New immigrant? Meet small business

York University Observatory, Toronto
York University Observatory, Toronto (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

WALLACE IMMEN
The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Oct. 04 2012, 7:00 PM EDT


Andrey Bolgov assumed he would be a desirable candidate for a job with a big Canadian company when he immigrated to Canada in 2009.

But despite having an MBA in marketing from a German university, fluency in several languages and seven years of experience in marketing and finance for companies in Germany, Italy and Belgium, he got no response to the résumés he sent to potential employers.


By the spring of 2010, he was reaching a dead end. “I didn’t know who else to apply to and I didn’t have any networking contacts to refer me to potential jobs,” the Russian native recalled.

At that time, York University in Toronto was launching a bridging program for internationally educated professionals that was putting an emphasis on the hiring needs of smaller employers.

Mr. Bolgov took courses over the next six months that helped him understand ways in which Canadian companies operate differently than foreign companies for which he had worked.

And, more importantly, a lead he got through contacts in the program led to his job as international marketing specialist for Maplesoft Inc., a technology services company based in Waterloo, Ont., which has 135 employees.

“I would not have known that they were a company to approach for a job,” he said, “but it turned out they were looking for someone just like me [to sell Maplesoft’s services overseas].”

Programs to help newcomers enter the job market aren’t new, but the program at York is specifically focused on encouraging small businesses to hire new Canadians.

“In the past, small- and medium-sized businesses haven’t tended to focus on recruiting foreign educated talent, in large part because most don’t have human resources departments to vet foreign credentials and experience,” explained Nora Priestly, program manager of York University’s bridging program for internationally educated professionals.

York is offering to provide those services. “Bridging programs can validate foreign credentials and provide assessment and training in English and the Canadian way of doing business,” Ms. Priestly said.

With financing from the Ontario government, English-language, professional writing and business courses are included at no costs to the students after an initial $90 registration fee. Courses typically cover two semesters, but students can add specialized skills and certification programs that have tuition fees of up to $7,000 (the university has a bursary program to cover as much as $3,500 of those costs).

The 300 foreign-trained professionals who have taken York’s program in the past two years came from 40 countries with dozens of first languages, though most participants are multilingual. More than half have advanced university degrees and several years of professional experience abroad.

Newcomers “tend to start their job search with big employers that their friends have heard about. That means they miss out on openings at smaller organizations that could use their talents,” Ms. Priestly noted.

Because immigrant-skills programs traditionally tend to get their initial support from large corporations, they were less known by small and medium-sized companies.

So another immigrant employment program in the Greater Toronto Area is doing a grassroots outreach to groom foreign-trained candidates to meet the needs of smaller companies.

“We have 20 outreach representatives who visit smaller organizations to learn their hiring needs, and are marketing foreign-trained professionals in our program to them as candidates,” said Allison Pond, executive director of Accessible Community Counselling and Employment Services. The not-for-profit organization is supported by government, corporate and United Way funding.

The ACCES program financed by government and corporate grants provides specific training for newcomers and helps obtain certifications required to qualify for jobs. It also arranges training with coaches who can provide mentoring as the newly hired enter the work force, Ms. Pond said.

A third initiative aims and both small and large business managers’ misconceptions that make it difficult for new Canadians to adapt to the workplace.

“We’re trying to steer people away from stereotypes,” said Rose DeVeyra, learning initiatives manager for the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, which has developed a series of videos and workbooks it calls “TRIEC Campus.”

Because owners of small businesses usually don’t have much free time, the program is comprised of a series of free, short modules on topics such as how interviewing techniques, résumé screening and communication can create misunderstandings and how to get around them.

“It’s not a ‘do this, and don’t do that,’” Ms. DeVerya said. The worksheets and videos also explain why approaches and work styles may be different in other cultures.

The course can also be used by trainers and human resource managers to demonstrate the challenges faced by immigrants, she said. There are also self-study guides for newcomers about how Canadian workplaces operate.

Mr. Bolgov learned about some of those differences in his courses at York University.

One revelation, he said, was that his résumé might have confused hiring managers: “In Europe listing the companies that you worked for – that is most important. In Canada, they are most interested in knowing the results of your previous work,” he found. he needed to be more direct in meetings. “In Europe, the first meeting you have with someone is less about facts and more about their family and things you have in common. Only after I had a good idea of the person would I start in to sell them on my idea,” he explained.

“In Canada, it’s better to make your point right away – and then you can build up a relationship from there.”



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Ontario needs an immigration strategy to attract skilled new Canadians

Deutsch: Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum
Deutsch: Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There was a time when Ontario didn’t have to do much of anything to attract immigrants from around the world. People knew they could come here, get well-paying jobs in factories, even if they spoke little English, and fairly quickly make a better life for themselves and their families.

Not anymore. Ontario’s economy has shifted and needs more skilled people in our workforce. At the same time, other provinces have realized the immense value of skilled immigrants and are now actively luring them to the west and east of us.

Ontario still gets the largest number of annual immigrants — 99,000 last year — but our overall share has dropped almost one-third over the past decade.

As a nation, it’s a very good thing that immigrants are finding opportunity and welcoming communities in cities and towns right across the country. Newcomers shouldn’t be confined to Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. But as a province, Ontario can’t sit back and do nothing in what is becoming an increasingly tough competition to attract talented immigrants who can help drive economic prosperity.

