[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Wednesday, May 10, 1995
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[English]
The Chairman: Order.
Let me begin by thanking you, Ms Fagnan, for appearing. Please make your presentation, after which we will ask you questions.
Ms Sheila Fagnan (Research Director, Policy and Program Branch, Department of Fisheries and Oceans): It was my understanding that you were looking for a presentation specifically based on the chapter in Diminishing Returns.
The study I have undertaken examines female immigrant earnings relative to Canadian-born females across different immigration policy regimes. I asked three primary questions in this study. First, is there evidence that immigrants' earnings performance has changed with successive waves of immigration? Significant shifts have occurred in the patterns of Canadian immigration, as you're well aware. One example is the increase in the number entering as refugees and dependants, so it may well be that immigrants' earnings performance has changed over time.
The second primary question I asked is whether there are significant differences in immigrant earnings performance by gender. Female immigrant earnings have been studied little in Canada and there are two primary reasons to believe their performance may be quite different from males. The labour force participation patterns are significantly different and female immigrants are more likely to enter Canada as dependants than as independent economic applicants.
The third primary question I addressed is whether the earnings patterns of immigrants are significantly different by skill levels. So I grouped the sample into three skill categories and made comparisons among them.
There's a lack of time-series data that includes the variables I was interested in, so I had to construct synthetic data. Essentially, I drew estimates from two census samples, the 1971 census and the 1986 census. The study examines earnings performance over the life cycle of workers aged 25 to 64.
My findings are the following. A number of parallels can be drawn with previous studies of foreign-born earnings. The results for each of the sample groups repeat the well-known finding that foreign-born earnings profiles are indeed quite different from the earnings profiles of the Canadian-born. However, the oft-repeated conclusion that immigrant workers assimilate and their earnings eventually catch up doesn't hold true for all the samples I looked at.
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The earnings profiles of foreign-born males in the study do show evidence of assimilation. Their earnings catch up after about twelve years. Focusing on foreign-born females, the study shows evidence of assimilation as well. There are positive returns to their years of residency in Canada and their earnings also catch up and exceed those of the Canadian-born females.
Over their lifetime, then, female immigrants exceed the earnings of their Canadian-born counterparts, and that is true for both of the samples from 1971 and 1986.
However, there is evidence that the profile of immigrant earnings has changed over time. There are significant differences between the group we looked at in 1971 and the group from 1986.
Initial earnings for female immigrants upon entry into Canada in 1971 weren't significantly different from the earnings of the Canadian-born females. But in 1986 there was a very significant difference. The earnings of new immigrants fell below those of the Canadian-born by 10%.
Years of residency in Canada still afford immigrant women the opportunity to assimilate, and their earnings did eventually overtake the earnings of the Canadian-born. But if we compare the lifetime profiles we estimate from 1971 with the one we estimate with later immigrants based on the 1986 sample, the profile isn't as strong from the 1986 estimate. Over their entire working lives, the more recent immigrants are unlikely to perform as strongly as those who entered prior to 1971.
Again, this finding is similar to that reported for male immigrants' earnings over time. A significant study that looked at male immigrants in 1981 versus 1971, or drew from those two samples, showed a similar decline in earnings performance.
The second question I asked was based on gender, and there are indeed significant gender differences in the earnings profiles. The gender patterns are those that are commonly reported in studies of employment and income. Labour force participation rates are lower for foreign-born and Canadian-born women when compared with men. Increasing family size has a negative impact on female earnings, and aging does not yield as high a return for women as it does for men. This suggests that returns to age is not a perfect variable to approximate work experience because women's work history tends to be interrupted by child care.
So there are significant differences in their profiles but there are similarities in the assimilation patterns of foreign-born women and foreign-born men.
The third question I looked at was based on skill groups. Here there is a very significant gender difference. When estimating earnings by skill groups, it's noted that assimilation is difficult for female professionals more than any other skill group. Both the 1971 and 1986 estimates show that new immigrant female professionals are at a significant disadvantage in our labour force. They earn 7% less than Canadian-born professionals and there's no evidence to show that they catch up. Similarly, the 1986 estimate shows a significant earnings disadvantage and little opportunity to catch up with the average Canadian-born female with professional credentials.
This suggests their credentials are not given full weight by the Canadian labour market. In order to discern the actual reason for this it would be necessary to know, for example, whether these workers entered Canada as adults with professional credentials or whether they entered Canada as children and acquired their professional training in Canada.
