Report of the Conference on Foreign Credential Recognition

Conference Overview

This report outlines selected highlights of discussions that took place at the Conference on Foreign Credential Recognition co-hosted by the Conference Board of Canada and the Foreign Credentials Referral Office in Calgary, Alberta, on April 22–23, 2008.

The conference brought together key leaders from across the foreign credential recognition spectrum: government representatives, regulatory bodies, assessment agencies, employers, post-secondary educational institutions, immigrant serving organizations and other stakeholders. Discussions focused on current promising practices of the foreign credential recognition process and provoked critical thinking about what more can be done to improve Canada’s capacity to integrate internationally trained individuals so that they can fulfil their aspirations and actively contribute to Canada’s economic growth.

A total of 136 delegates from 102 organizations participated in the conference, and a total of 44 speakers presented seven workshops and panel discussions.

The conference was designed to stimulate dialogue among participants on how governments and others can work together to enhance coordination of foreign credential recognition processes and encourage collaboration with benefits for all Canadians.

Individual workshops organized on the following broad topics constituted an important part of the conference program:

Conference Agenda
List of participant organizations

Strategic Partnerships in Foreign Credential Recognition

• 1A Innovative and Promising Practices: What Provincial and Territorial Governments Are Doing
• 1B Foreign Credential Assessment: A Collaborative Path Forward

Initiatives for Integrating Internationally Trained Individuals

• 2A Sharing Employer-Led Innovative Practices
• 2B Creative Partnerships: Filling the Skills Gaps

Strategies to Assess Credentials and Provide Information to Internationally Trained Individuals Overseas

• 3A Cutting-Edge Initiatives to Assess and Upgrade Skills Overseas
• 3B Enhancing Coordination and Leveraging Capacity: Information Strategies for Internationally Trained Individuals

Navigating the Foreign Credential Recognition Landscape in Canada

• 4 Strategies to Inform Internationally Trained Individuals in Canada

The conference achieved its objectives, including reinforcing a key goal of the Foreign Credentials Referral Office to promote further collaboration and partnerships among a broad range of key players to improve outcomes for internationally trained individuals.

Common themes

Three themes emerged from the broad topics discussed during the workshop and plenary sessions.

Theme 1 – The importance of multistakeholder collaboration:

• Sharing lessons learned among provinces and territories helps to address specific foreign credential recognition issues.
• Regulators are under pressure to review credentialing processes and find collaborative solutions while maintaining public safety and security.
• There is a need to integrate successful pilot projects that are multi-stakeholder driven into ongoing programming.
• Creating linkages between the activities of immigrant serving organizations and the needs of employers and immigrants is critical.
• Assessing credentials and other competencies overseas requires collaboration across the foreign credential recognition community.
• Multistakeholder partnerships have led to initiatives that provide a continuum of assessment to internationally trained individuals while still in their countries of origin – from self-assessments and competency skills assessments to the pre-assessment of credentials.

Employer-led projects suggest that trust is developing and contributing to more durable partnerships.

Related opportunities

• Collaboration between local stakeholders has proven to be very successful. There are significant benefits in replicating initiatives such as the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council and Hire Immigrants Ottawa models.
• Developing partnerships within the continuum of service to leverage capacity is critical. For example, immigrant serving organizations, post-secondary institutions and employment service organizations working together to pool expertise.
• National initiatives such as the Pan-Canadian Quality Standards in International Credential Evaluation project aimed at improving qualification recognition and integration of skilled immigrants into the Canadian work force are a positive step toward:
  • A better understanding of credential assessment processes and practices; and
  • The development of a set of recommendations to achieve increased use of a common set of standards and practices and improve their portability within Canada.
• Enhancing linkages between organizations to improve coordination of information available on the Internet.

Theme 2 – Support for employers and immigrants

• Encouraging employers to move beyond the Canadian work experience requirement is critical to success. The provision of tax incentives and continued funding for bridging programs were suggested.
• Employers need to have comprehensive human resources planning strategies that cover all employees and should include processes specific to the hiring and integration of internationally trained individuals in the workplace.
• A common language for foreign credential recognition and immigrant integration that is understood by all stakeholders is key to finding labour market solutions.
• Building awareness of the services that assessment agencies offer is important.

Clarifying perceived barriers for employers about foreign credentials is as important as managing expectations of immigrants.

Related opportunities

• There is merit in leveraging provincial investments in offices, for example, HealthForce Ontario and Global Experience Ontario that complement federal initiatives, such as the Foreign Credentials Referral Office, and where internationally trained and educated professionals can obtain information on how they can qualify for professional practice.
• Promoting the use of bridging programs was identified by participants as a successful opportunity because they tap into a highly educated talent pool of internationally trained individuals by establishing internships in entry-level positions in all professions.
• It is important for employers to develop broad-based human resource plans and policies that include focused support programs for internationally trained individuals, such as cultural and workplace training sessions. The focus should be on finding experienced people and not people with Canadian experience.
• Providing internationally trained individuals with access to tools that will offer guidance for integrating into the Canadian labour market is critical. These tools may suggest work in a related field while they obtain full accreditation.

