OTTAWA: Abdulrahim Noori was a doctor in Afghanistan, but he now fries chicken as a short-order cook in Canada while he undergoes the long process of re-qualifying to practice medicine here.

"This is how my situation will be for four or five years, until I improve my situation in Canada as a doctor," he said. Noori, 40, worked as a physician at a United Nations hospital in Kabul and was chosen for intensive ultrasound training in Pakistan so he could come back to Afghanistan and train his peers.

Now he is learning English in the hope he can one day have those ultrasound skills validated in Canada. Noori, who lives in Winnipeg, is one of tens of thousands of immigrants toiling in Canada as fast-food workers, taxi drivers or convenience store clerks - jobs that do not match their qualifications at home.

And while US immigration policy focuses to a large extent on reuniting families, newcomers to Canada say Ottawa's emphasis on qualified, highly educated immigrants gives the newcomers false hopes that their skills can be easily used.

"I would give Canada's immigration system a failing grade," said Don De Voretz, an immigration economist at Vancouver's Simon Fraser University who reckons up to one in three skilled immigrants to Canada eventually quit the country.

"We're doing an awful job. That's because of the typical Canadian problem: The provinces control the licensing and the feds control immigration and they don't talk to one another. That makes for an inefficient system."

Rene Goussanou, a French-trained pilot and father of three from the African country of Benin, has been teaching French in Winnipeg after he learned he would need to enrol in a pilot's school to convert his French licence into a Canadian one.

That came as an unpleasant surprise, he said. The Canadian Embassy in Abidjan had pored over his qualifications and gave the impression there would be an evaluation procedure when he got to the country, Goussanou said. He found none exists.

"The Canadian air force, which is looking for pilots, rejected my application because I am not yet a citizen," Goussanou said. "My perception of Canada has now changed."

Ottawa's last budget set aside C$40 million ($34 million) to study how to make it quicker and easier for newcomers to bring their credentials to Canadian standards, and Ottawa spends C$5 million a year to help immigrants learn French or English. But Maria Minna, parliamentary secretary for immigration from 1996 to 1998, said she knew of skilled immigrants who had quit Canada out of frustration at trying to upgrade their skills but were able to requalify in the United States.

Efforts to solve the problem, and remove the frustration for the would-be professionals centre around training and internships, although Immigration Minister Judy Sgro said some of the burden rests on those who want to work in Canada. Prospective immigrants should study Immigration Canada's Web site to find out what they could do to upgrade their skills at home first, she said.

"On the weekend, in the Maritimes, I spoke to someone who is working in a chocolate factory who was a doctor who came to Canada and frankly I feel that is unacceptable," Sgro told a parliamentary committee last month.

"We want doctors to come here as doctors. They need a year of an opportunity to intern in our hospitals so they learn about the technical differences between their country and ours," she said. -Reuters