New agency to speed credentials process

Avance a favor de los inmigrantes calificados o mas dinero para la burocracia dorada que vive de los inmigrantes? Ud tiene la respuesta.

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New agency to speed credentials process: top government official

DiversityWorks
April 03, 2006

By DiversityWorks staff

A new federal agency being created by the Harper government will ensure that assessment of immigrant credentials will be more efficient, a senior Ottawa bureaucrat says.

The new body, however, is not intended to replace existing credential review agencies, says Martin Green, director-general of program policy planning for Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC).

“I think there’s sort of agreement that things can be done more efficiently than they currently are,” Green said in an interview. “They’re basically looking at launching a process of consultation with the key stakeholders, which are the provinces, the regulatory bodies and the various assessment agencies”

Diane Finley, the new minister of HRSDC, and Monte Solberg, her counterpart at Citizenship and Immigration, recently restated plans, announced by the Conservatives during the election campaign, for creation of the new Canadian Agency for Assessment and Recognition of Credentials.

Both ministers have been clear, however, that there will be a consultative process on the design and role of the new body, Green told DiversityWorks. The new agency will play more of a consultative and coordinating role among existing bodies, he said.

“There’s no intention that this new national agency for assessment would supplant the existing regulatory bodies— there’s no intention that they’d start issuing licences or start doing qualification or credentials assessment themselves. It’s fully the intention that they’d continue to work with some of the existing bodies.”

Existing agency well-positioned

At least one advocacy organization for new immigrants has questioned the need for creation of a new federal agency while an existing body, the Alliance of Credential Assessment Services of Canada, is fully qualified to perform assessment functions. The Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, in a position paper released after the election, said the existing Alliance is well positioned to provide portability of assessments and to strengthen the existing system.

Yves Beaudin, national co-ordinator of the Canadian Information Centre for International Credentials, says the Alliance, established in the early 1990s, already does about 30,000 assessments annually and — with added resources — could process as many as 90,000 to 120,000 applications.

Pre-assessing credentials

But the Harper government is conscious that it made an electoral commitment to create a new agency to speed up the process, Green explains. One of the key words in the Conservative election platform was “pre-assessment,” he adds.

“The view is that we should be fair to immigrants and give them — up-front in the immigration process — a sense of where their credentials and qualifications stand,” he said. “So why wouldn’t you have a system that allows immigrants — especially those in regulated occupations — to get some sort of assessment of their qualifications before they come to Canada.”

That approach is not far from one advocated by Beaudin, who says he has already consulted informally with HRSD officials. Many applicants for immigration to Canada can arrange through Canadian immigration offices or embassies to have their credentials pre-assessed simply by e-mailing or mailing them to Canada. Their responses then can be processed as quickly as if they had already moved here, he says.

Immigration Minister Solberg said last week he was uncertain when the new foreign credentials agency will be established, adding further consultation is required with the provinces and existing agencies, as well as business, community groups and the academic community. Green could not speculate on whether the agency would be announced in this week’s Speech from the Throne.

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Poner enfasis en esto:
“There’s no intention that this new national agency for assessment would supplant the existing regulatory bodies— there’s no intention that they’d start issuing licences or start doing qualification or credentials assessment themselves. It’s fully the intention that they’d continue to work with some of the existing bodies.”