Immigration Canada

Foreign doctors learning new careers in Canada

Dr. Brian Kwon recognized for bringing clinical renown to Vancouver Hospital at the Vancouver Vancouver Medical, Dental & Allied Staff Awards 2011 (Photo credit: Vancouver Coastal Health)

Ottawa program helps difficult adjustment for foreign-trained doctors
CBC News Posted: Sep 6, 2012 8:02 AM

An Ottawa agency is helping foreign-trained doctors find jobs in the medical field after cuts to a government-run program that used to help the new immigrants transfer their skills to Canada's health-care system.

Fareeq Samim has to support a family of five, which means he can't go back to complete almost a decade of education re-learning how to be a doctor. (Laurie Fagan/CBC)
The Catholic Immigration Centre of Ottawa says the program cuts came in the most recent budgets for the Ontario and federal governments. But the need for training and skills development is still there, the centre says, with about 800 foreign-trained doctors in Ottawa alone who have not been licensed to practise in Canada.

So the centre's job developers are even busier now in their dedication to helping these trained professionals in their job search, as well as adjusting to cultural differences in the workplace.

Farouq Samim is one of the most recent graduates of the program. Samim was a trauma doctor in Afghanistan who also recently completed a master's degree in Ottawa.

Tough lessons to accept
Supporting a family of five, Samim said he does not have enough time or money to restart medical school in Canada.

That means he has had to come to terms with a new career in the medical field, which he trains for with skills learned at the Catholic centre.

"Basically, the program makes us recognize ourselves," Samim said, "For me, I didn't know about some of my transferable skills."

Bonita Varga says value-added skills will be important for the program graduates to add their expertise to the Canadian health-care system. (Laurie Fagan/CBC)
He has improved his skills in conducting research and other related skills in the medical field, Samim said.

The lessons taught in the Ottawa program are not easy to instil in foreign-trained doctors, though, according to one job developer. Many of those coming to Canada want to practise what they have learned in their home countries.

The adaptation can be an arduous process.

"It's harder to just say, 'OK, take off that MD hat and put on a different hat.' It's not fair and it's really frustrating for them," said Bonita Varga, who helps teach the doctors at the Catholic Immigration Centre of Ottawa.

New perspective
But Wen Qin, an endocrinologist — a doctor who studies human glands and hormones — from Shanghai has tried to take positives out of her new life in Canada.

She has also learned new transferable research skills, as well as figuring out more about her life goals.

"I don't value it as how famous you are or how much money you have, but my inner peace and inner happiness," said Wen, who also just completed a PhD in endocrinology.

Both Qin and Samim are currently searching for jobs in the medical field.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/09/06/ottawa-foreign-doctors-learn-new-medical-jobs-in-canada.html

Scotiabank teams up with Kotak Mahindra Bank in India to offer services to new immigrant

English: A branch of Scotiabank on Highway 7 in Hastings, Christ Church, Barbados. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

TORONTO — Scotiabank says it has signed a deal with Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. in India to provide banking services to people emigrating to Canada and to Indo-Canadians seeking services in India.

Under the deal, select Kotak Mahindra Bank branches will offer Canadian-bound Indian residents with access to Scotiabank services.

In Canada, select Scotiabank branches will help customers seeking bank accounts in India by referring them to Kotak Mahindra Bank.

In addition to its new partnership with Kotak Mahindra Bank, Scotiabank offers an international account opening program in select Scotiabank branches in India and Mexico and through China Everbright Bank in China.

Kotak Mahindra Bank has over 375 branches across India.

Scotiabank and its affiliates serve some 19 million customers in more than 55 countries.

Nunavut mining rush attracts China-backed MMG Add to ...

English: Nunavut Territory within Canada. Español: Territorio de Nunavut en Canadá. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

PAV JORDAN - MINING REPORTER
The Globe and Mail

China-backed base metals producer MMG Ltd. is staking its claim in an industry race to the Canadian Arctic, filing plans to build two mines in Nunavut in the next six years.

MMG, which recently changed its name from Minmetals Resources Ltd., said on Tuesday it had submitted a project proposal for the Izok Corridor project – comprising the Izok Lake and High Lake deposits – to the Nunavut Impact Review Board and other authorizing agencies, starting a process that could see production as early as the last quarter of 2018.

