On December 5th, 2022, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced a call for proposals to help Internationally Educated Healthcare Professionals (IEHPs) work in Canada’s healthcare sector.
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At today’s press conference, Minister Fraser (on behalf of the honorable Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development, and Disability Inclusion), announced a call for project proposals to help streamline and enable IEHPs to gain skills, experience, and local credentials; so that their talents may be utilized properly.
Proposals will be handled through the Foreign Credential Recognition Program (FCRP), a federal program that provides funding to governments and organizations to support foreign credential recognition in Canada. Minister Fraser announced an investment of $90 million through the program, for chosen projects.
Per the announcement, a project is eligible if it can either:
In addition, eligible projects must either:
Proposals will be accepted until Jan 30th, 2023. Successful projects can receive a minimum of $500,000 and a maximum of $10 million in funding.
Canada is facing historic labour shortages in several industries, including seasonal agricultural, retail and tourism, and (most pressingly) healthcare.
Minister Fraser noted in his address that 47% of skilled newcomers with a health education from overseas were either jobless or underemployed in non-health professions that required only a high-school degree. In response, Canada has already removed barriers to permanent residence (PR) for healthcare workers—announcing earlier this year that physicians in Canada on temporary status would be eligible for economic immigration, despite being self-employed on paper.
Immigrants working in Canada with a foreign degree were twice as likely to work in a job that they were overqualified for when compared to workers with a Canadian degree.
Based on this persistent over-qualification, changes to Canada’s credentialing system will be key to properly addressing labour shortages, and to optimally take advantage of internationally-trained skilled talent, already in the country.
While the current scope of this project focuses on healthcare professionals, it is likely that the federal government will continue to explore accreditation innovations for other sectors, as more and more employers report a skills gap among their employees.
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