A leer con atención

Gustavo Giménez Comas, a corporate lawyer, immigrated from Argentina to Quebec 2 1 / 2 years ago with his wife, who is a dentist, and their three children. Today, he feels trapped in a life he would never have chosen if he had known what he does now.
The family decided to leave Argentina after the country’s economic crash, although the crash itself was not the actual cause. “We still had a nice life,” said Giménez Comas. “We lived in a nice house, we went to a country club, our children were in private school. But there were kidnappings. Friends were killed. All we love in the world is our kids, so we decided to leave.”
Giménez Comas said he and his wife went “shopping.” They considered emigrating to Australia, Spain and Canada. “The Quebec office in Buenos Aires was very aggressive,” he said. “We were told, ‘Come to Quebec. It’s wonderful. You can either reorient your career or can apply to have your credentials accepted.’ I asked ‘Will our credentials be accepted?’ The answer was yes. They said I have to go to the board and pass a test and pay a fee.
“I was thinking we had to pay $2,000 and study one year. But it turned out to be $12,000 and three years.”
Giménez Comas is working, mainly nights and weekends, in a call centre, a job he got because he speaks four languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French and English. His wife works as a dental assistant while she is studying for her Quebec dentist’s licence, a process the Quebec Order of Dentists says costs about $10,000 and takes 18 months.
Quebec is facing a shortage of workers, as many as 640,000 over the next four years. It needs the services of professionals like Giménez Comas and his wife, whom it so aggressively recruited from abroad.
Why, then, won’t it help them find work in their fields? Angry and exhausted, Giménez Comas feels that the professional associations are protecting their members from competition from abroad.
“They are not protecting their clients, or patients,” he said. “Look at the waiting lists with doctors. Where are the human rights of the patients?”
Dr. Jacques Laforce, who is in charge of looking after the testing and granting of equivalency status for the Quebec Order of Dentists, said the point of establishing equivalency in credentials is to ensure Quebec dentists are at the same high level as in the rest of Canada.
“The standards of dentistry in Canada and the United States are much, much higher than in all other countries, including in Europe,” Laforce said. “Some countries have absolutely no regulations governing dentists.”
Even though only half of all candidates who try Quebec’s licensing exams in dentistry pass, Laforce did not think the Quebec government should warn prospective immigrants of that fact. “It would be like telling that person he is not wanted.”
Giménez Comas would have preferred Quebec had told him and his wife what the true situation was, how hard it is to become accredited.
“I arrived here at age 37,” he said. “We were chosen by Quebec specifically because we had a lot of experience in our fields, we had specialized, professional training and we had children.”
He said as far as he himself is concerned, his law career is likely over. He cannot afford to support a family and redo his law degree in Quebec.
“It’s not fair. It’s a terrible situation. My money is gone. My youth is gone. You don’t have another opportunity. It’s not a fair system. Where are my rights?”
In 2003, the city of Ottawa, in a study looking at its own situation, reported Canada was losing $5.9 billion a year because the credentials of foreign-trained professionals were not recognized. Yet these were the very people Ottawa estimated would account, within 10 years, for all of the region’s labour-force growth.
Both the provincial and federal governments say they are concerned with the looming manpower shortage and the need to recognize the credentials of foreign-trained professionals. Prime Minister Paul Martin and federal Immigration Minister Joe Volpe said earlier this month that foreign-trained professionals were a priority for the government.
But neither level of government serves as a role model. They do not hire immigrant professionals themselves, nor do they help other employers to hire immigrants.
In recognition of the terrible waste of training that has resulted from the non-recognition of foreign credentials, Ottawa and Quebec have switched tactics, opting instead for skilled tradespeople rather than professionals. In other words, they’ve thrown in the towel.
That leaves Giménez Comas stranded, although he hopes his wife will succeed in becoming a dentist here.
“I feel like Quebec has taken my money, my children and my future. I am doing all the work for Quebec in making my children French-speaking and welleducated and responsible.
“What do I get in return?”

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