Like other miners from Canada and abroad, MMG is looking for ways to grow as global resources become more scarce, and it is one of many global players with boots on the ground in Nunavut, where highly prospective geology boasts diverse deposits from uranium to iron ore, copper, zinc, gold, silver and even diamonds.

“There are a lot of minerals there, it is packed,” said Patricia Mohr, Scotiabank’s commodity economist in Toronto and a keynote speaker at the annual Nunavut Mining Symposium in Iqaluit, the territorial capital.

“I call Nunavut Canada’s new mining frontier, and there are many projects there that are under way,” she said.

The Izok Corridor, east of Nunavut’s Bathurst Inlet in the Kitikmeot Region of the territory, is expected to produce 180,000 tonnes of zinc in concentrate and 50,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate per year once in production. More impressive than the size of the deposits is the grade – 12-per-cent zinc and 2.5-per-cent copper – at Izok Lake, with similar grades at High Lake.

By comparison, global mining giants such as Chile’s Codelco are embarking on copper projects with grades below 1 per cent in some cases.

MMG spokesman Troy Hey said that “if everything goes to plan,” Izok Lake could come on line just as it winds up operations at its Century mine, Australia’s largest zinc producer, some five years from now.

The project proposal for Izok Corridor is one of the initial regulatory requirements for the project, and follows a successful pre-feasibility study last year. A definitive feasibility study was started in 2012 and will take from 18 to 24 months to complete.

“The two deposits are fantastic, it’s just the infrastructure challenges of that region that make it a very challenging project,” Mr. Hey said by phone from Australia.

Mining is not new to Nunavut. The underground Polaris zinc mine in the territory was closed in 2002 after more than 20 years of production. Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd.’s Meadowbank gold mine in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut opened in 2010 and is the company’s largest gold producer at some 300,000 ounces per year.

But the latest rush up north promises bigger development.

On Nunavut’s Baffin Island, not far from where MMG wants to build its mines, the world’s largest steel maker, ArcelorMittal, is planning a $4-billion project to build an iron ore operation capable of supplying all Europe’s needs for more than 20 years. As well as other requirements, the owners of the Mary River project will have to build their own railway system.

Mr. Hey could not say how much it would cost to build the Izok Corridor mines, but it will likely be significant, with big-ticket items such as a 350-kilometre road to link the deposits with a new port at Grays Bay. A harsh winter and a remote location add further costs at a time when the price tag on new developments seems to grow daily and miners are keeping a close eye on slowing demand for many commodities.

MMG is also working to bring its Dugald River zinc project in northwest Queensland, Australia, into production by late 2014 or early 2015, when it expects zinc prices may have rebounded from a slump caused by a slowdown in China’s growth.

“There will be some tightness coming into the market there and it will be a good time to bring a project into production,” said Mr. Hey.

China is the world’s largest consumer of zinc, a key ingredient in making galvanized steel, which helped fuel a massive infrastructure build in the Asian giant over the past decade. But demand has slowed as urbanization efforts matured.

Why highly educated immigrant parents choose Canada

First Canadian Place, Toronto, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

KATE HAMMER
The Globe and Mail

Making friends won’t be easy for Aayushmaan Rana on his first day of school. Barely four weeks after flying halfway around the world, from northern India to Toronto, he knows just three people in this new country – his mom, his dad, and his sister – and speaks little English.

He’s keen to learn. Last Thursday, as a teacher at a Mississauga immigrant settlement centre explained the results of his math and English proficiency tests to his mother, 11-year-old Aayushmaan dragged a small, hot-chocolate-stained finger along the text of a picture book.

He ignored the illustrations of a toothy jungle cat and repeated the English words he could recognize, three and four times.

“Tiger... tiger... tie-gurr,” he said.

“You don’t have to memorize, just read,” his father said.

Aayushmaan is one of nearly five million elementary and secondary students who will start school on Tuesday, one of 500,000 who are foreign-born, and one of thousands who will be in a Canadian classroom for the first time. It’s a testament to the resiliency of children that, despite the challenges they face – cultural, linguistic and financial – immigrant students in this country outperform their native-born peers.

They post stronger scores on standardized math and science tests and are more likely to go on to postsecondary education. The same does not hold true for immigrants to other countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

That’s often why highly educated families like Aayushmaan’s – his parents are university professors – choose Canada. Many arrive having studied the Fraser Institute’s rankings of Canadian schools, and enrolling their children is the priority, before finding a job, a car, or even health care.

