Hudman

I'd have some sympathy for these sentiments if they were true. There was/is some positive discrimination which I dont necessarilly agree with. But the issue you are missing is that for years there has been a white, male old boys club in many institutions.
This latent discrimination has detered some ethnic groups from entering these areas of employment in the past.
Therefore your "native" brits by discriminatory default have created this need to redress the balance in a rather clumsey fashion to reflect the 'new' diversity in Britain.
What exactly is your definition of native Britains, if we follow this theory here in Canada we are all f#$ked and should not be looked after, or employed.The only valid usage of native in a national context would be to describe the first nations of N.America.

I really think the type of ex-pats Canada needs are PNP entrants, rather than the moaning PR's who for me do not represent the soul/core of most decent folk in UK.

hudd

What I was trying to say that when I graduated in the mid 1980's I was told being an Anglo-saxon male with family history going back to the 12th century that I would not get a job with a London council. Fortunately this type of discrimination has been squashed out today in London.

I do not believe in racism and discrimination. I have many good friends from many ethic backgrounds. When I have hired staff I treat them with respect and made sure that got a decent salary. I noticed that as a manager, HR had the tendency to try and offer immigrants $10k+ less salary. I always agrued the point that you are hiring someone for their qualification & professional expertise.

This thread started with "is $80K a good salary for a Senior Engineer in BC". This thread may have strayed off topic, but is that gent from the UK being offered a decent salary or is he being low balled. I think also many ex Brits has expressed the feeling have been not treated as their Canadian counterparts when it came to salary etc.

Out of interest I hired staff from England, Scotland, Wales, Canada, Ireland, France, India, Korea, Holland, Parkastan, Australia etc and from multiple religious/ethic groups. After living and working in Canada for 8 years and not treated particular well buy some employers I has learnt more to respect and treat people as equals.

I think the establishment in Canada and Britain wants to keep the problem of discrimination under the "carpet".
I think its right that potential immigrants to Canada from the UK know the nice things and not so nice things about moving to Canada. Most people in this forum will agree its a pretty good country to live in but there are some work/business practices that go on that they would not expect to experience back in the UK.

Almost Canadian

What the hell does that mean ? How are PNP applicants any different to PR applicants ? Aren't they both after the same thing just via different routes (usually dependant upon the type of "job" they do in the UK ?

I have lost count of the number of UK Police Officers that have been fast tracked through the PR system or have obtained PNP only to then fail the Canadian Police Forces entrance exams.

Who exactly would you define as "..the soul/core of most decent folk in the UK ?

Hudman

I have found a lot of PR's come from a quite solvent comfortable background and want more of the same here. When a lot of professionals get here they seem suprised/ upset/ confused that they can't stroll in to their dream job and salary. This is all Candada's fault then the bellyaching about house prices,food schools etc seems validated by the terrible way they have been treated.
Naturally expectations are high if your dream is taking 2+ years. If the work thing goes tits up a lot are not prepared to be flexible, downsize (god forbid you may have to live in a condo/townhouse) and get rid of that big SUV that we all seem to need to get out of our system.
A lot of really inspiring non-professionals I met and worked with back home, have neither the funding for PR or skills for PNP, but have good attitude and would not be continually bleating about house prices, food etc.
Your example of PNP's for coppers is very poor as from my experience of the police back home they would struggle to master the social skills to get on in Canadian public life.
The PNP's I've met have got here double quick, got on with earning and perhaps have not got the luxury of huge house sales to skew their expectations of what Canada holds.

Buchan6

As a PR I agree with the section of the quote I've left above. However I dont see this as Canadas fault. The only way to find out was to try it. I have no regrets that we'll return in a year or so and will always have positive thoughts and view of over here.

oceanMDX

Actually, Canada ranks a whole lot higher than you suggest. The list of countries of the world sorted by their gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita puts Canada in 7th place, Australia at 14th and the UK in 18th place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...PP)_per_capita

hudd

This is where I read the info from

http://www.finfacts.com/biz10/global...epercapita.htm

Must apologies if I read wrong data

Regards

hudd

oceanMDX

^^^^ Old data...

g_is_for_canada

Oh I see - so it's basically ethnics versus the rest of the British population who are all white, males who belonged to these exclusive clubs and wore special ties signifying the fact. Come on!

I don't disagree that well before my time there were a tiny handful of people with the right parentage and who went to certain schools, who landed comfortable jobs and were paid the highest salaries, for, possibly, doing nowt. There were many hard working people who would not have been classified as ethnics who had to work their nuts off for a poor existence.

However I refute the term "positive discrimination", as it's just a feeble cover for discrimination, and there's nothing positive or right about it. Redressing the balance is fine, but I'd rather support a system that recognized people for their skills rather than being obsessed with equality. There ARE racial and cultural differences that will always cause an imbalance in the world. Nature is tough. If the imbalance was ever about equally talented people, imbalanced purely on ethnicity or whatever, then I'd be the first advocate in getting it changed.

In Canada, there IS open discrimination against foreign workers, which we tolerate, albeit, reluctantly. For example, Canadian work experience as a criteria for employment will instantly discriminate against new residents, although I've never seen any justification for how CWE has any significant bearing over someone's ability.

However, I'd still rather a system that allowed me, as a foreign worker, to demonstrate my skills on an equal platform, than some lefty politician coming along and saying we don't have enough British/Chinese/Russian/... rocket scientists so we need to discriminate in favour of them to correct this terrible imbalance

Hudman

You obviously have an issue with the Canadian workplace which as somebody with access to modern media you should have been aware of, the real problem lies with Canadian immigration and immigrantion consultants selling a dream. I believe there is enough information out there.
What should Canada do, we have already established you are against any form of positive discrimination so basically your bug%ered

getoutofbritainquick

For those of us that have been around for enough years working our way through the ranks, no longer by seniority (length of service) in the UK but by education ability and experience this thread would have been all too familiar. This WAS the UK back in the 70's & 80's and I guess in some places still is.

However this does still exist in Canada, I can quote many examples in job adds which stated must have 6, 10, 12 years North American experience blah, blah, blah. Actually totally illegal in the UK and the media would have a field day.

But the good news things are starting to change in Canada much quicker than I expected. I received my regular BC professional institute news letter and they have come to an agreement to recognise all engineering qualifications with Alberta without having to go the red seal route. This discrimination applied to Canadians out of province as well as newly landed PR's.

My recent interviews with BC Hydro were extremely positive something I would not have believed a couple of years ago although they still mentioned the seniority thingy and made it clear they do not usually hire from abroad - but its a start. The world has changed its now a global skill market and most countries are suffering skill shortages in specific areas particularly engineering were the get rich quick brigade have avoided like the plague due to relatively poor pay compared to other sectors.

NG in the UK have gone to Africa and India to recruit Project Engineers because we cannot get them in the UK (because we made them all redundant a few years ago in the dash for profit) and boy are we paying for that decision now. Just to add insult to injury in the UK the director who made the engineers redundant a few years ago in now CEO.

As people on the forum say time and time again do your research and accept Canada for what it is (or don't move to Canada), market forces will drive the rest as it is now.

Grah

school teacher 25 years experince in winnipeg School division 1 moving to winnipeg 7 oaks hool division will lose ALL senority and pay. coz they are classed as different workplaces not trade skills.