Studies in the States show there are significant differences in the returns on immigrant education, based on where they earned their education - whether it's foreign education or native.
It may also be that employers sense risk when they identify credentials as foreign. They're unfamiliar with the background in foreign work experience represented by the individual. Employers have to make a quick assessment of the productivity potential of an employee, and this may be an important signal to them that this candidate for employment is riskier than the native-born female.
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Another important consideration in looking at the skilled group is occupational mobility, and my study doesn't look at that. There is evidence in other studies to suggest, however, that women are less likely to move up into higher-paying occupations than are men. That's a concern. It would also explain why professional women immigrants do not catch up to the Canadian-born professional women.
A great deal of work is yet to be done to understand the life-cycle contribution of female immigrants to the Canadian economy. This study raises a number of interesting questions, but obviously there are more to be answered. We need to study their earnings performance over time. I just estimated or approximated their performance over time.
However, I think there are important implications to this study for immigration or labour policy. One would be that given what a significant percentage of female immigrants participate in the labour force, it's important to consider their eligibility for employment and language training allowances. Since a huge percentage of these women enter as dependants, their eligibility for many of the labour force training programs is in question.
Screening a higher percentage of female immigrants may also be important to provide more opportunity to control the flow of economic immigrants. Although many of these women enter as dependants and have not declared their intention to enter the labour force, they do in fact enter the labour force.
Screening would also generate more information about immigrant economic aspirations; about what area they would like to head into. It may also provide a better link between female immigrants and the programs designed to foster immigrant opportunities in the workforce.
Finally, the important issue of certification also needs to be addressed. Evidence from this study suggests that professional credentials of foreign-born women are not yielding high rates of return. Providing opportunities for recertification should be considered.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Hanger.
Mr. Hanger (Calgary Northeast): I'm curious as to why your study never went beyond 1986.
Ms Fagnan: The study is based on samples from the 1971 census and the 1986 census, so it includes immigrants only from before 1986. But then it estimates what their earnings performance may be over their lifetime, based on what we know about the growth of previous immigrants' earnings.
Mr. Hanger: You're assuming that the economy, everything relating to the early capacity of an immigrant, is going to follow this pattern right through 1986 and beyond.
Ms Fagnan: The economic period in which immigrants enter the country and obtain their labour force experience is indeed important, and that will have an important impact. However, I find that the evidence doesn't suggest that the impact on immigrants is significantly different from that on the Canadian-born.
I did look at a small sample of new entrants to the labour force. My primary study was focused on the age group 25 to 64, but some studies have been done in the States that suggest you could approximate the experience of new immigrants by looking at new entrants in your Canadian- or native-born population, the 18- to 25-year-olds, who are just entering the labour force, as are the new immigrants. Their patterns of employment are similar to those of the new immigrants throughout different economic periods. That suggests the immigrant experience through our economic cycles will be similar to that of the Canadian-born.
Mr. Hanger: What impact, if any, would levels of immigration have on job availability and the like? Again, you talk about assimilation. You talk about that period of time, the fifteen years when there were high points of immigration and low points of immigration. But from 1986 onward there has been a steady climb in the levels of immigration, to a point of well over 250,000. I'm asking you how you can compare those two periods effectively.
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Ms Fagnan: My study does not look at, and I don't have evidence that looks at, the demand for labour, or that tracks the job availability. When we look at the performance of the candidates entering the labour market based on their education and their work experience, we can make predictions about what their performance will be. My study focuses on what we know about their abilities and their credentials that will help us to predict their performance in our economy. So I can't answer the question about the job availability, but based on their credentials and the number of attributes that contribute to their labour performance, there's reason for concern.
When we look at immigrants that entered prior to 1971 versus those that are later entrants, there's been a shift. The flow of immigration has changed in both source and category by which they enter, and it suggests that their earning potential will not be as great as that of previous immigrants.
My study looks more at the sources of immigration and the attributes and qualities than at job availability.
Mr. Hanger: Will you make some suggestion that there should be a re-evaluation of our point system as far as that allotment of points for the applicant goes? Is there some improvement you think should be made?
Ms Fagnan: The most significant improvement I would suggest is consideration of assessing the female contribution to the household. Huge percentages of women who are entering Canada enter as dependants, so they are not assessed. But they contribute to the household earnings. A high percentage of them enter the labour force. So there would be good reason to consider what skills and credentials they bring with them and how that contributes to the household's points or assessment. Right now a huge percentage of them are not screened.
