More work needed to remove barriers for internationally-trained workers: N.B. Multicultural Council

The New Brunswick Multicultural Council says it is seeing some improvements being made by the province to fast-track internationally-educated professionals’ ability to work in the province.

New Brunswick’s health minister said Friday it’s a priority to speed up the process and get more professionals — particularly health-care workers — on the frontlines.

“Regardless of where people are from, we look to some of our partners, such as the associations that grant the licensing, whether it’s a doctor, or an RN, or an LPN,” said Bruce Fitch.

“So there is that process and we’re working with PETL (department of post-secondary education, training and labour) to try to speed that up, trying to remove the barriers, trying to get people from other countries.”

But any changes that come weren’t made in time for Moncef Lakouas’ wife.

“My wife is a nurse, she's been living here in the country for five years, and we could not have her credentials recognized in New Brunswick, and she had to start from scratch,” he said.

“She had to go study an extra four years to do the exact same thing that she’s qualified to do.”

Lakouas is the multicultural council’s board president and says the issue is far from new.

He says the council has been advocating for government to help remove some of the red tape, for years.

“We knew this information about 10 years ago, or more. And we've been talking about it. It just wasn't a priority for government to move in that direction. Now that people are quitting, that people are dropping, that people are dying in the emergency rooms, it's suddenly an emergency,” he said.

Lakouas says the council understands it will take some time for a professional who’s been internationally-educated to get the right licensing or approvals to work in New Brunswick — but spending years returning to school, and accumulating student loans, isn’t acceptable.

Bathurst Mayor Kim Chamberlain told CTV News earlier this month it’s been frustrating to watch the province lose people because of the bureaucracy.

Chamberlain, who also works with the multicultural association in the Chaleur region, says it’s not a small number of people.

“We have a lot of qualified nurses that move here and cannot practise,” she said. “We've actually lost quite a few families that moved here from Europe, where they're nurses and they've worked 20 years in Europe but then they come here and it would take two years. But they move to Quebec, and in Quebec, within six months, they're practising again.”

Lakouas says it’s about respect, as much as it’s about need.

“What we have to do, is we have to make sure that people are getting the jobs they need, are getting the respect they need in terms of being recognized for who they are, in terms of professionals,” he said.

“Not just because now people are dying in emergency rooms, and people are quitting, that suddenly we have to allow these people to do these jobs, that's not fair. That's not cool. What we have to do is recognize people for who they are, for what they want to do in New Brunswick and give them exactly that. Because that's equal citizenship like anybody else living in the province.”