We moved to oakville Ontario just over a year ago and now unfortunate we're back again.
We thought we would share our experience as there is definitely a problem with the laws in Ontario.
My wife, an onchology doctor couldn't get registered in Ontario because here qualifications were not Canadian. We had great comments on here previous but none of them we're accepted when we .tried
My wife was offered work from hospitals , who by the way are short staffed , but she couldn't accept them . We met doctors driving taxis , accountant working in Starbucks and so on.
In the end my wife went to the nursing college of Ontario - who buy the way are a joke , and she asked them for a hit list she could work here way through .
No 1 on the list was " you haven't proven to me you can speak English "!
We booked flights the next day.

That aside - if your sponsored or prepare to do the three years of Ontario education - you will love it , either that or go to another province .
We has tears at the airport and area still gutted , but we could not wait 2 years.

What you describe is not uncommon. I read a story about a physiotherapist who moved to Canada. She could practice in her own country, her credentials were good enough for Canadian immigration, but unfortunately she was not able to register with the Canadian professional body. So she took a job at Starbucks.

while I sympathize with professionals who are unable to work until they get their credentials sorted, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

A little bit of research would have quickly ascertained that this was the case surely?

I knew it was going to be an uphill battle to get my OCT certification before I even moved here so I never even bothered.


edited to add :

I can't quite work out what you are saying here
"In the end my wife went to the nursing college of Ontario - who buy the way are a joke , and she asked them for a hit list she could work here way through ."

a hit list????

I'm confused as well. I just did a search on google for "british doctor moving to Canada" and immediately found a bunch of threads, including some from this forum, that say that both nurses and doctors need to sit Canadian equivalency exams.

Immigration will take your credentials as proof that you are qualified as a doctor - which makes sense. Otherwise you just claim to be a doctor but you have no proof to back it up. So Immigration will be happy that you are in fact a doctor, but since health care in Canada changes province-by-province, it's up to each province to decide what qualifications are required to allow people to practice.

One example - http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=531930

Sorry you didn't have a great experience, hopefully you're able to rebuild things back in the UK. Good luck.

There is nothing wrong with our laws here in Ontario as education systems are not the same the world over.

When I was in my PhD program a guy from Pakistan was in the Master's program in the same department. He already had a Master's degree from Pakistan, and his family were ticked off that he had not been admitted to the PhD program, but his Master's degree was in no way equivalent to a Canadian Master's degree.

In Canada you do four years of undergraduate study for a Bachelor's degree and then do a Master's degree in one or two years. In Pakistan, that guy had only done two years of for his Bachelor's degree and another two years for his Master's. So he had four years of university and had both a Bachelor's and a Master's but after the same amount of time a Canadian student would only have a Bachelor's. Do not try to tell me that his Master's was the equivalent of mine because it simply wasn't - and he himself admitted that the Canadian students in the Master's program knew far more than he did despite him having a Master's from Pakistan. After being here a little while he said he fully understood why his precious education was not recognized as being equivalent to a Canadian education.

Since education systems are not the same, it is perfectly correct that we should not recognize degrees from other countries as being equivalent to our Canadian degrees. Now, I personally think that degrees from other Western countries, in which the education systems are more or less the same as ours, should be recognized as being equivalent to ours but they cannot single out Western countries without also recognizing degrees from non-Western countries (they would be accused of racism) so they have to treat everyone from other countries the same.

As for foreign trained doctors, I have had some terrible experiences with doctors from Asia. For example, several years ago I broke my hand in four places. Because it was a Sunday and I didn't want to spend all day in the hospital I went to a walk-in clinic. I saw an Asian doctor who told me that no, my hand wasn't actually broken (I've broken more bones than I can count over the years so I knew damned well that it was broken) but that I had a skin condition of some sort (my skin looked slightly pinkish, as it does in the cold every winter, and I explained that to him but he did not believe me). He picked up a scalpel and made a slit in my hand and then simply couldn't understand why there was only blood coming out and no pus. I left and went to another clinic in town where an old friend from high school worked as a nurse (had I known she was working that day I would have gone there first). She got me in to see one of their doctors (Canadian born and trained) who agreed that my hand was indeed broken and sent me for x-rays. When I returned with my x-rays a couple of hours later sure enough - there were four broken bones in my hand!

My family doctor is Scottish and he started his practice with an Irish guy. Every doctor in their practice came over from Britain and none of them had any problem going through the process to get their qualifications recognized here. My aunt is a nurse who trained in Scotland and after moving here she had no problem going through the process to get her qualifications recognized here. That your wife was unwilling to go through the process to get her qualifications recognized here, as so many thousands of others have done, says more about her than about our laws.

Why would this be racist? No-one is saying that Pakistani degrees are less highly regarded because of the colour of the teachers' skin.

It would be very easy to compile a list of places where professional standards are comparable to Canada. But I'm pretty sure that this doesn't happen because of plain old protectionism. Doctors, nurses, vets, engineers love to protect their profession against immigrants. And well-educated immigrants from places with high standards are the most dangerous competition.

It would appear, from our experience that certain education systems do get more recognition than others. For my husband (with a degree in Engineering Physics from one of the best Universities in Russia) to get the Professional Engineers designation here he has to take exams (a lot of exams) for our british friends (with considerably less experience) they just have to pass the ethics exam. It's annoying, it's not really fair, but that's life and life isn't fair.

nope it's not fair but it is researchable.
My point to the OP was that none of it should have come as a surprise.

A few minutes on the internet or the phone usually tells you exactly what the requirements are. I can't understand people moving to a new country without at least gaining some idea of what might be involved in gaining employment in their chosen field

What, he hadn't taken the required methodology of finger painting? Or do you mean he hadn't been extorted by Canadian institution to pay the tuition for a year and a half of nonsense, so they wouldn't let him in? They probably did him a favour.

I used to be a British Engineer, my options are probably the same as your husbands.

The trouble for expat engineers in Canada is that they typically (varies from province to province) must have either a bachelors degree (within the approved countries) or they have to have at least 10 years work experience as an engineer if you have this then all you need to do is take the ethics exam.

If you don't have this (i.e. 5 years experience on a college engineering diploma) then you have to go through all the hoops and pass all the exams within the criteria they (the provincial engineering association) deem necessary.

It can be done but it can also be costly, it's also not the easiest thing to do if like me you forget the intricacies of the academics. Most of what you learn in engineering programs are the core principles which then get simplified in work environment.

If you are a 'professional' or even a 'tradesman' then you have to do more research into this before you take the plunge. <- This can't be stressed enough.

I am not saying it is racist, I am saying they would be accused of racism (from the usual suspects). Also, if they didn't treat everyone equally then immigrants from countries from which degrees weren't recognized would likely vote for another political party (ie. any other than the one that changed the law or any that promised to change it in their favour) and no political party is going to do anything to alienate an entire ethnic group.




It isn't protectionism. As I said, my family doctor's practice was nothing but British trained doctors. They wouldn't hire one from anywhere else. And they never had any trouble with getting those doctor's credentials recognized. The surgeon who did my hernia surgery a couple of months ago was Canadian and went to university here for undergrad but he did his medical training in Scotland and he obviously had no problem becoming licensed here. So it isn't about protectionism from professional associations.

It is particularly surprising when it is someone with that much education who does it.

Do the licensing authorities care about what voters think? Do any political parties licence professionals?



Yes it is. People take the time, money and effort to pass as they have to if that is what they wish to do

I'm still curious about the " hit list" the OP was asking about. Tbh I can't interpret half of what they are complaining about.
Especially the bit about being an " onchology" ( sic) doctor when previous posts talk about nursing.