Originally Posted by Almost Canadian

One assumes that such issues arise when such immigrants seek work in the US or UK. How do you account for the fact that, when they do, their salaries reach the same as the locals far sooner than appears to be the case in Canada?

Originally Posted by Novocastrian

Of course, I'm not a Pakistani.

Originally Posted by JamesM

How do we know? You've never shown us your passports!

Originally Posted by JamesM

Yes I was thinking the same.

But is it institutional racism/discrimination or is it the system in Canada pulls in a miss match of skills for the jobs that are available?

Originally Posted by JamesM

When you look at the whole making people re-qualify thing you can go further and say the system then discriminates on top of the mis-matching.

Originally Posted by JamesM

In the main an immigrant is smarter going to the UK or US (if they have the alternative available) so Canada punishes itself twice by failing the pool of skilled immigrants who do show up and also pushing the very brightest elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Novocastrian

I can't be expected to carry them all, can I?

Originally Posted by colchar

This issue is not as cut and dried as some make it seem - there are a lot of issues involved.

For example, many of these people might be educated in their home countries but those educations are not necessarily up to the standards of a Canadian education.

When I was in my PhD program there was a guy from Pakistan in the Master's program in my department. He had applied for the PhD program because he already had a Master's from Pakistan but had only been granted admission to the Master's program here. He said that his family was pissed about that but that, after a few weeks here, he realized that the school had made the right decision because his education simply wasn't up to the standards of the educations the Canadian students in the program had.

In Pakistan he had received a Bachelor's degree after only two years of study and a Master's after a further two years of study. But here in Canada those four years of university education would only earn you a Bachelor's degree. He received a B.A. in half the time that it takes a Canadian student to earn one so how can that degree possibly be considered as equal to a Canadian degree? And despite already having that Master's from Pakistan he was far behind the Canadian students in the Master's program in terms of knowledge, skills, etc. so how can a degree like that, which was clearly not up to Canadian standards, be considered in any way equal to the equivalent degree here in Canada?

Now if someone comes here with a degree, or degrees, from countries such as the US, UK, Australia, or similar countries that is one thing as those degrees are equal to ours. But people coming here with degrees from countries like India, Pakistan, etc. have degrees that are simply not up to Canadian standards and they should not be treated as if they are for employment purposes.

Then one also has to take into account the work culture here compared to places like India. A former employer of my brother's sent him to India for several months to run their office there and he said the work cultures were night and day. He said that, in India, people with ideas were often afraid to speak up and explain those ideas because they showed deference to those above them, and that those above them would often shoot them down the moment they opened their mouths. And from what he said, it was even worse for women than for men. He didn't like any of that and, because he was there from head office and was in charge for the time that he was there, he made a concerted effort to change the culture in that office. It worked to some degree but he really had to encourage people to speak up because they were almost in fear of those above them. By the time he left he said the culture had changed somewhat but he is not sure how long that lasted after he left because a few months later he was offered a position with another company in Toronto and changed jobs.

Are people coming from that kind of work culture really prepared to walk into roles here in Canada similar to those that they held in a place like India? If someone was in management there and wasn't used to listening to those below them, especially women, are they really suited for a similar role in a more liberal country like Canada? Should they not start out in a lower position, learn how things are done here, and then work their way back up rather than simply walking into a similar role here?

Even professionals, like doctors, might not have the required skills. Several years ago I broke one of my fingers in three places. I have broken countless bones over the years so I knew it was broken. This happened on a weekend so my family doctor wasn't in which necessitated a trip to a walk-in clinic. When the Indian doctor saw me he insisted that my finger was not broken, but that I had an infection of some sort because my fingers were rather reddish/pink (this often happens to me during the winter so was nothing unusual). He then grabbed a small razor blade, slit my finger to draw out the puss, and couldn't understand why only blood was coming out.

I left and went to another walk-in clinic in town where an old friend from high school worked as a nurse. She got me in to see a doctor, who happened to be Canadian, and when he looked at my finger the first thing he said was "that's broken". He sent me for x-rays which confirmed that it was, indeed, broken. After he had set my finger I returned to the original walk-in clinic, asked to see the Indian doctor again, and when I did I handed him my x-rays and asked that he explain to me again how my fingers were infected, not broken. He, of course, had no explanation.

The bottom line is that this is not a cut and dried issue - those coming from other countries do not, necessarily, have education, skills, and experience that are equal to Canadian education, skills, and experience and they should not be treated as if they do.

Originally Posted by Novocastrian

I received a BA (Nat Sci), an MA and a DPhil from a fairly decent University in England in a grand total of six years.

Clearly I'm inferior to a Canadian student who might well have taken 10 years to achieve something vaguely comparable.

Of course, I'm not a Pakistani.

Originally Posted by scilly

It only took you SIX years to get 3 degrees??

What happened to the 3 years to a BA, 2 years to a Masters and 3 years to a PHd???

Originally Posted by Oakvillian

What an extraordinarily bigoted, xenophobic post.

You once knew a Pakistani guy who acknowledged he had been placed into the appropriate academic program in a Canadian university given his qualifications and experience. Therefore all degrees from "countries like India, Pakistan, etc" should be dismissed?

Your brother once worked in an Indian office where junior staff were deferential in a culturally normal way; therefore all people from "that kind of work culture" are unsuited to equivalent Canadian employment?

You once had an unfortunate experience with a doctor of Indian descent (who, if he was practicing in Ontario, will have had to undergo residency and so forth in this province and been certified by the Ontario college...); therefore all foreign trained doctors "might not have the required skills"?

Unless, of course, they're from countries like the US, the UK or Australia.

Honestly, get over yourself.

Originally Posted by Novocastrian

I'm a quick learner. Smarter than your average bear. And it was a DPhil not a PhD.

Originally Posted by misplacedheidi

Oxbridge - they give out the Masters when they get the DPhil.

It's a 2fer.

Originally Posted by scilly

It only took you SIX years to get 3 degrees??

What happened to the 3 years to a BA, 2 years to a Masters and 3 years to a PHd???


But you are probably not inferior to a Canadian student, depending on when you did your high school in the UK ..................


OH and I came with very similar degrees to you, but in the days when you had to select your courses for specialisation at the age of 14. Thus, we entered university with a much higher skill level than in the US.

OH took 7 years to his PHd

I worked in a lab with a girl who had a BSc from the University of Texas .......... she had not used a pipette until she began working in that lab after getting her degree. I'd used a pipette in Chemistry from about age 15

Out of pure interest, the guy I worked for down there took my BSc Hons degree and compared it with US degrees ...... he was amazed (and so was I!!!) when the work I had done for that degree was more than that required for a Master's degree from Harvard.

Canadian high schools graduated students with a higher level of skills that in the US, and this transferred into a higher level of skills in the sciences from Canadian universities compared to the US.

There used to a way of grading "foreign" degrees and high school graduation for entry to universities here ............. it was complicated by the UK preference for letter grades, but basically the method applied a weighter loading to degrees from certain countries than others for people applying for entry to masters and PhDs here.

Originally Posted by Tirytory

..........

Novo is Gandalf... Everyone is inferior to him!


Seriously don't you feel like you should be more aware of a posters background before making such remarks? I personally found it a wee bit patronising.



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