Mr. Hanger: No. I appreciate that.
Ms Fagnan: They should be.
Mr. Hanger: What about for the male applicant?
Ms Fagnan: I didn't get into the weighting given to different levels of screening. But there's an obvious shift in the earnings performance of males over the two immigrant policy periods, which suggests that, as the refugee class or the dependant category has increased, we've paid less attention to those factors that contribute to their earnings performance.
It would be helpful to know more about those other applicants as well, both male and female.
Mr. Hanger: What I'm trying to get at here is that somewhere along the way the federal government will negotiate with a province as far as its labour needs and the economy demands in that particular province are concerned. At least that's the way it's supposed to be. I'm just wondering how you feel about those points of negotiation as it relates to the applicant. Again, if there's a labour need for a certain individual, is he properly assessed at this point to be able to perform well in whatever setting he goes to, or is he going to be confined to basically the experience he has and that would be the only suitable job for him from whatever occupation he had before? Provinces are going to want to know that.
Ms Fagnan: If we moved to assessing just their work experience or occupational category, then we'd be missing a great deal of important information. But we also consider their educational attainment, and that is critical to helping us understand what their contribution and their place in the economy will be.
My study shows that, indeed, both the foreign-born and the Canadian-born realize high rates of return on their education and aging over time, so experience in the labour market; and those are important parts of the assessment. Not just the occupational category they enter under, but their potential to move into other occupations is important, too.
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Mrs. Bakopanos (Saint-Denis): I have a number of questions. You don't touch at all on the fact that there may be other factors that will come into play, such as religious discrimination, cultural attributes and the type of society these women come from. Don't you think those types of factors are also important in terms of assessing some of these results you've come up with?
For example, you say that female foreign-born professionals are unable to overcome their initial earnings. I'd say that depends on which professional foreign-born women they are. Are they from certain societies that have not in the past recognized the same status of professionalism for women? It goes back to credentials, but there's an added factor of where they come from. I would also say whether they are black would be a factor. Visible minorities would also be a factor.
I'll be honest. I didn't look at your statistics in detail. I read only what was prepared for the committee.
Do you feel those factors also have to be taken into account when you are making a statement like that?
Ms Fagnan: My study did not look at ethnicity and I did not break it out by race or by source country. That is indeed an important consideration.
My study demonstrates that they don't catch up, which is a particular concern when you are looking at the professional women, because one would assume if they enter with professional credentials they could indeed compete as well as women who are born in Canada.
There is a subject of further investigation there. I suggested credentialism or the risk factor to employers, but discrimination is certainly -
Mrs. Bakopanos: I was referring to barriers. Are there barriers that Canadian-born professional women wouldn't face, although they face other barriers? They wouldn't face the same barriers.
Ms Fagnan: I think the cultural aspect may also explain differences in the participation of immigrant women in labour force. The investment strategy of the household will vary according to culture. My study doesn't show that. I think there are significant other studies that do. That suggests a reason why the samples I looked at don't catch up.
Mrs. Bakopanos: That's what I'm saying. There has to be a cross-reference made to other factors and other impeding barriers.
Ms Fagnan: That's right.
Mrs. Bakopanos: There is another factor you bring up in terms of more weeks. I think that also has to be outlined. In my lengthy experience in the immigration portfolio, a lot of the males or females work longer for the same amount of pay. You allude to it by saying they work more weeks. I think it's another factor that has to be outlined more. They have to work a lot longer to make the same amount of money.
Ms Fagnan: Right.
My study was using a sample that gave only annual earnings and an approximation of the weeks worked. To improve it, it would be best to look at returns per week.
Mrs. Bakopanos: I think some of your results would be a little different if we also looked at the number of weeks it takes to arrive at the same salary.
Ms Fagnan: That's right. I think that's an issue of particular concern.
For example, the foreign-born men and women are indeed working more weeks than are the Canadian-born. If we were to model it based on weekly earnings I think you'd find an even greater decline and less likelihood to catch up. It strengthens the results.
Mrs. Bakopanos: Yes, it does. I thought that was an important point.
