Applications for Permanent Residence made inside Canada

Immigrant MDs get long-awaited provincial help: Accreditation program to follow model for engineers, others

By Pauline Tam
The Ottawa Citizen, October 27, 2004

The Ontario government will spend $2 million over the next two years to help internationally trained engineers practise in the province, and a similar program is on the way for doctors.

Colleges and Universities Minister Mary Anne Chambers said yesterday Ontario would introduce a long-awaited program giving foreign-trained doctors quicker access to the accreditation they need to practise.

The effort is intended to ease a physician shortage that has been exacerbated by doctors leaving for better working conditions and pay in B.C. and Alberta. In Ottawa, the shortage has left many patients without family physicians for years.

In a brief interview, Ms. Chambers would only say the doctor-accreditation program would be announced 'shortly,' and her spokesman would not provide any details.

The project for foreign-trained engineers is the latest of more than 20 fast-track accreditation programs created for various professions. It is being developed by Professional Engineers Ontario, the regulatory body for the province's 65,000 engineers.

By next year, the association plans to roll out a college course to allow engineers to become licensed in the province. In the long run, the course could replace the existing requirement that foreign-trained engineers have 12 months of Canadian work experience before qualifying for a permanent licence. At the moment, that requirement poses a major barrier for immigrant engineers.

So far, only George Brown College in Toronto has expressed an interest in having the accreditation course in its curriculum, but the engineering regulator is working to bring the course to universities and colleges across the province and to social agencies that help foreign-trained workers get their skills recognized.

Nancy Worsfold, executive director of the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization, said the project was a first step toward recognizing the skills of foreign-trained engineers. 'They've got a lot of training, but they just need that little additional piece. They don't need a whole new degree,' she said.

The project will also provide foreign-trained engineers with online mentoring and coaching. By next summer, an interactive website is expected to give potential immigrants information about the requirements to become licensed, plus details about the job market.

Ms. Chambers said such information was important given that nearly eight out of 10 professional-class immigrants identify themselves as engineers. The resulting talent glut has left many foreign-trained engineers underemployed. The goal of the website is to give would-be immigrants a reality check before they decide to settle in Ontario.

'The number of engineers coming into Ontario is very high,' Ms. Chambers said. 'They may find that the challenges are, in fact, significant in terms of demand for their skills here.'

In the past three years, the provincial government has introduced more than 20 'bridging programs' designed to quickly grant accreditation to foreign-trained workers in professions with skills shortages.

In Ottawa, fast-track programs have been established to help teachers and nurses become licensed, while another retrains international science and engineering graduates to work in biotechnology.