Profession-no!

Another Canadian Prime Minister made another “pledge” to help immigrants to have their foreign professional credentials recognized in Canada. The problem of this issue is not with the federal or provincial government. It lies with the professional organizations that set the standard and have the authority to recognize credentials. In the heart of this issue, as has been cited often, is a conflict of interest. The professional organizations are made up of working professionals in the field. It is against their interests to have more competition for themselves. Take the College of Physicians for example. If all the medical doctors who are driving taxis right now become doctors again, with what are the practising physicians going to use to squeeze money out of the government? Particularly if these “new” doctors are willing to go to rural area to practise, there will be no complaining patients on TV saying they cannot find a doctor within a hundred miles. The only real way to speed up the process and make it fair is to have a government agency handling the certifications. This clearly is not going to happen and the government will just continue to lie to Canadians and potential Canadians. If the government decides that there are specific needs in professional field they should from now on recruit students in those fields rather than finished professionals. That way by the time they finish school they would be eligible for citizenship and thus do not have to do it all over again.