I'm also interested in having you give us a few more details about the recertification. I know in Quebec, where I come from, that's a big issue for immigrant women and men. Even if they have their professional credentials assessed, it's never at the same level as Canadian-born professionals. In other words, a degree from a university in Iran, for example, does not have the same value as it does there when it's reassessed here in Canada or in Quebec. That's also another issue that may bear on the results you obtained.
If I have an Iranian law degree that's not at the same level, obviously I'm not going to be able to work at the same salary and at the same level as a Canadian-born professional woman.
Ms Fagnan: That is a significant contributing factor.
Our labour force is changing as the flow of immigration is changing. Employers will gain more experience with foreign credentials over time. But currently there are a lot of questions around foreign education, particularly from countries that have not previously had high levels of immigration in Canada.
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Whether there really is a quality difference in their education will only be known over time. It will have to be measured in the labour force - their actual contribution and their productivity. Employers will only see that borne out over time.
Hopefully in many cases the risk to employers will go down over time as they gain more experience with these workers, but initially, whether it's perceived or real, there is a significant risk attached to those foreign credentials.
Mrs. Bakopanos: I was looking further. Both male and female professional immigrants often work at jobs that are not up to their professional qualifications. I was wondering if - no, I'm not wondering, it's what I think - that would have a bearing on the type of results you have from your study also.
Ms Fagnan: Absolutely. The break-out I did of skill groups are of very broad categories and the study also doesn't look at occupational mobility. I think what you find are foreign-born doctors working as nurses, for example, or aides or lab technicians.
What would be interesting to track is whether they do that as a short-term investment while they recertify and then eventually move into work as a doctor, or are stuck there.
Now there is some limited evidence to suggest that occupational mobility, particularly for women, is not that great. They do indeed get stuck there. But my study doesn't look at that because it doesn't look at mobility. I'm drawing from other studies when I make that comment.
Mrs. Bakopanos: I could go even further. I think many of the professional associations have a lot to do also with the lack of mobility of the immigrant groups, whether female or male, and I think it would be harsher on the female foreign-born professionals.
Ms Fagnan: Just as employers will learn about the productivity of these applicants over time, you have made an important point, that the professional associations have a role to play in helping employers recognize those credentials and understanding them.
Mrs. Bakopanos: Thank you.
Mr. Hanger: Do you concur with the view that the economic benefits of immigration are lower today than in previous years?
Ms Fagnan: I would concur that there is a trend emerging that suggests that the contribution over their lifetime may be less than it was in previous decades. However, my study still shows that immigrant males and immigrant females in total contribute more than the Canadian-born. They do indeed catch up and eventually outperform. There's some limited evidence here that suggests that's weakening, but my predictions still show that they will eventually outperform.
Mr. Hanger: What are the most important issues in immigration policy today?
Ms Fagnan: That takes me a bit beyond my area. I could only comment on the policy questions that are raised by my study.
Mr. Hanger: Okay, related to your study.
Ms Fagnan: I think the support we provide in our labour force for our immigrants is a critical issue. Understanding the interplay in immigration policies is critical. Just looking at the numbers of immigrants is not that helpful. Understanding whether what we're screening for and then what services our economy actually provides to facilitate a good match between the new immigrant and our labour force is more important than looking at aggregate numbers, I would argue.
I think the economy has the ability to absorb and indeed benefit from a significant level of immigration if we do understand the credentials that immigrants bring with them, and if we do provide a good match with language training. Language training is a key aspect in their contribution to the economy, particularly for women. They have not been given the opportunity to have labour force training. They work in low-paying jobs, are not eligible for language training and subsidize their household income in most skilled jobs, partly because they're not eligible for the language training.
So I would argue that looking at the training and job settlement services we provide is more important than looking at the aggregate numbers, and more urgent.
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Mr. Hanger: In other words, up front even on the selection process. For those who may have those skills already, it would be more important to concentrate in those areas. Is that what you are saying to me?
Ms Fagnan: Yes, up front, I would say it's more important to concentrate on the skills they're bringing in, but also to learn more about the broader category of immigrants who have been coming to Canada. We have a dependency class and we have a refugee class. I'm not suggesting there aren't other motivations besides the economic one that would continue to allow for the dependency group, family reunification, but it would be helpful to know more about them and more about their labour force aspirations. We don't screen them, so we don't know what their levels of education are. We don't know if our labour force programs are a good match, because we don't expect them to enter the labour force. In fact, they are entering the labour force and we need to anticipate that with our programs.
