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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

Fairness Commissioner's office opens

By: Staff Writer

15/04/2009 6:07 PM | Comments: 1

An act aimed at getting skilled immigrants into the Manitoba workforce faster by better assessing their skills went into force today, on the same day the new Fairness Commissioner’s office officially opened.

New fairness commissioner Ximena Munoz will work with regulators in industries including nursing, engineering and accounting to improve professional licensing practices, and make sure immigrant professionals have their skills properly assessed when they come to the province.

The goal is to "ensure that immigrants don’t have to re-do their professional life when they come here," she said.

Munoz’s work hinges on the Fair Registration Practices in Regulated Professions Act, passed in 2007.

Munoz said the focus in the past has been more on academic records than work experience. She pointed to one woman she recently met with who worked as an internal auditor for a major bank in her home country, only to find she needed three more years of studies to continue her work in Manitoba.

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1 Comments

Posted by: RobCanada

August 31, 2009 at 11:35 AM

Governmental control of qualifications recognition with a socialist mandate? With university graduates leaving the province for jobs in droves it is quite unreasonable to assume mandating foreign credentials acceptance is equitable. Many of the newcomers who arrive here come from countries where degrees are purchased never mind the lesser standard of education elsewhere in the world. A fairness or politically correct commissioner will only further exacerbate the real issues facing business and employment issues in Manitoba. The fact is most professions in Manitoba do not create enough employment for existing Manitobans as it is. If the regulating professional bodies needed more people they would naturally create ways to do so but as it stands this is just a 'fairness' which will under employ existing Canadians in favor of those who come with questionable credentials in the first place from elsewhere. Lower standards from failing systems elsewhere is not the answer, but it just might be the politically correct answer but big brother government demanding affirmative action is and will remain dead wrong.