solid plan to integrate them into the Canadian labour force.