“Education is the most important thing for most of these parents, it’s why they come here,” said Sharaline Joseph, the settlement worker who helped the Ranas at one of three We Welcome The World Centres within the Peel District School Board.

According to Statistics Canada, about 10 per cent of Canadian students were born elsewhere. In major metropolitan areas such as Vancouver and Toronto, that proportion climbs as to high at 25 per cent, including postsecondary.

In these immigration hot spots, schools often have settlement workers, and some school districts, including Toronto, Peel, Calgary and Vancouver, have welcoming centres that are sometimes the first point of contact for families newly arrived in Canada.

Teachers perform academic assessments of children going into the school system, introduce parents to the concept of snow days, show them how to register their youngsters for school, arrange transportation and find co-op and job training programs.

Over the past five years, urban school boards have seen increased need and have begun expanding these programs, which are generally funded with a combination of federal and provincial dollars.

The three welcome centres in Peel Region, west of Toronto, serve more than 4,400 people each year. The Vancouver School Board has one centralized welcome centre and a team of school-based settlement workers who assist more than 3,500 new immigrants each year. In Calgary, where immigration rates are soaring, two welcome centres and settlement workers at 24 schools served 8,000 clients last school year – a 30-per-cent increase over the year before.

While Aayushmaan and his older sister, Yashasvi, wrote exams to assess their grade level in a separate room, their parents, Kuldeep and Sarita Rana, listened intently as Ms. Joseph introduced them to new concepts such as nut allergies, parent councils and what happens when there is a snowstorm.

“So it’s okay if we call the school or ask to speak with the teacher?” said Aayushmaan’s dad.

“More than okay, that’s a good thing,” Ms. Joseph said.

“No nuts at all?” said Aayushmaan’s mom.

“None. Some children have very serious allergies to them,” Ms. Joseph said.

Most families who are new to Canada have a honeymoon period with the education system. After the novelty wears off, they notice quirks they may find less appealing.

Families from Southeast Asian countries in particular may worry that their children are devoting significantly less time to homework and memorization drills. They may balk at math assignments that direct students to show their work, or essays that ask for analysis and critical thinking rather than summarization.

Ms. Joseph remembers one immigrant mother who was disturbed when teachers encouraged her daughter to go into hotel management.

“She wasn’t convinced that that was even a career.”

Yashasvi Rana, 16, has done her own research and already knows she wants to study engineering at the University of Waterloo. She is a diligent student, a perfectionist even, and double-checked all her work throughout her three-hour academic assessment at the We Welcome The World Centre. Afterward, the family sat around a table in a nearby classroom as a teacher explained her results. Although Yashasvi aced the mathematics portion of the test, she apologized when the teacher pointed out room for improvement in her essay.

Her younger brother had a much tougher time in his two-hour assessment. He studied English back in India, and his cursive writing is perfect, although he barely speaks or understands the language. In Ontario’s elementary schools, children are placed according to age, rather than ability, so Aayushmaan will begin Grade 6 on Tuesday. This was a surprise for the Ranas, because their youngest hasn’t been in Grade 5 yet, and was sick with pneumonia for much of Grade 4.

He’ll need extra support from his classroom teacher and his parents.

For all the difficulties of settling into a new school, in a new country, in a foreign tongue, Aayushmaan and his sister were both anxious for the new school year to start. Asked for his impression of Canadian schools, the youngest Rana opened his eyes wide behind his plum-coloured wire-rimmed glasses.

“Beautiful,” he said, drawing out each syllable, and then added in Hindi that he was also impressed with how nice the hallways smell.

His sister has a different idea.

“I’ve always wanted to go to school here,” she said. “Canada is a place where everything is fair.”

Banks look to immigrant market for growth

English: The Montreal head office of the Royal Bank of Canada is the Place Ville-Marie's largest tenant (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

ORA MORISON
The Globe and Mail

Major banks are duking it out to attract Canadian immigrants, a key market in a retail banking sector that is grappling with an aging population and a tighter lending environment.

Some of Canada’s largest financial institutions are offering unsecured credit cards, multilingual banking services, periods of no-fee banking and help sending money to relatives overseas.

Banks are looking to the immigrant market in a bid to broaden their retail divisions; as the growth of the Canadian-born population slows, these newcomers represent a key category for banks and the economy as a whole.

