Pluri Vox Media Corp. Helping Cultures Communicate 2 - 283 Stewart Street Ottawa, K1N 6K3 www.plurivox.ca Tel. (613) 261-1596 Fax: (613) 241 4226 IMMIGRATION AND FOREIGN CREDENTIALS: A LAND OF OPPORTUNITY FOR THE BRILLIANT Prepared for Canadian Heritage Multiculturalism Program by Pluri Vox Media Corp. March 2004 Pluri Vox Media Corp. www.plurivox.ca TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................3 Introduction, Sources, Method ................................................3 Legal perspective: which level of government is responsible? ........................3 Existing framework: provincial and municipal programs ...........................5 Bureaucratic Barriers .......................................................5 The federal landscape ........................................................5 Canadian work experience needed ...............................................6 Language obstacles ..........................................................8 Racism and Discrimination Barriers ...........................................9 Public, private and institutional behaviors ..........................................9 Costs: financial, skill loss and lawsuits. ..........................................10 Useful Programs ..........................................................15 Provincial initiatives .........................................................15 Self-help .................................................................17 Advocates’ initiatives ........................................................19 Conclusion & Recommendations: What Remains To Be Done ......................21 March 2004 Page 2 Pluri Vox Media Corp. www.plurivox.ca EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In response to a Canadian Heritage Department request for an analysis of the foreign credentials issue as perceived in non-official language media, Pluri Vox Media Corp. has produced the following report, the second in four years. Culling close to 200 news summaries, translated from twenty-three communities in Canada, sources from Montreal to Vancouver, Pluri Vox identified four distinct trends in the newspapers surveyed since 2000, as follows. First, bureaucratic barriers, in particular, work-experience and language barriers were the two most significant obstructions to newcomers’ ability to gain employment or work relevant to their prior experience and skills. Second, systemic racism and discriminatory obstacles, with institutional, private and public sector stakeholders played a role, an issue which is addressed in more detail in a related Pluri Vox report also produced in Spring of 2004. Third, Pluri Vox examined a variety of costs: financial, legal and social, with concrete, evaluated dollar amounts and an emphasis on which segments of society paid the dearest price. Finally, at least three sub-trends of useful initiatives were also identified: at the provincial level, in self–help programs, and with advocates from all levels of government and the private sector. Because of the legal framework and the historical contradictions that form the two main roots of immigrants’ foreign credential recognition problems, this analysis also makes a few recommendations, the chief one being that the federal government take the initiative to set up a foreign credentials board that would serve to validate – at the national level - newcomers’ experience, education and skills. Introduction, Sources, Method The Canadian Heritage Department’s Multiculturalism program in the Winter of 2003- 2004 asked Pluri Vox Media Corp. to supply an analysis of ethnic media on the issue of foreign credentials. This report is the response to that request, and is the second such report since 2002. “Foreign credentials” can be broadly defined as those degrees, diplomas, memberships --in professional or technical guilds -- skills, and abilities that newcomers (immigrants and refugees) hold when they arrive in Canada. The database from which this report is drawn dates back to December 2000 and covers 23 communities in 18 languages across Canada and over 150 newspapers of the daily, weekly and monthly categories. Hundreds of news items, ranging from 50 to 300 words were culled, translated into one of the two official languages, and analyzed yielding four trends, as follows: (a) bureaucratic barriers, of which work experience gaps, and language obstacles were the two major sub-trends; (b) racism or discriminatory barriers, where both the private and the public sectors contributed; (c) costs, where both financial and non-monetary played a role; and (d) useful programs, where three sub-trends were identified as (i) provincial programs, (ii) self help and (iii) advocates. Each of the four trends and their attributes are examined in more detail below. However, in order to put this new information in perspective, it is useful to provide a very brief legal and existing framework overview. Legal perspective: which level of government is responsible? Legally, the Constitution of Canada clearly sets out in section 92 that licensing is a provincial March 2004 Page 3 Pluri Vox Media Corp. www.plurivox.ca jurisdiction.1 Therefore, the regulation of the professions and trades should normally be the subject of provincial debate and initiatives. The problem arises when newcomers – defined broadly here as immigrants and refugees – enter the concurrent jurisdiction of federal and provincial matters, because immigration is a mixed, federal and provincial field of competence.2 That is, practically speaking, the federal government sets the levels at which, globally newcomers will arrive in Canada, however the provinces are left to their own devices as to how to integrate and settle the newcomers in each of the ten provincial jurisdictions. In addition, in case of conflict between provincial and federal law, Canadian law dictates that federal law takes precedence. This is exactly what occurred in the case of Mr. Jaswant Singh Mangat, and his immigration consultancy company Westcoast Immigration Consultants Ltd.3 In short, the law society of British Columbia ruled, and a lower court agreed, that Mr. Mangat had no right to practice law, as he was not accredited with the province’s law regulatory body. Mr. Mangat argued that the Immigration Act permitted him to represent clients in certain cases before the Immigration & Refugee Board. The dispute reached the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in 2001, that although there was a conflict between BC law and immigration law (the latter permitting Mr. Mangat to represent some clients in certain circumstances), the federal immigration trumped the provincial law. This case illustrates well how jurisdiction quandaries can be resolved. Thus, several provinces, Quebec and Manitoba among them, have, over the years arranged with Ottawa for special immigration programs, allowing them to have more input in the profile of the newcomers they welcome into their territory. Ontario in the past two years has been especially active in trying to obtain the same sort of independence. However, the picture is further complicated by transfer payments, that is, the funding that the federal government allocates to the provinces. In a recent report, it was noted that Quebec receives three times as much funding for the settlement of immigrants than does Ontario, although the latter receives far more newcomers. While the sources of this report are exclusively from non-mainstream newspapers, also known as the “ethnic press,” it may help to put the report in broader perspective by noting the foreign credentials concerns voiced by so many stakeholders are also echoed in mainstream press. For instance, the Ontario Bar Association’s Immigration Section Chair David L. Garson explained that he has clients who, “in good faith make application under the skilled worker category, [hoping] they can come to Canada to contribute to building our economy. When they find out that the processing could take as 1 Specifically, the Constitution Act 1867 states: “In each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say, (...) Shop, Saloon, Tavern, Auctioneer, and other Licences in order to the raising of a Revenue for Provincial, Local, or Municipal Purposes.” (…) 2 Section 95, Constitution Act 1867, which states in part: “…any Law of the Legislature of a Province relative to … Immigration shall have effect in and for the Province as long and as far only as it is not repugnant to any Act of the Parliament of Canada.” 3 The case is: Law Society of British Columbia v. Mangat [2001] 3 Supreme Court Reports, p. 113 March 2004 Page 4 Pluri Vox Media Corp. www.plurivox.ca much as five or six years, they are really frustrated.”4 Existing framework: provincial and municipal programs Like the report on recognition of foreign credentials that Pluri Vox produced in 2002, the Canadian Information Centre for International Credentials5 is not once mentioned in the summaries surveyed here. Nor is the problem of foreign credentials new or particular to Canada. As was pointed out in the 2002 Pluri Vox analysis of this topic, academic research into the roots of the problem can be traced back to 1988,6 and were continued to 2002.7 As far as other nations facing these issues, the United States has a special tribunal in place to rule on cases where foreign credentials arise.8 Several programs based in Toronto are geared towards immigrant employment. The Maytree Foundation, in particular,