Original Article By Derek Sankey, Canwest News Service
April 21, 2009

Many environmental organizations have found that the certification process in Canada is preventing them from hiring immigrants. Additionally, countless immigrants with prestigious degrees from European universities have found Canadian certification to be a frustrating, costly and time consuming process. Fortunately for these two parties, the increased demand for environmental specialists has finally sparked change.

The federal government’s Human Resources and Skills Development Department recently announced three labour mobility agreements between Canada and the EU, creating a framework for mutual recognition of regulated professionals in the environmental field.

"Quite frankly, we've been tapped out in Canada for some of the specialists we need, so we've had to go further afield for that staff," says Les Panek, senior-vice president with environmental and engineering services firm AMEC in Calgary. "The [EU] has a highly developed regulatory regime ... so we can bring staff over and fit them into the local context fairly easily," he says.

"Pollutants and environmental impacts are not contained by national or international boundaries and neither should the people that deal with them," says Grant Trump, president of ECO."Companies are unaware of whether there are equivalencies between European Union credentials and Canadian credentials. We're trying to document that and look at how we can increase that mobility."

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