Hello Future Canadians.
Just a worthwhile read ( and a reality check ) while waiting for your PERs, NERs and what not.
AN IMMIGRANT'S STRUGGLES IN CANADA BY K.M. NASIR (May 26, 2011)
Canada is a country with no jobs for new immigrants, regardless of however suitably qualified they are, young or senior. Even the simple blue-collar jobs are hard to find. But most of the immigrants are highly educated in their respective fields. They have migrated to Canada with the hope of being able to land at least something close to their white-collar professions left behind. They did not spend their time and money to do menial or manual works in Canada. They had never been prepared for such works for which vocationally trained skilled labour would have been enough. The result, at least in short term, has been disastrous for the new immigrants, leaving them with a sense of disorienting trauma, a deep indelible scar on their mental psyche.
The situation in the neighboring United States is totally different. Jobs are available there for all categories of people — ordinary unskilled to skilled labour or experienced professionals. The United States does not require advanced education to immigrate there. Unfortunately, that is not so with regard to Canadian immigrants.
Experience is indeed bitter for them, more intensely so for those who, having been drawn into applying for migration by the rosy picture of Canadian life on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website, are now struggling with the shattering challenges of new immigrant life. Skilled in different fields, they, to their shock and dismay, find that there are no jobs for them, even remotely similar, let alone nearly similar, to the ones they had just left behind, and that they would have to remain jobless for an excruciatingly painful and indefinite period of time.
No jobs, even to survive, let alone succeed, although that was the dream with which they first applied and then, after three or more years of waiting, landed — that dream sweetly deepened by the prospects of the vast land (as it looked on the map) and its vast resources, vast health care, vast opportunities (as they were portrayed on the government website), and so on.
And no jobs means no proper health care for them. Yes, the doctor’s consultation is free, but not the medicine — neither the over-the-counter nor the prescription drugs. And the dental care and the eye care? Those are a far cry. Did Canada produce dentists to make dental care unaffordable to the poor innocent patients with no jobs in Canada? Even in the case of simple cleaning or extraction, dentists ask the patients to come back again and again instead of just performing the procedure, simple as it is, the first time the patients walk in. Isn’t a dubious tactic to make money? Just for seeing the patient the first time he or she walks in (with no treatment whatsoever yet), he or she is charged a formidable fee. Dentists in China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Africa, the Arab world and beyond do the treatment right away for an amazingly cheaper price without the patients having to go to see them again and again. Can’t Canada be more kind and cordial and live up to its website publicity by advising her dentists to provide the treatment in an easy, fast and affordable manner?
Nostalgia for the old home and pessimism about the new home start eating into the new immigrants’ vitals. Ironic. The Canadian dream initially prompted them to leave behind so much of their material links as well as emotional ties and spiritual connections. Now, neither can they go back nor find it easy to continue to stay in Canada. A painful dilemma indeed.
Following at least six months to two years of frantic job searching, the new immigrants (doctors, engineers, professors, bankers, business executives) are forced to take up ordinary low-paid jobs as factory workers, security guards, waiters or in supermarkets, call centres or convenience stores, which lead to their low morale and low self-esteem. Even such works — to the detriment of both health and mind — are sometimes hard to find. This is really heartbreaking as it is demoralizing at the same time leaving them in a state of despair and despondency.
O Canada, won’t you let us sing you the anthem with “full-throated ease” and pour our full heart in profuse strains, as we would like to? Why did you open your doors when you cannot provide jobs commensurate with the skills and expertise of the new immigrants, young or old? They applied for permanent resident status in the hope that they would find a better life here, but then they are left stranded on their own with hardly any opportunities. Very few knew about this hard reality as they launched their application process only to discover later that the grass was not that green on the other side.
Canada remains depressing for new immigrants especially for the educated. Until recognition is given to them by creating ample opportunities for jobs it would remain so — a shattered dream, a broken glass. I would like to long for Canada to be a fulfilling dream for me as well as the many others who like me.
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