Mr. Hanger: The last census was taken in 1993, was it not?
Ms Fagnan: Yes.
Mr. Hanger: So that would be an opportunity in a way to expand your study at a future date.
Ms Fagnan: Indeed. The 1986 sample is why I suggest the results are somewhat weak. It's an emerging trend. The flow of immigration was just developing then, or a significant shift was just starting. Extending the study will confirm or not. It would be an important next step.
Mr. Hanger: Yes. Good.
The Chairman: I am not sure if you used the word ``spouses'', but you mentioned they should be screened. Professor DeVoretz suggested we provide bonus points when a spouse might have a university degree, as opposed to somebody who is applying and their spouse might not have any education at all. He thought that should move them ahead in the line.
The department objected to that. I shouldn't say the department: the research department of Citizenship and Immigration thought that was not a very good idea. They said there really is no line. There's a point system and if you're above the points, you get in.
Can you just clarify what you mean when you say spouses or dependants should be screened? Did I mishear you?
Ms Fagnan: No, I did. It would be along lines similar to what Don is suggesting, given that a significant percentage of these women do participate in the labour force, in order to supplement or to assist in their husband's investment. For example, immigrant male professionals may need to spend some time with language training and recertification and will be supported by their spouse as a household investment strategy. Other studies have looked at that in greater detail recently. Because these women contribute and there's evidence that we make many of our labour force decisions as a household, I think there's merit in considering the added contribution that spouse will make to the performance of that household in Canada. That's the logic behind Don's policy -
The Chairman: I understand the reasoning. Having given you the reaction of the department...could you flesh it out?
Ms Fagnan: As I understand it, the department is arguing that they will qualify for entry anyway, based on the male -
The Chairman: They're also saying...for the sake of argument, a man comes over, he's accepted, he has a university degree, he gets a job, whatever, and then he goes back to the old country and he sponsors his wife. We allow her in under family reunification automatically. We don't look at her education. We don't screen her, other than for health and criminality, I suppose. We don't look at her skills.
So do we open up a problem for ourselves by saying, well, if you come with a spouse you're treated differently from if you come over and bring your spouse in later?
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You don't have to answer that.
Ms Fagnan: My concern would be that.... Well, the current policy allows for the spouse to enter the labour force without screening.
The Chairman: Without screening for skills.
Ms Fagnan: That's right. They enter under the dependency class.
I think there would be good reason to.... If there is a need to reduce the size of that class, and if you're going to have to have a way to identify who makes it through that queue, one important factor would be the contribution that the spouse will make to the economy. That may be a way in which we can adjust our immigration for the dependants category.
The Chairman: My understanding of the rules now is that spouses are automatic - they're in within a year. When we're saying we want to lessen the number in the family class, we're not saying we're going to lessen the number of spouses.
Ms Fagnan: Right.
The Chairman: When you use the words ``dependant class'', do you mean the family class?
Ms Fagnan: Yes.
Mrs. Bakopanos: I have something along the same lines, in fact.
The Chairman: Sure, go ahead.
Mrs. Bakopanos: Do you agree with the immigration plan that the minister presented last fall, which ``favoured'' professional-class immigrants? If we take your study and say it's going to take them ten to twelve years to catch up, aren't we in fact not doing anything? Even if we allow more professionals in, they're still going to begin at the lower end of the scale. Some of them will not have their credentials recognized. Some will not have any mobility. They're going to compete in a labour market in which we have, I would say, a surplus of professionals in some areas.
We can take the legal profession, for instance. If we allow more lawyers in from other countries, are we perhaps going to be creating a greater economic hardship in the country rather than a lesser one by allowing more such professionals in? It's not an easy question, I'll grant you, but I want your opinion.
Ms Fagnan: On strictly economic grounds, yes, Canada is better off if they come with greater levels of education and greater levels of credentials. Even if they do not work as doctors, the fact that they come here with that education - an investment that's been made by another country - means that Canada benefits greatly. It's still the case even if we employ them as nurses rather than doctors. What we've seen is that education contributes greatly to an individual's productivity even if he or she doesn't work in his or her originally chosen occupation.
So although professional women are, in many cases, below the level of Canadian-born women, they are still contributing more in their life-cycle of earnings than the less skilled population. In terms of contribution to the public fund - tax revenues, etc. - their employment rates are higher, and their participation rate in the labour force is greater than that of the low-skilled category. Those factors will contribute more to the Canadian economy over time.
