A dream is a dream. Here I am neither talking about the dreams we all have while sleeping nor am I talking about Freud. It’s about the vision, reverie and the possibilities of a better future and a life free from worries. People pursue their dreams with all the vigour, vitality and sincerity they have at their disposal. Yet, most of them fail to realize their coveted and much cherished dreams.
In Third World countries, people are far more deprived of even the basic necessities of life than their Western counterparts. A common man dreams of just about everything life has to offer, yet not within his reach. The resulting frustration leads to the highly debatable decision millions of people take to migrate to the Western world. Canada is one such land where they feel they can turn their dreams into reality.
Immigration to another land is always a great challenge and a painstaking decision. One leaves behind all relatives, friends, memories, culture and traditions, and, of course, the roots that are so very important and vital for the identity of a person. Once in the new land, the light is out and you are groping in the dark for a long, long time. The sacrifice of all this, coupled with the precious years of life spent searching for the light, would be worth its salt if you really could see that light, if you get settled, if you realize and materialize the dream into tangibility. Does that happen? Do you get want you want?
Alas, in most of the cases, it’s not to be.
Success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. But in Canada, it is all about failures, especially if you are over 30 years of age, or a foreign-trained immigrant. You are proud of your academic achievements and the experience you had back in the country from where you migrated to Canada. You are a surgeon, a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, an architect, an academician. Your resume proudly mentions over two decades of work — specialization in your field of profession — so what? Nothing is accepted or recognized in Canada. After landing in Canada with a briefcase full of academic degrees and a bag full of experience, you find yourself looking for ‘odd’ jobs. You drive a cab, you work as a security guard, a small store cashier, mop floors and the likes. It is the normal scenario. Forget about the dreams, burn them, or dig a grave and bury them.
Every year 18% of immigrants leave Canada to go back to the country of birth or try their luck somewhere else. Those are government figures. Royson James, a Toronto Star columnist, wrote in one of his recent columns about a Pakistani, a skilled Karachiite bureaucrat who came to Canada and tried just about every job for five years, receiving nary a nibble even from the HRDC. There was absolutely nothing suitable for his qualifications and experience in Toronto, the biggest and most dynamic city in Canada. Frustrated, he went back to Karachi and almost immediately got a respectable job with five hundred people working under his charge.
A movie-maker, who usually makes documentaries on immigrants, came across an Iranian surgeon driving a cab. He insisted that the Iranian surgeon act in his movie. The surgeon, extremely emotional, refused point-blank. Of course he was right. It’s ego, it’s self-respect, it’s your personality.
“Less than one per cent of the membership of the corporate boards is visible minorities,” says Ratna Omidvar of Maytree Foundation. Also take a look at the city councils, school boards and government offices, you will find mostly white, Canadian-born members. The number of jobless immigrants is growing each day. The earnings and employment prospects of newcomers are declining even as their skills level increases. There is an alarming evidence that poverty rate among the minorities is approaching 50%. It’s a creeping marginalization of the immigrant communities from at least 80 countries of the world that could, out of sheer frustration, explode into a serious problem that might be difficult to tackle or solve. There is a growing sense of deprivation and inequality in the midst of what the Canadian government says and tries to practice — equality for all and no discrimination on the basis of language, place of birth, cast, creed, religion, age or sex.
In the face of a tough situation as far as jobs are concerned, considerable numbers of people planning to immigrate are thinking about heading to New Zealand, Australia, Portugal and even Sweden. China and India in the midst of a remarkable renaissance, besides Japan, are other alternatives the intending immigrants are now thinking about.
The time is now for the Canadian Government to take stringent and immediate measures for assimilation of the diversified groups of immigrants, acceptance of their qualifications (maybe with a crash course) and jobs for them. In fact, by refusing to accept and recognize the foreign qualifications, degrees and experience of the immigrants, the government of Canada is losing money and depriving both the Canadian citizens of the precious services that could be rendered by these professionals and these professionals are losing out on realizing their dreams.
A dream is a dream. Here I am neither talking about the dreams we all have while sleeping nor am I talking about Freud. It’s about the vision, reverie and the possibilities of a better future and a life free from worries. People pursue their dreams with all the vigour, vitality and sincerity they have at their disposal. Yet, most of them fail to realize their coveted and much cherished dreams.
Alas, in most of the cases, it’s not to be.