Ontario must become more attractive to skilled immigrants or we’ll face large-scale shortages of workers in the coming years because of our rapidly aging population. Indeed, an expert panel has just concluded that Ontario needs to attract 135,000 immigrants each year. And the bulk of them, about 70 per cent, should be coming from the skilled class of immigrants, who tend to be better educated and have an easier time finding employment than those sponsored by families or refugee claimants.

Ontario has seen those kinds of numbers as recently as 2005, but getting back to that level won’t be easy at a time when many of the skilled immigrants who do come here are frustrated in their efforts to get work in their chosen fields and are relegated to low-paying jobs.

That’s why most of the expert panel’s recommendations have to do with ensuring a better fit between the skill-set of immigrants and workforce needs. To do that, Ontario needs to renew — and dramatically improve — its partnership with the federal government.

As the panel points out, Ottawa’s federal skilled worker program — the main source of the province’s economic immigrants — is not delivering the kind of newcomers Ontario needs. Its reliance on a list of priority occupations makes it “too static to respond to the realities and dynamics of Ontario’s labour market.”

While Ottawa is failing to bring enough skilled immigrants to Ontario, it limits the province’s ability to select its own immigrants by capping the provincial nominee program at 1,000. That must also change.

Ontario’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister Charles Sousa says he will use the report’s recommendations to help develop the province’s “first-ever” immigration strategy.

That we don’t have such a strategy already shows how complacent Ontario has been. The time for that is over. Ontario must do more to earn the best and brightest new Canadians.

Source: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1267479--ontario-needs-an-immigration-strategy-to-attract-skilled-new-canadians

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Canada to Lebanese: No More Free Pass

English: Oath of citizenship ceremony
English: Oath of citizenship ceremony (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Canadian government has begun the process of cracking down on passport holders who have claimed citizenship through falsely alleging residence in the country.

Many Lebanese citizens feel that they are in need of a second nationality, a safety net of sorts, given their country’s explosive history. They think of Fairouz’s song A Little House in Canada when they eat out-of-date food, or can’t find proper housing.

The song captured the sentiment of Canada as a haven and refuge for those looking to escape their troubled land.

Canada has become the top destination for those seeking a back-up citizenship after it opened its doors to immigrants from around the world.

The image of Canada provides peace of mind for immigrants who want to live without fretting about education, healthcare, housing, and retirement.

These are some of the many reasons why Lebanese have devised all sorts of ways to get their name on a Canadian passport. Often this involves a little trickery, whereby the person in question – through friends that reside there – fabricates the necessary paperwork that makes it appear as if he or she is employed and residing in Canada – paying rent, phone bills and taxes.

Jason Kenney declared that his government “will begin revoking the citizenships of thousands of naturalized citizens who are believed to have claimed to be in the country when, in fact, they were abroad.Perhaps Canada brought this upon itself by not stamping the passports of exiting travellers, as many countries do. On the Lebanese side, one has the option of stamping their entry and exit on a separate piece of paper. Thus a Lebanese can visit Canada and return home without any trace of them having departed the former.
It is surprising that the Canadian authorities overlooked this scheme for so many years. Only now are they beginning to take measures to crack down after minister of immigration Jason Kenney declared that his government “will begin revoking the citizenships of thousands of naturalized citizens who are believed to have claimed to be in the country when, in fact, they were abroad.”

“We estimate that up to 3,100 Canadian citizens may have acquired their citizenship through deception. Therefore, we will begin the process of withdrawing it from them.”

These measures will not only involve Lebanese, according to the minister, for there are “11,000 people from 100 countries who are implicated in deceiving the authorities,” adding that, “the Canadian government has learned that thousands were residing outside the country, paying intermediaries up to $25,000, in some cases, to make it appear that they are living in Canada.”

According to the spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), Nancy Caron, “the department of immigration only started using international file management system technology in 2004, which has helped us expose suspicious activity and deception.”

She added that the government campaign will not only involve revoking any violator’s citizenship, their case will also be referred to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) for further action against the accused and those who abetted them.

“There is no time limit to our investigation and we intend to remove citizenship from all those involved,” she warned.

Caron explained that the problem “is international, and the cases we have before us includes up to 100 nationalities, most of whom live outside Canada. We suspect that that around 11,000 people may have lied, when they applied for citizenship or permanent residency, and we have already initiated action against 530 of them,” adding that “there may be up to 5,000 permanent residents who have forged their applications that we are in the process of investigating further.”

She noted that her agency has “devised new citizenship questions which will help expose those who may be trying to mislead the authorities.”

According to Stephen Handfield, a lawyer who specializes in immigration, the current Canadian government is taking a hard line on immigrants in accordance with the politics of the ruling Conservative Party.

It is worth noting that Canadian law stipulates that those seeking citizenship must reside in the country for at least three consecutive years before applying.

Abiding by the Law

Many Lebanese are indeed concerned about the new measures being taken by the Canadian government, but they insist that they will abide by the law.

Nada, for example, decided to move to Canada in order to get her citizenship there. She says that the whole process – including plane tickets, everyday costs, and fake bills – has cost her around $20,000.

She’s not too worried about the citizenship exam. She does, however, face some obstacles such as coming up with report cards and doctors’ bill, as was requested of some of her friends during the examination.

Her main concern is the future of her children who are already Canadian citizens due to the fact that they were born there.

the whole process – including plane tickets, everyday costs, and fake bills – cost around $20,000.Nada is just one among the many Lebanese who are seeking Canadian citizenship but not necessarily to live there.
They will be have to be more careful than in the past now that the Canadian government has adopted more restrictive measures which obligate them to reside in the country.

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/12821

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