I'm taking a kind of hard-line economic view there in saying that we'll benefit because other countries have made the investment in their education, but screening for it will yield greater economic benefits in the long run. There is, however, a human cost to pay for when we invite female immigrants to come to this country and then employ them as nurses when they're trained as doctors. In the labour force, that could lead to frustration over time on another level other than the economic one.
Mrs. Bakopanos: Thank you.
The Chairman: On the issue of language training, I think you indicated that they weren't eligible for language training.
Ms Fagnan: I might be out of date on current policy. During the policy period I examined, they were not eligible for language training if they entered in the dependant class. To be quite frank, I don't know if that has changed in the last few years.
The Chairman: I think it has changed in the last couple of years. Given the budget constraints, all our training programs, for whomever, are under the gun.
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Could I just have you review with me some of the guts of your main points? You've said that it takes about ten to twelve years for a foreign-born woman to catch up, and then she starts to outperform her Canadian counterpart. Have I got that right?
Ms Fagnan: That's right.
The Chairman: Then you went on to say that, overall, the overperformance after the ten- or twelve-year mark will more than compensate for the underperformance.
Ms Fagnan: Yes.
The Chairman: How is that arrived at specifically? Where would you get that kind of information?
Ms Fagnan: I'm not sure I understand the question.
The Chairman: Presumably, if a woman comes over at the age of 55, she doesn't get the chance to outperform her Canadian counterpart if she takes ten years. So what knowledge do you have, or can you just explain the basis for your observations?
Ms Fagnan: My predictions are based on the average applicant. So the average age of the foreign-born female in the workforce is similar to that of the Canadian-born female.
The Chairman: What is that? Oh, you're saying they reflect our own demographics.
Ms Fagnan: Yes. Very similar.
On average, they are in the labour force for a significant period. So although it takes ten years for them to catch up, they have a life cycle of earnings. On average, we are not importing female immigrants who would all fall in the 40- to 50-year age bracket. There's a wide variety of ages. They enter at a fairly young age and they reflect the demographics of the Canadian-born women. So they're in the labour force for a quite long period.
The Chairman: Do we know the average age?
Ms Fagnan: I don't know the average age of the immigrant application. The average age in my sample for Canadian-born women was 39; the average age for foreign-born women was 42.
There were significant numbers. The sample had a normal distribution by age for both the foreign-born and Canadian-born, enough that I could draw from the older population. That's how I draw my estimate. I can't track that 40-year-old woman and see what she's doing at age 50; I draw estimates from those who are in the labour force at age 50 to see what their earnings look like.
The Chairman: And they came over when they were 40.
Ms Fagnan: Or some of them came over when they were 20, 30. There seems to be a good cross-section.
But I didn't answer your question. I don't know what the average age at entry is. I don't have that in front of me.
The Chairman: One thing Canadians are worried about is the breakdown of sponsorship agreements, the breakdown of families, women being forced to go on mothers' allowance or welfare. That can be a particular concern in judging the immigration policy. Did you run across any data on that?
Ms Fagnan: I didn't look at that question. I didn't look at their dependency on other sources of income. In my study, such a significant percentage were actually in the labour force and working that I examined what their performance was in the workforce and what income they were drawing from the labour force. Other studies have looked at dependency on welfare and other programs, but I did not look at that.
The Chairman: Am I correct in understanding that you have an assumption, then, that your group continue to work, that they don't leave the workforce?
Ms Fagnan: My assumption is that they don't leave the workforce in any greater numbers than do the Canadian-born women. The results I have suggest that this holds true. I don't have a workforce experience variable. I don't have a census that tells me how many, if they worked last year, if they will work next year, and if they have a consistent work history per individual. I approximate it by looking at the returns they get from aging, and it's similar for both the Canadian-born and the foreign-born. The returns to aging are similar for both, which suggests that their work histories are similar.
Added to that, the foreign-born get an added kick from years of residence in Canada, which suggests assimilation or something behind that.
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The Chairman: To summarize, then, let me ask you to review your recommendations with us.
One thing I heard you say fairly clearly is that if we pick on the basis of skill level, we do better economically, which is consistent with what other people have said.
You're also indicating that we have a responsibility to provide language training or whatever to enhance their entry into the workforce. We have an obligation to look at their qualifications and make sure we're being fair with them. If they're qualified to be a doctor per se, then we allow them to be doctors rather than make them be nurses, so we can get the maximum economic benefit. Is that fair?