“It’s really somewhat of a clear-cut business case,” said Paul Sy, director of multicultural markets at Royal Bank of Canada. “The forecasts are quite clear that Canada is an aging population. Moving forward, newcomers are really the key source of growth and will be fueling the … growth of the Canadian economy for years to come.”

The most recent census showed two-thirds of Canada’s population growth over the previous 10 years came from immigration. In 2010, about 280,600 immigrants became permanent residents in Canada, more than in any of the 50 preceding years. Some projections show immigration will account for 72 per cent of growth by 2036.

“These are great new customers to the bank,” said Winnie Leong, vice-president of multicultural banking at Bank of Nova Scotia, which, like many other banks, has started to market unsecured credit cards to recent immigrants.

Traditionally, a lack of credit history barred recent immigrants from taking out loans or applying for a mortgage until they built a credit history; that often meant starting from the ground up with a secured credit card for $1,000 or less.

When Kamal Jain came to Canada 40 years ago with a master’s degree in engineering. In his first 18 months here, he found work as an engineer, saved enough money to buy a car without taking on debt and had started to save money. Still, he was denied a credit card because he had no credit history.

“I remember telling [the bank] that there could be no better credit record than not having to have taken a loan at all and still managing to accumulate the necessities of life, paraticularly having come here with less than $400 in my pocket 18 months prior,” Mr. Jain said.

Decades later, Canadian banks are trying to woo customers like Mr. Jain.

Similar to Scotiabank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, RBC’s unsecured credit card for newcomers has a base limit of $1000, an interest rate of 19.99 per cent and a monthly fee, which is waived for the first six months. The limit may be increased on a “case-by-case” basis, Mr. Sy said.

Ronald Miranda, originally from the Philippines, said that although he had a job lined up in Canada, he arrived in the country with less than $1,000 in cash. In the beginning, money was tight and having access to a credit card at Scotiabank made things much easier, he said. Mr. Miranda and his wife now have a joint $10,000-limit credit card.

While these products can be helpful, offering unsecured credit cards to immigrants introduces them to risks too, said Adam Fair, a program manager for the Canadian Centre for Financial Literacy.

“Some people come from countries where they didn’t even have credit or credit cards … there needs to be a good understanding of what credit is useful for, how it can be helpful, but how it can also be harmful,” he said.

The immigrant unemployment rate is close to double the figure for the population as a whole. In 2011, 14.2 per cent of immigrants who had been in Canada five years or less were jobless, compared with 7.4 per cent for all Canadians, according to Statistics Canada. Nearly two thirds of immigrants experience periods of low-income during their first 10 years in Canada.

Still, it’s clear why the banks are targeting this group, Mr. Fair said.

“A lot of newcomers come highly educated and if they are able to adapt and establish themselves in Canada, they and their family could be lifelong customers of that institution,” he said.

Luis Meza, for example, first met an RBC representative while still living in his native Venezuela. After having lived in Canada full-time for about a year now, Mr. Meza has a mortgage, car loan and $20,000-limit credit card with the bank.

He launched a cafe in Ancaster, Ont., when he settled in Canada and does his business banking with RBC too.

Mr. Meza provided statements from his bank in Venezuela and that was enough for RBC to assess his credit-worthiness.

“It’s about the potential of the market,” Mr. Sy said. “From what we’ve seen, there’s a strong determination by newcomers to succeed.”

Tax in Canada and the US: the differences that really matter

taxes (Photo credit: 401(K) 2012)

by Moodys LLP Tax Advisors on 8/29/2012

[author: Kim G C Moody CA, TEP]

Many people assume that the US and Canadian tax systems for individuals are similar. Not true. There are some important differences. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to point out some of these important differences that can cause problems for the uninformed. By no means is this article intended to be exhaustive... simply informative.

1. How individuals are taxed

The US is one of the only countries in the world that taxes on a citizenship basis. If you are a US citizen or a US "green card" holder, your income is taxed on a worldwide basis pursuant to US law no matter where you reside. Many people are not even aware that they are a US citizen. This issue is a complex immigration matter and often will require a US immigration lawyer's assistance.

