The 30/60/90 day plan

By Gautam Nath
December 1, 2011   

Landed in Canada, a new land of opportunity, but where do you go first? Myself, I needed to put down a plan, a guideline to move forward, a template to follow.

Having a corporate management background, I put on my thinking cap. My plan would have to be as strategic as when I was leading a team that re-engineered a 4,000 strong organization some years ago. Simply put, it was going to be my 30/60/90 day plan for Canada.

The first 30
The first 30 days, I decided, were going to be spent primarily putting all my ducks in a row: opening a bank account, applying for a credit card, and getting my SIN number, driving licence, cell phone, internet, calling cards and such formalities. And, I realized, I needed to understand the terrain that I was operating in — the lay of the land.
A transit pass and a flask of hot coffee and I was equipped for the days to come. Every morning, I would get ready and leave the house at 8:30 a.m. and catch the TTC — no book to read, no iPod to listen to and no cell phone to talk on; I was out with a mission. The mission? To map out the lay of the land of Toronto, with a city map as my only companion. I spent three to four hours those initial days going up one end of the subway to the other, getting familiar with the route. Soon my confidence grew and I ventured out and connected on a bus route crisscrossing the city, getting familiar with the place I now had to call home. My eyes and ears were open, taking in the ambience, watching how life went on by and listening to a multitude of languages and variety of English accents. Occasionally, I would get an opportunity to speak to a fellow passenger and that would add to my knowledge of the terrain around me.

Yes, this was the first 30, as any general worth his salt would do — understanding the terrain before deploying your troops.

The next 30
Now that I was a little familiar with the landscape, the next 30 days would begin my personal networking campaign. I had identified several networking groups during my initial month and now it was time to reach out. My initial homework was done online and connectivity was one of my initial investments as it allowed me 24 hours access to the internet. Then I ventured out and physically attended the networking meetings assessing several things — who were the members, what was their background, what were they looking for, how could I leverage my skills, how often did they meet, did I get a warm vibe and was it expensive?
The answers helped me select a few that were closer to my field and my area of expertise. And then I began to get involved. Someone once told me, “If you are taking the trouble to belong to a group, give it all you have.” So, I did not sit in the back row nor waited for things to happen. I put up my hand, got involved and ensured that I made a mark there. Giving back is also an integral part of networking and so I volunteered my time and my aptitude to the groups I was involved in. I made friends, got involved with their events and began to slowly shape up a brand personality for myself. Gautam Nath soon was moving away from being a mere statistic and an unknown face to a human being with a face and a name and a slowly growing network of Canadians who were beginning to see what I could offer.

At the end of my 60 days, I was offered a marketing advisory role in two organizations, albeit on a voluntary basis. But this helped me build my Canadian experience.

The final 30
The next 30 days of my 90-day target was all about meeting more and more people. My confidence grew as I volunteered my time and my understanding with the ways of life here became more familiar. I travelled outside the city when I could and slowly was able to see differences between Toronto and some other smaller towns like Kitchener, Waterloo, Kingston, Hamilton and Georgetown. I even got to Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver.
And, surely, by the end of my 90 days, I had met many people — not all but some were in relation to finding a job, and I was soon in serious dialogue with the president of a well-regarded Canadian firm, one that would take me into their fold for the next two years.
My 30/60/90 day plan for Canada worked! And that was just the beginning … more about my journey next month.

Cairo-born Gautam Nath is partner at Monsoon Communications and serves on several boards and committees across Toronto. He is also one of the Top 25 Canadian Immigrants of 2011.

Source: http://canadianimmigrant.ca/work-and-education/the-306090-day-plan/

Canada puts immigration at the center of its economic policy

It’s just after lunch and Natalia Gotina’s students are filing in, getting ready for the day’s English lesson.  She says people turn up speaking every language imaginable. 

"It’s Russian language, Moldavian, Mandarin…Albanian," she says.

Gotina arrived from Belarus a decade ago. She teaches at one of five new Immigrant Welcome Centre that have opened in neighborhoods and bedroom cities around Toronto.  