Ms Fagnan: Yes.
The Chairman: What else? If you were talking to the Minister of Immigration, what would you tell him?
Ms Fagnan: I'm not sure if you mentioned screening.
The Chairman: I didn't.
Ms Fagnan: This is to find out more about the other class of immigrants that we allow to enter.
The Chairman: The family class?
Ms Fagnan: Yes. We should find out more about them so we can make better predictions about their participation in the labour force and have a better match of programs as well.
Not only will we get a greater benefit if we focus on the skilled sector, but given that we have other policy goals other than economic ones and that we do allow for the refugee and dependant categories, we can improve that by finding out more about those applicants as well.
The Chairman: Are you saying we should measure the skills of the family class or dependant class so we can provide appropriate programs? You're not saying we shouldn't screen them in the sense that we're going to exclude them. We should measure it so we know who they are and we can then help them adjust. Is that the gist?
Ms Fagnan: Yes, recognize that economic goals are not the only ones we hold. There are other reasons for allowing refugee applicants to enter the country.
The Chairman: Yes, you make a valid point. Refugees haven't really been part of our discussion as of yet.
I'll throw it back to the committee. I've probably taken more than my share of the time.
Mr. Dromisky (Thunder Bay - Atikokan): I'm just very intrigued by your comments. Do you see any hope of any significant change regarding the classifications we're dealing with here, particularly with the professional people? We have been treating them the same way year after year after year. There doesn't seem to be any apparent change. Do you see anything in the near future that might trigger or demand a change? Do you have any expectations in that area?
Ms Fagnan: In terms of the private sector and the way those in it view the applicants, the private sector will benefit more by doing an accurate assessment of someone's productivity than through discrimination or undervaluing credentials, or whatever term we want to use for that.
As those in the labour force learn more - the government has a role to play in assisting employers in that - about understanding foreign-born experience and education credentials, they will indeed reward them for their higher contributions to productivity because they will gain economically. That economic incentive is a strong one. It suggests that it will improve over time as employers learn more about them.
We can speed up that process through public policy by providing more information about these source countries and what our immigration policy is intended to do, etc.
Mr. Dromisky: But the problem is that we never really give them a chance in the sense that we never put them in a position in which we can check or test. That's because no one wants to give them that opportunity to practise what they have been trained to practise. Therefore, we put them into some other field in our economy and there they are, in a sense, being underproductive instead of operating on the level of their competency and their skills, which they have developed over the years. We simply don't want to take that chance.
You talked about a doctor. We won't let a doctor from another country practise doctoring. So we let him be an intern.
Ms Fagnan: As we learn about these individuals through their internships, then there should be the opportunity for them to move up.
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You gave an example of someone who was not allowed to enter the workforce as a qualified doctor but had to go through an internship. You could extend that recertification program to other occupations to allow the applicants to invest in their own recertification.
It is the same, for example, as a Canadian-born nurse who leaves the workforce for a significant period of time to have children and whose credentials are not current. She has to go back and take refresher courses and spend some more time on the wards before she has her RN status again. She makes that individual investment in recertifying, as it were, to work as an RN.
We could extend the kinds of programs we offer to those who are foreign-born or immigrants so they could do that as well. We could structurally set up better recertification programs so that there is a quicker way for them to recertify, make that investment and get into the labour force. That's because the risk for the employer is a real one.
Mr. Dromisky: Yes.
So what role do you think the government can play in light of the fact that we have to contend with, negotiate, and in a sense, take into consideration the input we get from societies, professional associations and guilds, and so forth, that seem to have the control in each and every one of the provinces? Do you think the federal government really can interfere in that area?
Ms Fagnan: I couldn't comment on that. I don't have enough experience with the interplay of federal policy and associations.
Mr. Dromisky: I just wondered if you knew.
The Chairman: Did you do this as a PhD thesis?
Ms Fagnan: No, it was part of my master's. There was some more work I did as well.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for attending. Actually, we've asked the department to rate the chapters. Yours was rated as one of the better ones.
Ms Fagnan: Oh, that's very good to know. Thank you for telling me.
The Chairman: You can thank the department. They weren't as impressed with some of the others, but yours came out near the top.
Thanks you for coming.
The meeting is adjourned.