Canada, does not tax on a citizenship basis. Instead, like most countries around the world, Canada taxes on a residency basis. To the extent that you are a "resident" of Canada, you are taxed on your worldwide income. There is no statutory definition of residency in the Canadian Income Tax Act and therefore the common law on such a subject is relevant. The Canada Revenue Agency's administrative views are published in Interpretation Bulletin IT-221R3. Simply put, Canada's system of residency is very much a "facts and circumstance" test. In other words, an individual's facts and circumstances will determine whether or not they are resident in Canada for income tax purposes. The US also taxes residents but the determination of residency is a statutory test and is dependent upon the number of days that the individual was physically in the US during the current year and the previous two years. This test, the so-called "substantial presence" test, is formulaic and objective (we briefly discuss the substantial presence test in our January 5, 2009 blog). Accordingly, a US citizen who is resident in Canada would be subject to double taxation (both from the US and from Canada) were it not for the Canada-US Income Tax Treaty (the "Treaty"). Such a Treaty (one of many that those countries have in place with other countries around the world) does an admirable job of eliminating double taxation for such a person. However, the Treaty is not perfect and in some cases the US citizen who is resident in Canada can be subject to adverse tax consequences if their affairs are not planned carefully.

2. The US has an estate tax... Canada does not

The US has an estate tax that applies on the value (as opposed to gains) of a decedent's estate. The US estate tax applies to its citizens and to people who are "domiciled" in the US. Domiciliary is a facts and circumstances test and therefore people who are not US citizens have to be cognizant of whether or not they are domiciled in the US so as to try and avoid the US estate tax upon death. The US estate tax also applies to non-citizens and non-domicillaries to the extent that such people hold US situs property (such as US stocks and US real property). At present, US citizens are exempt from the US estate tax on the first US $5.12 million of value of the estate. This eliminates most, but not all, of US estates from the application of the estate tax. At its highest marginal rate, the US estate tax is presently at 35 percent.

Prior to 1972, Canada also had an estate tax. However, the Canadian estate tax was abolished effective January 1, 1972 and instead replaced with a system that forces the recognition of any unrealized gains immediately prior to death. Such gain recognition is subject to many exemptions and deferrals. Canada also taxes certain registered pension assets (such as Registered Retirement Savings Plans or Registered Retirement Income Funds) upon the death of the Canadian resident but, again, the taxation of such amounts are subject to certain exemptions and deferrals.

Accordingly, the US estate tax and the Canadian "deemed disposition" tax can cause significant issues for a US citizen who is resident in Canada upon death. Similarly, it can cause significant problems for a Canadian resident (who is a non-US person or not domiciled in the US) who owns US situs property on death. The Treaty has limited provisions that attempt to reduce the negative exposure of the application of the two "death tax" systems but such provisions usually result in minimal relief and therefore it is crucial for affected persons to plan carefully.

3. How corporations are taxed

The US has certain corporate entities that enable income to be earned by such entities but taxed at the "shareholder" level (this is often referred to as a "flow-through" vehicle). This can be very beneficial for US persons since it can often eliminate double taxation which can sometimes arise with the use of corporations. Canada does not have a similar regime. All income realized by a Canadian corporation is taxed at the corporate level. Any after-tax corporate amounts paid to a shareholder will normally be taxed as a dividend. This can lead to double taxation for the shareholder of Canadian corporations if not properly planned.

The US also has unique flow-through entity called a Limited Liability Company ("LLC"). Accordingly, it is very common for a US tax advisor to recommend the use of a LLC to a Canadian resident person when they are considering investing in the US. However, the use of a LLC for a Canadian resident investor is most often not a recommended entity since the LLC will not be a "flow-through" vehicle for Canadian tax purposes (but it may be for US purposes). This can cause significant tax problems that could result in double taxation.

Accordingly, it is critical for Canadians who wish to invest in the US to get proper tax and legal advice to ensure that double taxation will not result from the realization and repatriation of profits back to Canada. Similarly, it is crucial for US persons to get proper tax and legal advice to ensure that the ultimate tax burden is acceptable to the extent that they are investing in Canada.

4. Foreign reporting regime

Both Canada and the US have reporting regimes that they impose on their taxpayers to the extent that such persons hold assets or earn income outside of their country. In the US, the most common report is the so called "FBAR" (Form TD F 90-22.1). To the extent a US person has ownership in or signature authority over certain foreign accounts then the FBAR will need to be filed on a timely basis. Failure to file comes with a $10,000 penalty but if the failure to file is willful the penalty escalates to the greater of 50 percent of the highest account balance during the year or $100,000. Also, there is an additional foreign reporting requirement that is new for 2011 – Form 8938 – that must be filed by US persons who own "specified foreign financial assets" if the value of such assets exceeds certain thresholds which vary according to filing status.