It’s all paid for by Canada’s Federal government.   The classes, the daycare for kids, the computer training and job counseling — it's all free for newcomers like Susannah who arrived last August from Albania.

"The course is helping me a lot about my language and I think in my future too it is very helpful for me," she says.

The goal here isn’t just to teach English.  Canada uses its immigration system to identify people like Susannah who already have specific job skills — in healthcare, engineering, computer science — that can be plugged in to the economy.

"I am pharmacist back home and they are helping to find a way for my profession here in Canada."

This is very different from the US, where the vast majority of legal immigration is based on family connections, not on a person’s professional background or training.

"We’ve instituted a managed, point-based immigration system," explains Mario Calla, head of the regional non-profit called COSTI Immigrant Services that runs these welcome centers for the government. 

Canada’s system, he says, actually grades every person who applies for the equivalent of a green card. 

People are given points on everything from health to wealth to education and professional achievement.  If you don’t score high enough, you don’t get in.  

"Canadians understand that while these people coming from other countries may be very different from us, they’re coming with great talents and skills."

Canada accepts about a quarter million legal immigrants a year.  That’s nearly one percent of the country’s total population arriving every twelve months. 

That level of immigration enjoys broad political support, in part because Canada is facing the same

demographic dilemma that now plagues American cities and small towns around the Great Lakes region.

"People aren’t having as many children as they were before.  And the work force is growing older.  We’ve got a burgeoning seniors population."

Jeff Garrah runs the Economic Development Corporation in Kingston, a small city on the shore of Lake Ontario — about three hours east of Vaughan. 

If it weren’t for newcomers, Garrah says, Canadian cities would be hollowing out and shrinking, just like many American cities. 

He helped create a group that works actively to convince immigrants to make their new life in Kingston.

"We have to have a very aggressive immigration policy to replace those jobs, particularly those high skilled jobs," Garrah argues.

No one here thinks Canada’s immigration system is perfect. Especially during the recession, a lot of newcomers – even those with marketable skills — struggled to find work.

And critics like Sayed Hassan with an immigrant advocacy group called “No One Is Illegal” says the emphasis on job skills leaves too many really needy people out in the cold.

"I mean if you look at the number of refugees coming into Canada as a percentage of its population, it’s slightly below that of the United States. And yet Canada says it has the most generous refugee system in the world."

And there has been tension as more and more newcomers arrive from non-European countries. Ibrahim Absiye came from Somalia as a refugee twenty years ago. 

"We came in big numbers and we came with a different look of skin.  We came with a different religion.  So there were some barriers to break through," he recalls.

These days, Absiye runs another immigrant help center called Culturelink.  He says there are flare-ups of racism and cultural misunderstandings.   But he says Canada’s reputation as a truly open and diverse society is no myth.

"I think Canada is known for being one of the most welcoming communities in the world…and especially here in Ontario and especially here in Toronto, the community is welcoming to the newcomers."

These days, half of Toronto’s population is foreign-born – that’s a higher percentage than in New York City or Miami. 

Here in Vaughan, the foreign-born population jumped by more than forty percent over the last decade, making this one of the fastest-growing cities in the Great Lakes region.

Matthew Mendelson, with Canada’s Mowat Center for Policy Innovation, says he thinks these multicultural hubs will drive his country's next economic boom.

"Particularly Toronto has been successful at attracting high quality, talented immigrants from around the world but particularly Asia and emerging economies – creating clusters and concentrations of talented people."

One important footnote to all this is the fact that Canada has developed its immigration system without facing the pressure of a huge wave of illegal immigration like the one that’s been so controversial in the US.

By most estimates, Canada has fewer than 200,000 undocumented workers.

In the last decade — as Canada and US have worked to synchronize border security — officials here have moved more aggressively to track down and deport people who enter the country illegally.

Source:http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/18863/20111201/canada-puts-immigration-at-the-center-of-its-economic-policy