When Iraqi-trained engineer Hiam Al Sabery came to Canada in 2005, in eight months he sent resumes to over 250 companies and didn’t land a single interview. As a result, the savings he brought with him which he hoped to use to buy a house was quickly eroded by his family’s everyday expenses.

Al Sabery has an engineering degree from the University of Baghdad and wanted to become licensed in Ontario. However, to meet the requirements he had to work for a full year in Canada under the supervision of a licensed engineer.

Al Sabery was faced with the classic immigrant dilemma. He needed Canadian experience to upgrade his qualifications, but no one would hire him without Canadian experience.

“We come with very rich experience,” says Al Sabery, who is president of the Canadian Network of Iraqi Engineers and Architects.

“Simply requiring Canadian experience is an excuse for not taking the time to evaluate international credentials and expertise.”

Eventually, a lower level job as a construction coordinator helped him secure a position at the Edmonton engineering and architecture firm Stantec and complete the requirements for his P.Eng. He is now a manager in the electrical instrumentation engineering Department at SNC-Lavalin in Saskatoon.

However, a policy recently released by the Ontario Human Rights Commission could make gaining professional accreditation and finding a job easier for foreign-trained Canadian immigrants. It tries to remove the Canadian experience barrier.

The policy shifts the onus to employers and regulatory bodies to show that a requirement for prior work experience in Canada is a bona fide requirement that cannot be satisfied by a more flexible and individualized approach to assessing an applicant’s qualifications and skills.

Filipino family doctor Ben Pangilinan faced a similar problem when he emigrated to Canada in the 1990s. Foreign-trained physicians had to complete a one-year residency, but there were only 75 spots each year for foreign doctors across the country.

Pangilinan did not get a coveted residency the first year he applied, so he worked as an administrator for an alternative medicine clinic and started taking courses in the Bachelor of Health Administration program at Ryerson.

However, the next year he was selected for the foreign residency program, and he now has a thriving practice in Thornhill, north of Toronto. But other doctors from the Philippines have not been as fortunate.

Two hundred residencies a year are currently available for foreign doctors. However, Pangilinan says only about 10 per cent of the 250 people on the roster of his support group Philippine International Doctors United will ever be able to work as physicians.

“Initially the goal of our group was to help everyone get licensed. But we recognized how difficult it was, so now we focus more on how these people can get work in the medical field,” he says.

The struggles new immigrants encounter getting re-established don’t only cause hardship for their families. They have a dramatic impact on productivity in Canada. An August 2012 CIBC study estimates that current employment and wage gaps between new immigrants and native-born Canadians costs the economy more than $20 billion in foregone earnings.

Since 2007 Ontario’s Office of the Fairness Commissioner has challenged both regulators and governments to address barriers to professional licensing, but Fairness Commissioner Jean Augustine says it’s still a work in progress,

That’s why Augustine welcomes the new policy.

“When we look at some jurisdictions like Australia, other alternatives are accepted such as provisional licenses for a specific period of time or allowing professionals to work only within specific parameters before they are licensed,” she says. She also supports bridging programs designed to give foreign professionals the cultural and industry-specific information they need to succeed.

University of Toronto associate professor Izumi Sakamoto is the principal investigator for the Beyond Canadian Experience research project. She says requiring Canadian experience is simply too vague. “New immigrants don’t know what they should be doing. Is it enough to work at Tim Horton’s for six weeks? Do you have to work in your field? Does volunteering count?”

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In addition, her research reveals that a requirement for Canadian experience is often a polite way to exclude people who are different. Furthermore, Sakamoto says that the federal and provincial governments are sending out mixed messages.

“In 2008 the federal government introduced an immigration policy that ‘fast tracks’ applications for Canadian residency with Canadian experience, even though experts told them that this was not necessarily a valid criteria.”

It remains to be seen whether either employers or regulators will modify their practices and procedures in response to the new OHRC policy on removing the Canadian experience requirement

However, Augustine thinks the conversation is already changing around what Canadian experience means for professionals. “There is licensing to protect the public and then there is fair licensing where everyone gets complete information about what they must do to qualify and a fair shot at getting into his or her profession.”

Al Sabery is optimistic that the new policy will make a significant difference for Iraqi and other foreign professionals. “Employers will start to understand the value internationally trained applicants can bring to their company once they are no longer automatically excluded just because they were educated or worked elsewhere.”

Career resources for immigrants

Career Edge: Career Edge Organization, a national not-for-profit service provider connects multi-sector businesses with diverse, qualified talent through innovative paid internship programs.

Work in your profession:

This Ontario government website provides links to information about regulated and non-regulated professions including details about bridging programs.

Mennonite New Life Centre

The Bridge Training Program for Internationally Trained Psychologists and Allied Mental Health Professionals is a continuing education program for internationally trained mental health professionals developed by the Mennonite New Life Centre.

Office of the Fairness Commissioner:

A table shows whether a profession has work experience requirements, and describes those requirements.

PINs Professional Immigrant Networks

Launched in 2009, the Professional Immigrant Networks initiative is a program of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council that works with professional immigrant networks organized by profession or ethnicity or both to help connect their members to meaningful employment.