For Canadian residents, to the extent that they hold specified foreign property with a cost of $100,000 or greater, prescribed form T1135 will need to be filed on a timely basis (we have written about this before and you can read about it here). The penalties for not filing are to a maximum of $2,500 but can be subject to an additional level of penalties which can escalate quickly. To the extent that Canadians have foreign affiliates, then a separate foreign reporting regime exists.

5. Taxation of the same source of income

Our firm has written on this subject in our blog of December 14, 2011. Rather than spill more ink on this subject, suffice to say that a US citizen resident in Canada must be very careful and aware of how the same source of income is taxed in Canada and in the US so as to potentially avoid nasty surprises.

6. Canadian departure tax versus US departure tax

Since Canada taxes on a residency basis, Canada will no longer have the right to tax that person to the extent they become a non-resident of Canada (with the exception of certain Canadian source income that such a person may receive). When a person becomes a non-resident of Canada, the Canadian tax rules impose a "departure tax" which, generally, will cause a deemed disposition of the person's assets at fair market value thus triggering any accrued gains or losses on such properties. The deemed disposition rules are subject to many exceptions. In a worst case scenario, the Canadian departure tax can cause significant liquidity problems. Notwithstanding, the resulting tax liability must be paid or adequate security provided to the Government of Canada. Thus, careful planning must occur to the extent that the person is considering becoming a non-resident of Canada for income tax purposes.

The US also has a departure tax known commonly as the "expatriation tax." The US expatriation tax applies to US citizens who renounce their citizenship and to certain long-term residents who lose US residency. Determining whether you are a long-term resident and whether you have lost US residency is complicated. But know that losing US residency for purposes of the expatriation tax is surprisingly easy. For example, failing to waive tax treaty benefits to which you are entitled may result in the US expatriation tax applying. If you have renounced your US citizenship or lost your long-term US residency, the expatriation tax will apply if any of the following are true:

• Your average annual net income tax for the last five years is more than US $151,000 (this amount is adjusted for inflation). Because of the foreign tax credit, it is somewhat uncommon for Canadians to owe this much in US tax.
• Your net worth is at least US $2 million.
• You are not in compliance with your US tax obligations.

When the expatriation tax applies, it works like this: Pretend that all of your assets are sold for their fair market values and you recognize a gain or loss on these sales. Add the gains and losses together. Then subtract $651,000 (an amount adjusted for inflation) from your net gains. If the number is positive, you will owe tax on the remaining amount. There are ways to defer paying this tax, but doing so involves posting a security bond with the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS").

7. Paid tax preparers

In the US, only tax preparers who have a Preparer Tax Identification Number ("PTIN") are able to prepare US income tax returns and charge a fee for such. In Canada, no such system exists although our firm has written recently that we believe Canada should have a similar system and are hopeful that Canada will shortly follow suit.

Accordingly, for US citizens who are resident in Canada, one of the challenges they face is finding a tax preparer who is capable of preparing both their Canadian and US tax returns and who has a US PTIN. There are not many Canadian firms who have professionals who hold valid US PTINs. In fact, according to the IRS there are only 2,392 such individuals in all of Canada, and only 274 in Alberta. At this time there is no easy way to determine whether an individual holds a valid PTIN but the IRS recently announced this information will be available on its website.

Concluding comments

The above represents many, but certainly not all, of the fundamental differences between Canada and the US tax systems. As always, the devil is in the details, which are complex and can sometimes produce surprises and counter-intuitive results. We will continue to highlight the more common differences in our articles and blogs.

Canada has lesson to learn from Australia in foreign student policy

Graph showing international students at Melbourne University by region of origin as well as the top five countries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Diane Francis, National Post

Friday, Aug. 24, 2012

Canada is finally moving toward a smart, two-step immigration policy, like Australia and others have, that will recruit talent through a targeting policy of foreign student education.

Australia’s success has been widely disseminated and last week a blue-ribbon federal task force in Canada released a report that would emulate its policy. The number of foreign students allowed entry into Canadian institutions should nearly double in a decade and those who graduate from Canadian institutions should be eligible to remain, rather than having to return home and wait years to get in.

