E-Paper
Racism still affects settlers in Canada
Unequal evaluation of foreign credentials continues to hamper the immigrants' prospects, says a study.
Unequal evaluation of foreign credentials, especially from the South, continues to be a major obstacle to the upward mobility of immigrants in Canada, says a study.
"The data point squarely to the failures in the system of assessing and recognising international qualifications by professional licensing bodies, particularly among immigrants from the global South," said Grace-Edward Galabuzi, co-author of the report.
"What we've found is that there is a lack of adequate information about the licensing process, few reliable tools for assessing external credentials and limited transparency in the licensing process, among other things."
The report - "Working precariously: the impact of race and immigration status on employment opportunities and outcomes in Canada" - however indicated that the wage gap between the country's visible minorities and their white counterparts has narrowed.
"Although this gap fell to 13.3 per cent in 2000, due mainly to increased immigration and the proportion of racialised (non-white) workers, the size of the gap does reflect a persistent under-valuing of the work of racialised persons in the Canadian economy," the report said.
Based on census data, the report was authored by Ryerson University sociology professor Cheryl Teelucksingh and political science and public administration professor Galabuzi.
According to the joint study by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and the Centre for Social Justice, non-white workers made on an average 23.2 per cent lower than white people.
Racial discrimination is still a factor that denies good employment opportunity to Canada's new immigrants, it added. The level of higher education among new immigrants to the country is 62 per cent, compared to 23 per cent in the general population, the report indicated.
"There is no question that the level of education among new immigrants is quite high. That's the demand of the immigration requirements. This situation becomes even more critical as the projected net new immigrants will come from the racialised groups by 2011," Teelucksingh said.
