Dear SHANKARK and others in this discussion,
As a person who lived in Canada (as an immigrant) and is now in the UK on the HSMP visa, I would like to share a few words... Before you start reading my post please bear in mind that the Canadian government has a huge machinery that has a job to bring about 250,000 new immigrants every year in Canada or Canadian economy will suffer and there won't be a pension fund big enough to sustain all retired people in the next 8 years. That machinery uses all marketing and PR tricks to attract those immigrants, but does not care really how they will fare in their professional fields once they arrive. Please understand that the Canadian economy really does not need highly skilled people as there are not enough of those jobs available and their own university graduates cannot find employment (this is coming from the official statistics), but it needs workers that will work in basic/blue collar jobs and as well as in those jobs that Canadians do not want to do. Once the new immigrants do arrive, they realise that there is a huge disconnection between what the government said to them in the visa process, and what the real situation with the Canadian employers is. Now please continue with the rest of my message:
I haven't been able to read this earlier, but hope that my response will not be too late... I hope that my answer to your query would be interesting for you as I lived with my family in Canada for almost 10 years and we live now in our second year in London on the HSMP visa, so I can easily give you some pointers from the first hand. Here in London I have been working in one of my specializations as a manager (I have two university degrees, two postgraduate diplomas and an MBA, and have several professions that I can pursue), and will assume the director's position in another organisation in a week. My husband works as a manager in his profession (IT) as well, and we are extremely happy with our decission to come to the UK (from Canada) on the HSMP program. We find this opportunity and so far experience much better than it was our experience of immigrants in Canada for almost 10 years (before coming to the UK).
Some months ago somebody from this forum with plans for moving to Canada has asked me why we had left Canada for the UK and how these two countries and immigration experiences compare, and this was my answer:
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To answer your question about Canada and if we put aside my own feelings about the culture and ways of life in North America in general, the main problem for immigrants in Canada is that Canadian businesses/professional circles do not recognize your previous education and experience and don't bother reading your resume, no matter how many points you've got in the immigration process for visa purposes and how much you have been checked by the Canadian counsulate prior to getting a visa or where you've worked previously. What they are looking for is that infamous "Canadian experience" that every employer wants to see on the resume, and they don't care that you've worked for the best corporations in the world for a certain field - they care only about the Canadian experience. I also have to say that this is not only a problem for immigrants but is also for Canadians who dared to live abroad for years working or studying and when they finally come back home, there are no jobs for them and their education and experience are not valid enough for the employers. I did my master thesis in Canada on that topic and always say that I feel very dissapointed in how Canada treats its highly skilled immigrants. It is not just me - there are also Canadians that are now trying to change the overall attitude, but that is not working as fast as it should...
You can read a lot about that on the web (
www.notcanada.com first comes to mind and whatever you read there is what I have also experienced with my family). It is also interesting to point out that no other country with such a high immigration influx (such as Australia, US, UK, Holland, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway) has such a bad reputation on the web/print/TV (surprisingly, Canadian TV mostly) when it comes to how its immigrants are treated once when they land and become residents. I followed these sentiments for two years prior to writing my master thesis and although you can find some negative comments about other countries as well (which is natural as everybody has different opinions) it is Canada (a country that advertises itself as a country with best living standard in the world and that boasts about UN ratings related to that) that is widely commented on in negative terms. It is also interesting to say that even the Canadian Government officially recognizes the problem with how the highly skilled immigrants are treated and for the past 2-3 years is trying to change the situation among the business/professional communities, but it is very obvious that it is not successful and that it is very hard to change the overall business/professional xenophobic culture that exists there.
I have to say that Canada has a great system of integrating its immigrants in terms of language skills for example (if you look at the UK in that way, it is horrible as it does not have any free English as a Second Language (ESL) courses like Canada does), or helping them with making their job applications/resumes, but when it finally comes to finding appropriate job, most highly skilled immigrants end up sweeping floors, delivering pizzas, driving cabs or becoming child-day-care providers at their own homes. What a waste of tallent, particularly when Canada has not paid a cent for the education of those immigrants. Also, most of those highly skilled immigrants usualy don't need an extra English language training, so in my opinion the money that the Canadian government spends in that area should have been spent somewhere else.
