By the Globe and Mail | Link to Article
Ottawa’s bid to crack down on abuse of the temporary foreign worker program is stymieing efforts to bring in a class of highly skilled labourers Canada badly needs: doctors.
By the Globe and Mail | Link to Article
Ottawa’s bid to crack down on abuse of the temporary foreign worker program is stymieing efforts to bring in a class of highly skilled labourers Canada badly needs: doctors.
Physician recruiters across the country say the red tape and fees now associated with the program are causing major headaches for international physicians who want to fill vacancies in Canada’s hospitals and medical offices, especially in rural communities where doctor shortages are common.
A tightening of the rules in the last three years – including the most recent overhaul, announced last month – has convinced some recruiters to give up on the TFW program altogether.
“Many, many, many recruiters that were doing this work back in 2011 have dropped off,” said Joan Mavrinac, head of the regional physician recruitment office for Essex County, which includes the border city of Windsor, Ont.
“Then, with the changes in 2013, we’ve become far fewer and now the changes in 2014, I think, are going to effectively kill the program [for doctors.]”The TFW program had been under fire for more than a year when Employment Minister Jason Kenney and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander announced sweeping reforms designed to prevent unscrupulous employers from importing low-wage foreign workers to displace Canadian employees.
The reforms include a 10-day turnaround time to process applications for highly skilled, high-wage workers, but they do not address any of the unique concerns of doctors, many of which stem from the fact MDs are generally self-employed.
“We are drifting further and further away from anything that makes sense for physicians,” Ms. Mavrinac said. “These people aren’t pouring coffee and flipping burgers, but basically, they are all caught up in the same thing.”
For international physicians, the TFW program has functioned as both a bridge to permanent residency and a means to work in Canada temporarily or while continuing to live in the United States. But since most are independent contractors, there is no for-profit company ready and willing to pay the fees and plow through the paperwork as there would be in the case of other high-skilled professions.
That work is often left to health authorities or local physician recruitment offices, neither of which are flush with cash. The recruitment office in Southern Georgian Bay, for example, is funded partly by the Rotary Club and an annual charity golf tournament.