Theme 3 – Timely preparation – Pre- and post-arrival

• Immigrants benefit substantially if they are provided with information on foreign credential assessment and recognition, the Canadian labour market, and education or competency skills requirements earlier in the immigration process.
• It is important to provide information, in Canada and overseas, to ensure that newcomers and prospective immigrants make informed decisions and have realistic expectations about immigrating to Canada.
• Employer recruitment initiatives overseas will continue to increase and it is important to develop an infrastructure to support these efforts.
• Providing foreign credential recognition and labour market information to internationally trained individuals is not enough; a more comprehensive approach is required. Some current promising programs also provide social or life skills and health and wellness information.
• Individual self-promotion and networking activities are important. Internationally trained individuals should be encouraged to be pragmatic about Canadian labour market opportunities.
• Organizations that provide services to immigrants should be sensitized to their needs through diversity training.

Related opportunities

• Pilots that provide self-assessment of competency skills, as well as the assessment of professional skills and credentials overseas should be explored as ongoing program offerings.
• Canadian post-secondary educational institutions are encouraged to continue their work with professional bodies and international partners toward professional portability agreements that mutually recognize international degrees.
• Pilots (such as the Canadian Immigration Integration Project managed by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges) that provide information overseas and enable employers to connect with individuals are showing benefits. These promising pilots reduce the time between the recruitment and employment of internationally trained individuals in their related fields of training.

Opening remarks

The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Attracting International Talent: Collaborating on Foreign Credential Recognition

The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, provided the conference’s opening remarks, outlining the Government of Canada’s vision for a 21st century immigration policy and the proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). These changes will provide greater flexibility and authority to both manage the immigration backlog and set priorities that will match Canada’s needs. Minister Finley stressed the important role that the development and use of knowledge plays in Canada’s economic growth and the timeliness of proposed changes to IRPA to enhance our immigration system.

“We need to attract talented individuals and to ensure that they succeed once here,” said Minister Finley. “By helping immigrants find out how to get their credentials assessed and recognized more quickly, especially before they enter Canada, we can improve their chances for success. That can only be good for Canada and for newcomers.”

Keynote address

Professor Lesleyanne Hawthorne, Associate Dean,
International Relations, University of Melbourne, Australia
An International Comparison of Credential Recognition Measures and the Canadian Context

Dr. Lesleyanne Hawthorne presented international research on foreign credential recognition. The following are some of her findings:

• In the areas of global variations in foreign credential requirements: newcomers have better labour market outcomes when they have strong English language skills and when they attend one of the “top 500” universities around the world.
• In the areas of global strategies designed to enhance foreign credential recognition: multilateral agreements that facilitate labour mobility (e.g., the European Union) and major national reforms like in Australia were identified as promising practices that may have international applications.
• In the areas of effective foreign credential recognition solutions: Ten principles to improve foreign credential recognition processes were identified. They include the importance of global collaboration (e.g., jointly developed exam between the Medical Council of Canada and the Australian Medical Council); the importance of providing an accurate and early definition of foreign credential recognition training pathways; and the importance of transparency and accountability in the screening process, such as fairness initiatives.

Panel discussion

Attracting the Talents of Internationally Trained Individuals

During the first morning’s plenary session, Anne Golden, President and CEO of the Conference Board of Canada, moderated a four member panel discussion. Panellists: Steven Droz, VP, Human Resources, Quebec, SNC Lavalin; Sue Cummings, Senior VP, Human Resources Canadian Retail, TD Canada Trust; Raj Narayanaswamy, Co-founder and CEO, Replicon Incorporated; and Andrew Sharpe, Executive Director, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.

Discussion highlights included:

• The value of multisectoral partnerships;
• The importance of consistently using comprehensive competency tests when hiring new immigrants;
• The fact that human capital is a key element for economic growth;
• The acknowledgment that Canada must be strategic in its efforts to attract, integrate and maintain international talent; and
• The fact that matching immigrant selection to changing labour market needs would benefit Canada’s productivity growth.

Newcomers enrich the fabric of Canadian society and should be quickly integrated into the labour force as active contributors.

Key speakers

The Honourable Jean Augustine, Fairness Commissioner, Ontario
Breaking Ground in Ontario: A New Approach to Registration and Licensing

The Honourable Jean Augustine, Fairness Commissioner, Ontario, shared information on some of the key initiatives that her office is pursuing to ensure that registration practices for self-regulated professions are transparent, objective, impartial and fair. The Fairness Commissioner also spoke of audit activities that the Office is undertaking as a result of the release of a Framework for Audits of Registration Practices.

Ms. Ratna Omidvar, Executive Director, Maytree Foundation
The Importance of Multistakeholder Collaboration in Finding Solutions to the Integration of Internationally Trained Individuals into the Labour Market

Ms. Ratna Omidvar, Executive Director, Maytree Foundation, highlighted some of the benefits of collaboration in addressing foreign credential recognition issues of common interest. Ms. Omidvar reiterated the need for stakeholders to work together to reduce the length of time that it takes for immigrants to attain their full potential in Canada.

Concluding remarks

The event signalled the importance of collaboration between stakeholders in sharing successful initiatives and working together on common challenges to improve outcomes for internationally trained individuals.

During the plenary discussions, delegates agreed that there was a clear appetite for action among stakeholders to address some of the long-standing barriers to immigrant integration into the Canadian labour market. There is a momentum building among foreign credential recognition stakeholders to work toward action with the support of governments.

The Foreign Credentials Referral Office is very pleased with the level of engagement and the results of the discussions at the conference. The commitment of time and energy from the participants in this event resulted in the sharing of new initiatives, promising practices and partnerships, as well as numerous ideas being put forward that will be evaluated and taken into consideration as the Foreign Credentials Referral Office moves forward.

Employers are encouraged to develop strategic plans and work together on targeted recruitment initiatives to achieve successful labour market integration outcomes.