TREATMENT OF PROFESSIONAL IMMIGRANTS A DISGRACE

THE treatment of most recently arrived professional immigrants can only be mildy described as professionally disgraceful to them. Most of us have heard or read about professional immigrants like engineers, doctors, lawyers, nurses and others who end up as taxi drivers, security guards, interpreters, unemployed, under-employed and so on because the responsible professional bodies, government regulatory agencies or other obstacles have prevented these individuals from joining in their professional designations. These are individuals who applied and qualified to come to Canada on the basis of their professional qualifications and ability to find jobs in their fields in Canada. Most if not all of them were never told that there will be professional obstacles in getting jobs in their fields.
If a person was an engineer, lawyer, doctor, nurse etc in their home country and probably worked at least 10 or more years there, the chance is that that person will likely be over thirty years old, married and with children. He or she will likely bring the family here.
Suppose then that that perosn cannot immediately get a job, a lot of people will be affected by his or her newly found professional destitudeness. We have heard or read about how governments and professional organizations will relax and or fast track these new immigrants into their professional designations in order to prevent the now over-studied professional despair of these individuals. We hear more of this empty promise at or near election time. But nothing has been done at all. Some of us have personally dealt with people who were professionals in their countries and who start out here desperately trying to find their nitch. It is the most frustrating and lonely exeperience for these individuals and their families. Some eventually break through but some do not. I will only give you four examples of people I have assisted in establishing themselves here. I use their real names. Because I am a lawyer,I will give examples related only to the law, albeit that I have other experiences with professionals in other fields.
Delano Europa was a Judge in the Philipines for many years. His father had been a prominent lawyer. When he came to Canada he was told that he would have to start from scratch. He had more or less to redo his law studies. The man had been a lawyer and judge in his home land, for God's sake. He had a family to feed. Delano Europa nearly gave up. But he did not. He found a job as a parking lot attendant in the underground garage at 2 Sheppard Avenue east in Toronto. From Judge to Underground parking lot attendant! Could a similarly positioned Canadian Judge descend like that if he or she went to South Africa, Zambia etc. Not in your life time. There, these people start at the top.
Delano Europe started studying law part-time at the university of Toronto Law School and completed it at tremendous cost to himself and to his family. I offered him an articling position. He finished and is now a Justice of the Peace in Toronto. But he lost many many years of comfort.
Victor Mubili is an engineer who trained in England. He worked as an engineer in Zambia, US and Saudi Arabia. When he came here on the basis of his professional background, the Professional Organization of Engineers (POE) wanted him to start more or less from the beginning to qualify to be an engineer here, while engineers from England who went to the same engineering school as him were exempted. Victor smelt a rat. Victor hired me to take the Professional Engineers Association to the Ontario Human Rights Commission where we alleged that he was discriminated against, contrary to the Human Rights Code. We went through mediation and the Professional Engineers Association relented and exempted Victor from going through the whole nine yards to qualify to be an engineer in Canada. Victor is now licensed as an Engineer in Canada.
Suvendu Goswami was a successful lawyer in India. He met similar professional roadblocks as Delano Europa. After much struggling and effort, he articled for me at 2 Sheppard Avenue East. He is now a successful lawyer practising out of his office in Scarborough. Many years were unnecessarily wasted trying to relaunch himself in Canada.
I am now trying to work on and with Bedawi Tago, who was a lawyer in Sudan for about 10 years. The Law Society of Upper Canada told him to re-do his entire law school training here. He did that at the University of Windsor. But they did not exempt him from the Bar Admissions program or the law articles. I think it is a disgrace. Tago has a family. He is like a professional nomad. But I can see light at the end of the day, albeit that ruins of his former professional training and self lie scattered all over the place. Quite a lot of professionals including former bank managers are working as bank tellers, professional office cleaners, taxi drivers and so on and they are hurting in every way.
It is no longer enough to just talk about bringing people into Canada and keeping silent about what we do with these people once they are here. We must also talk about what we do with these people once they enter Canada. This is as much a political, as it is a legal question.

Munyonzwe Hamalengwa practices criminal and immigration law in Toronto.
If you have any questions, e-mail him at: mhamalengwa@sympatico.ca or phone (416)644-1106. __________________________________________________