HUMA Committee Report

DISSENTING OPINION OF THE NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY

New Democrats would like to thank the many witnesses who appeared before the committee on the Foreign Qualifications study.

While we support the general direction and recommendations in this report, there are key points around funding and time frames that we felt needed to be highlighted.

Spending is about choices and choosing options that will improve and make the foreign qualification system more productive is an obvious one.

Using fiscal restraint as an excuse not to deal with problems in health human resources planning will result in perverse consequences like continuing high spending on wrong options. 

It is clear to us that there needs to be more action from the federal government to rationalize the system, communicate with potential immigrants overseas and to provide the appropriate funding to help qualified immigrants get the necessary training or experience to be able to work in Canada.

New Democrats suggest these recommendations should be amended as follows:

Recommendation One

The Committee recommends that the federal government continue to financially support bridging programs that put a particular emphasis on profession specific language training, work experience, identification of skill gaps, and supports to fill those gaps. The Committee further recommends that bridging programs and program stakeholders engage in practices that use data sharing to improve the understanding of recruitment and retention patterns and workforce outcomes.

Recommendation Four

The Committee recommends that Citizenship and Immigration Canada approach provincial and territorial regulatory authorities to discuss the possibility of pre-qualifying internationally trained individuals for certain occupations as part of the immigration process.

Recommendation Seven

The Committee recommends that the federal government act as a model employer with regard to internship opportunities for internationally trained individuals by maintaining such initiatives as Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Federal Internship for Newcomers Program and increasing the number of interns accepted into the program.

Recommendation Thirteen

The Committee recommends that funding for the Pan-Canadian Framework for the Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Qualifications and its related programs be maintained at least at the 2011-2012 level for the next five years.

Finally, given the importance of health human resources data and long-range planning, New Democrats support the continued collection of data by the Canadian Institute for Health Information so it can be used in the development of any national centre for the collection and analysis of data on human resources in the health sector.