Special to Big Blue Wave--Giuseppe Gori, leader of the Family Coalition Party of Ontario, responded today to John Tory's proposal to accredit immigrants before they come to Canada.
He says:
Mr. Tory is right when he says that foreign doctors should be accredited to work in Canada, although it is not clear what he means by “before coming to Canada”.
He thinks he has a more feasible solution:
More precisely, doctors who graduated outside Canada (in qualified Universities) should be allowed to do internship in Canada.
Currently the US allows that, but Canada does not, mostly because of the Canadian and Ontario medical associations, and their closed-number mentality, have lobbied governments to maintain immigrants away (with the exception of doctors willing to practice in remote areas and willing to undergo a lengthy series of qualification exams in Canada.)
My nephew is an Italian doctor with two specializations who did not mind practicing in a Canadian remote area, did a one-year internship in Buffalo, NY, (as he could not in Canada) and still was not allowed to practice anywhere in Canada with his qualifications.
The proposed fix would apply to medical doctors and related professions (biologists, biochemists, psychiatrists, psychologists, dentists, etc.) and to unionized workers such as teachers, but other free-market professions do not require Canadian exams and qualifications.
Mr. Gori has first-hand experience on this issue:
I was an immigrant myself in the field of Computer Science, came to Canada at the age of 28 and worked for IBM, Geac Computers, Bell Canada, AT&T and never had to even show my diploma once to anyone in Canada.
In the same fashion, I hired new immigrants, engineers and computer specialists, without Canadian experience, but on the basis of what they learnt where they studied (e.g.: China, Russia or Iran).
His harshest criticism was for the proposal to pay for new immigrants to return to school:
However, Mr. Tory is wrong in proposing to allocate $26 million for new Canadians who want to go back to school.
The potential expense, to maintain 150,000 immigrants at school for an average of 2 years is in the range of 2 Billion dollars. While Canadians pay property taxes to educate their own children, where would this money come from?
Mr. Tory would open the gate of dependency (with $26 Million), but his idea is no more than another socialist program that would mushroom with the complicity of the other parties, raise taxes and push the very same professionals out of the country.
Higher taxes are the main reason for the “brain drain” to the US.
Thus Canada would receive a double blow: Higher taxes and fewer professionals.
Mr. Tory should be the one arguing my point. No wonder the Liberals are surprised of his party’s sudden change of heart (from conservative to socialist).
Further, Mr. Gori thinks that there should be language requirements for all immigrants:
The government should simply refuse to grant immigration to “skilled” people (non-refugees) who have not learnt either English or French (languages which are mandatory in most non-English speaking countries). The TOFL test is fair and should continue to be required.
The government should start to be honest by saying that minimum language skills are required.
