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I just watched a program on CBC about how Nova Scotia completely screwed up a fast track immigration program for highly skilled immigrants. It actually came off sounding more like a scam.

Each immigrant put up $130 000 of their own cash. They were to be placed in jobs that would give them valuable work related experience. The employer got $80 000, a job finding agency received
$30 000, and the immigrant received $20 000 of THEIR cash back as wages, which were then taxed.

Two of the people that were interviewed really drove home how incompetent the administrators of this program were. One fellow, a plastic surgeon from Iran was put in an auto dealership, and another who ran a multi million dollar department store was put in a fish plant. In the end, the doctor is going home(way to go, as if there isn't enough of a doctor shortage) the minister in charge of the program got her ass 'relocated', and those that are still in the program are getting $100 000 of their cash back. Those that completed the 'program' are SOL. Canada and the provinces really need to put together a solid plan for attracting and keeping skilled immigrants, who are becoming more desperately needed every year. And, like the report stated Nova Scotia has enough trouble now, trying to attract people to live there.

   

You think it's just Nova Scotia with their head up their ass? Federal leadership on this issue is AWOL for decades.

   

No, but the Maritimes have a harder time than other areas of the country keeping or attracting skilled people. Hell manitoba and Saskatchewan attract more immigrants.....need I say more?

   

Over coming the atmosphere of entitlement will take decades. These political hacks at senior levels of the civil service are just about bulletproof----Only the really obvious corrupt mandarins (like Dingwall) face any risk of dismissal and then they get a golden handshake.....with no obligation to compensate.

   

We have surely mucked up the Skilled Immigration. Every month we get reminded about the Doctors who came to become Taxi Drivers and other menial labourers. Someone needs to take the bull by the horns and fix this ASAP.

   

I have personal experience.

I came to Canada with a degree in computer science and was told on many occasions that the job was not offered because "you do not have enough Canadian experience?
My response was always "are Canadian computers different than English computers?"

I then started my own computer business and contracted my work to some of the same companies who had initially turned me down.
Guess who had the last laugh.

   

That's a great personal example Pully, but nurses and teachers in BC can't do that, and their not restricted by political hacks but union hacks. By restricting supply of workers, the demand rises and they can charge what they want for those nessesary services.
I wouldn't doubt it's different in other provinces too.

   

It is illegal, and they are probably not immigrants, but on temporary work permits.
There is NO FAST WAY into Canada if you want to stay permanently.

The only way to have to pay $ 130,000.00 is when you go through the Investor class, and that is to pay off interest on the $ 600,000.00 you should have paid in the first place.

   

The CBC wouldn't make a mistake would it?

   

I have looked into Skilled worker entry into Canada and given the waiting times and stories of Engineers ending up working in Burger King etc over there, I was put off.

   

Last week, I was reading my morning paper and the article was about Nova Scotia having one of the largest Engineered Employed firm in Canada and they would grow by at least 10% in the next 5 years. I read that in the Halifax Chronicle Herald

   

Well, looking at the fact (from what I read from the initial post) that it contains an employment business and an employer, and I hear nothing about the issuing Embassies, so I take it they missed a spot.

There is only 1 institution that issues visa, no matter what visa, and that is the Canadian Embassy in the country you live in, or the one in Buffalo. Not an employer, and not a private business.

You said it was a scam, and I agree. that's all.

   

Well, it involved the provincial gov't in Nova Scotia as well, because the minister in charge was moved to another portfolio over the entire affair.

   

Hey! Manitoba is beautiful. It's a great province and Winnipeg is a great city.

However, the skill immigrant problem is a problem everywhere. The Liberals made it an election promise during the last election. There are doctors driving taxi cabs in Toronto and every other city. The excuse has been that a medical degree from a third world country doesn't mean they know anything, we need competent doctors. Finding a way to certify medical doctors was the challenge. Of course computer programmers in any first world nation have exactly the same skill. Writing documentation may be an issue for someone who doesn't speak English well, but someone from an English speaking nation!? And PluggyRug, you're from England itself!?

Please tell me your experience was in Toronto. I've often had problems with arrogant employment agencies in Toronto. In 1998 I went back to Toronto for a few days to try to get work; employment agencies looked at my resume with 14 computer languages listed and asked "what's your one main language?" If I gave them an answer they dismissed all other computer languages, only considered me for jobs in that one language. They also dismissed any experience at jobs using other computer languages. For example, although I have been a professional computer programmer in Canada since February 1981, these guys in Toronto claimed I had less than 3 years in COBOL so wanted to treat me as a junior programmer with less than 3 years total experience. I also have experience on a variety of computers, including PC, VAX, various Unix computers, and IBM mainframes. They wanted to know which was my "one main computer". Same problem. I never experienced this problem in Manitoba or Alberta or the United States, it's unique to Toronto. In fact most employers in Toronto don't do that, just employment agencies and a very few employers who talk to those agents. Although I lived in Toronto for 3 years, now you know why I don't any more.

   

Nova Scotia charged $130,000 per immigrant, then assigned skilled workers to unskilled jobs!? Calling that a scam is an understatement.

   

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