This is actually a terrible deal in disguise. According to recent reports (which I don't have on hand at the moment), over 70% of immigrants to Canada are under employed or under utilized. While the federal government controls how many immigrants, the provinces control certification and expert recognition. This means that foreign-trained doctors (as an example) can easily get a federal visa to enter the country, but the province will refuse to recognize their medical training, forcing these skilled immigrants to work low-skill jobs instead. It is not rare to find foreign-trained engineers working as taxi-drivers or for PhD-holders to be slinging coffee.
Unfortunately, I don't think programs like these will have any beneficial impact until Canadian society can fix its abysmally low productivity (and productivity growth) as well as the severe under-utilization of skilled immigrant labor. All this will accomplish is exacerbate the housing crisis in metropolitan areas and further expose Canada's extremely poor economic performance - expected to be the absolute lowest in the OECD in upcoming years.
> This means that foreign-trained doctors (as an example) can easily get a federal visa to enter the country, but the province will refuse to recognize their medical training, forcing these skilled immigrants to work low-skill jobs instead. It is not rare to find foreign-trained engineers working as taxi-drivers or for PhD-holders to be slinging coffee.
That's not the whole picture... Friend of mine is a doctor here in the Bay Area, originally trained in Ontario. There are agreements with some countries to transfer licenses (how he was able to practice here in America). Quebec, for instance, has agreements with France and Switzerland. When someone comes in with medical credentials from a jurisdiction where there's no special agreements, they simply have the candidate take the same exams as the medical students (which, should they be as qualified as they claim, shouldn't be hard). He told me the pass rate was abysmal for foreign trained candidates.
Apparently, it's the same for engineers (and is one of the reasons a lot of them end up trying to break into software since it's unregulated).
I don't disagree, but now imagine Quebec having deals with (for example) France and Switzerland and Ontario only having agreements with Italy and Spain (but only for medical licenses), while Alberta may evaluate accreditation on a case-by-case basis. This is somewhat incredible to behold, as if 10 different countries had their own licensing treaties and then we bolted on a federal immigration system on top of that.
Unfortunately, I don't think programs like these will have any beneficial impact until Canadian society can fix its abysmally low productivity (and productivity growth) as well as the severe under-utilization of skilled immigrant labor. All this will accomplish is exacerbate the housing crisis in metropolitan areas and further expose Canada's extremely poor economic performance - expected to be the absolute lowest in the OECD in upcoming years.