Most foreign students in Canada get their degrees and never come back. Most Australians apply to remain and the majority stay.

The next step will be consultations across the country and the new policy will likely become part of the reforms being developed by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

Most foreign students in Canada get their degrees and never come back. Most Australians apply to remain and the majority stay

Australia currently has 256,087 international students, mostly post-secondary, slightly ahead of Canada’s 239,130. The Canadian task force recommends that this be increased to 450,000 in a decade without taking places from Canadians.

Canadian universities and other educational institutions have catered to this market but Australia has outclassed Canada’s efforts by pooling their marketing efforts.

Ottawa should emulate the [external] studyinaustralia.gov.au website, where anyone can research educational opportunities, by courses, majors, institutions, regions, cities. Its “wizard” feature allows users to deep-dive into concrete information about housing, scholarships, fees, tuition and living expenses. In Canada, the [external] studyincanada.com website offers incomplete information. A cursory review of university websites found that fees and other information were unavailable.

Australia charges more than Canadian institutions because along with graduation comes immigration eligibility, providing criteria are met. Another benefit of the Australian method is that outcomes for immigrants are far superior than immigrant outcomes in Canada, where unemployment among so-called university-educated immigrants is four times’ higher than for Canadians with university degrees.

Canada needs this tool to attract skilled and educated workers who will immediately be successful in the country because they have assimilated and have bona fide credentials.

And Canada can charge more too:

– The University of Melbourne charges bachelor of commerce international students $32,700 annually compared with $26,900 at the University of Toronto, $25,400 University of Alberta and $25,300 for UBC.

– Melbourne charges international students studying engineering $33,000 a year compared with $30,400 at U of T and $23,300 at U of Alberta.

– Medical school for international students in Australia is more than $55,000 a year and $36,500 at University of Toronto, according to its website.

Worse yet, there are inadequate places for Canadians at Canadian medical schools and the result is that hundreds of Canadians go to Australian medical schools, and virtually all stay, according to University of Melbourne Professor and immigration specialist Lesleyanne Hawthorne.

(This points out another needed immigration reform. As Canadians go abroad to become doctors because foreigners have taken their places, foreigners who study here cannot stay to practice medicine because they must go home and re-apply. No foreign credentials, Australian or even American, are recognized by Canada’s protectionist medical profession.)

“Canadians who graduate from Australian medical schools are immediately licensed and get residencies. We are keeping 92% of our Canadian medical students. Now dental students from Canada are coming to Australia in large numbers for the same reasons,” said Ms. Hawthorne at a recent conference into immigration at the University of Calgary.

By offering eligibility with an education, universities here can up their fees substantially, and provide more spaces for Canadians.

The Australian system also picks and chooses among international students, selecting those with credentials that are in demand and rejecting those who have not adjusted to the culture or who have not behaved properly. Since 1999, some 630,000 foreign students have been allowed to immigrate in Australia and have achieved superior outcomes compared with immigrants who have never lived or studied there first.

“By 2006, at a time of sustained economic boom, labor market participation rates were strong in Australia for former international students. Ninety-five percent were employed, compared with 93 percent of those recruited offshore — a far more positive level of engagement than 1999-2000 arrivals (62 percent),” said an article about the Australian immigration experience published a few years ago in Canada’s Policy Options.

However, one caution is that if Canada hurtles headlong into doubling foreign student populations governments must be wary of the proliferation of private-school rackets offering diplomas as a means of gaining entry for unacceptable, unqualified persons.

“Serious abuses in Australia were uncovered, at a time when vocational private-sector quality assurance mechanisms were poorly developed,” said the Canadian report. “By May 2009, international student enrolments in vocational education and training were growing by 50 percent per year, compared with just 1 percent in the tertiary sector. There was a growing concern that ‘widespread rackets among private trade colleges were…undermin[ing] Australia’s education, immigration and employment systems.’”

Such hazards can be averted by putting safeguards in place to monitor providers of “education” to foreigners. If not, a proliferation of schools will result, handing out worthless diplomas and credentials as backdoor entries into Canada.

http://www.financialpost.com/m/wp/diane-francis/blog.html?b=opinion.financialpost.com/2012/08/24/canada-has-lesson-to-learn-from-australia-in-foreign-student-policy