For some time I used to work in the adult education centre in a town in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) where those highly skilled immigrants come in thousands to upgrade their language and other skills hoping to find decent jobs and I know their backgrounds, problems they encountered in Canada, and many of them personally. I've met too many PhDs who ended in menial jobs and it is a big disgrace. It really doesn't matter if your background is from Asia, Africa or Europe, as I've met too many engineers from India, from France, Germany, Russia, China, teachers from Holland, professors from Italy, accountants from the UK, doctors from all over the world... who couldn't work in their professions in Canada. There is a story, widely reported in Canadian media, about a Chinese scientist (a lady) who has been a part of the crew that had sent the first Chinese astronaut to space and who now sells doughnuts in the Toronto subway. She was featured by all major Canadian newspapers and was on a TV several times telling her story in order to open the eyes of the Canadian society and the problem it has with how it treats its highly skilled immigrants. As a manager at the adult education centre I attended several conferences where one of the topics was this particular problem, and I've met Joe Volpe, former Labour and Immigration minister, and no matter how interested he was to push the stereotips away, it proved to be a hard job and is still not solved.
I have to say that some of highly skilled immigrants managed to get through the red tape, and after certain certification exams managed to work in their own profession, but those are only few lucky ones and their rarity is allarming. I used to be one of them, as I've got a job in my field, although on a much lower position than I used to have had before coming to Canada even after graduating from one Canadian university and obtaining a postgraduate diploma from another. As I am very persistant and speak languages, + I graduated from Canadian universities in the meantime (on top of my previous university education gained in my original country), I managed to be promoted to a management role... My own husband (an engineer) worked as pizza driver for two years, even after finishing a Canadian IT postgraduate program. The reason why I have so many degrees and diplomas is exactly that situation as I didn't want to end up like most other immigrants and as a result I used to be a full time university student and a full time employee (and finally a manager) for the last six years in Canada. Very exhausting if you know that we have also a family to raise and feed. My husband did the same (during about two years we were both full time students, employed and were raising three small children at the same time), and finally managed to excel in his field as well, but we've lost too many years in the process and instead of growing professionally, we had to go back to school all over again. Most immigrants in Canada are reluctant to do that and instead stay in their odd jobs in order to be able to feed their families. If you ask any Canadian if they would like to move to another country and have to go to school from scratch they would think you're crazy, but they (in a way) ask that of their own immigrants or otherwise the immigrants end up doing jobs that Canadians don't want to do and I am very bitter about that.
On the other hand, that experience was extremely helpful for upgrading my education and overall knowledge and skills, but I used to feel degraded too many times and didn't want to live in the society that allows that. As we are Europeans anyway, we decided to move back to Europe and the HSMP programme proved to be a right move for us. I am still very bitter about how we were treated in Canada as professionals, but here in the UK feel very free to say that I feel welcome in many ways. If we put aside the Home Office change of rules re: ILR, everything else (for us) was much better experience than in Canada. My husband got a management position (IT) in London only after 5 days of looking for work, and I managed to do the same (as I was very picky) after two months. My British colleagues do not question my qualifications nor treat me as a person that is an immigrant and that needs to learn "the ways of this society" as many Canadians constantly try to put on every immigrant (no matter how long one has lived in the country). I feel more comfortable and more accepted here in the UK where everybody goes about their own business, don't have time to think about who is an immigrant and who is not, where I am not constantly reminded that I am an immigrant, and where I am accepted professionally. As a last point, here in the UK I feel that people value education much better than that is the case with Canada, and Canadians really don't have that much to boast education-wise as my Canadian university courses felt like high school courses in my country - they were that easy and simple.
I hope this will help you and wish you luck with whatever you decide to do.
Rose
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If you go to:
www.notcanada.com or to
http://www.canadaimmigrants.com/forum.asp or
http://www.canadaimmigrants.com/forum_2.asp or
http://www.canadaimmigrants.com/forum_3.asp
you will read real and true stories of Canadian highly skilled immigrants and no exagaration in any sense. You can also read stories of Canadian immigrants that have the UK degrees which did not help them at all in Canada. Having a UK degree is recognized by the Canadian government and by the universities (if you want to continue/upgrade your studies), but is not accepted by the Canadian employers as they only want people with Canadian degrees + that infamous "Canadian experience". It won't help you even if you had worked for the best global companies in your field (even if that happened in the US from which Canada hugely depends on in many ways) as Canadians only consider "Canadian experience" during hiring process. By reading stories of highly skilled professionals at the forums I just listed above, you'll see that even after they went back to university in Canada and finished some other degrees/diplomas, that did not help them much in obtaining a job.
I visit these webpages/forums very often as they remind me of problems we went through while living in Canada and it makes me happy that we had managed to escape from there and make our new life here in the UK. Most of the highly skilled immigrants that come to Canada are really not in the position to relocate to other countries or go back home as that costs a lot of money and is very stressful to move yet again, especially if you have kids. It is interesting how it is much easier to get jobs in your profession in the US (I have relatives and friends there and know how that worked for them) or in the UK than it is the case with Canada. Since we moved to the UK I met some Canadian families (people born and raised in Canada and educated in the US or UK) who also could not get into their professional fields in Canada and after some hardship moved to the UK on the HSMP or other visas. I think that says a lot.
I do understand that many people on this forum feel facial prejudices here in the UK, but they also exist in Canada. Canadians only pack them differently and like to boast about themselves how friendly, open and accepting they are, but as with many other sentiments that are used by Canadians in public, I find (as other immigrants do as well) their smiles fake and deceiving and do not trust them at all as they show you their real faces when you look for jobs. Usually they will ask you in their HRDC centres (Job Centres), or in many courses related to Resume writing/job hunting which new immigrants usually attend for a couple of weeks after arrival or after they could not find proper jobs, to consider volunteering for some time in order to gain a "Canadian experience" and "to get a foot in the door", and too many immigrants do exactly that spending months and months working for nothing only to find themselves with job doors shut again. That way the Canadian economy gets your work for free, and who feeds your kids and pays bills? I am very bitter about that practice and consider it modern-day slavery as you are in many ways forced to volunteer hoping to be able to get a proper job and do not have much more other options.
While in Canada I lived in three different provinces and have met so many desperate but highly skilled people who, for the sake of their children's future, decide to take any kind of job (for a minimum payrate) and forget their dreams of working in their own professions. I know an immigrant university professor (from Europe) with a PhD in Mathematics and Physics who lived in Vancouver and who couldn't work in his field, but had to re-train to be a teacher's assistant in the primary school after working more than two years as a volunteer at the UBC (university). Through my last job in Canada I met numerous doctors who couldn't practice medicine (although they have managed to go through a lengthy and very costly process of licensing exams and Canada has a huge lack of doctors) as there are no available placements for their internship. Some of them who were lucky ended up working as the pharmacy assistants after spending 7-11 years of trying to get into their medical field and after volunteering that ranges between 3 months and 5 years. Just try to imagine how their families managed to go through that ordeal... I know hundreds of various kinds of engineers that drive cabs or deliver pizzas (which is the most practiced "profession" in that group of immigrant professionals) or work on the factory floors as plain machine workers or cleaners. My next door neighbour was a doctor who had to attend a one-year program for nurses in order to be able to earn a decent salary for her family and now works as a nurse in the retirement home, and not even as a Registered Nurse. While studying for my second degree I met numerous other immigrant professionals who decided to do their university education all over again as well as they wanted to fight for their position in the society and did not want to conform to the rules that Canadian employers and society had set up, but as I said in my older post (from above), that is not a very often nor easy decision in the immigrants' community as that costs a lot of money, plus takes a lot of time.
Take some time and read the forums I suggested, and make your own decision, but in my private and professional opinion, the UK is by far and large a much better option for a highly skilled immigrant. Remember, no place is perfect, but in the UK you have much, much better chances in getting a job in your professional field, not to mention other pluses like education (I find it much better here than in Canada), culture, global connections... For me, the only negative area in the UK is housing, but I feel that everything else far outweighs Canada.
Good luck,
Rose
