B.C. to streamline accreditation process for foreign-trained professionals

Vitaliaa Atamaniuk is a general surgeon from Ukraine. She fled the war-torn country a year ago and wants to work as a doctor on Vancouver Island, but is finding the process frustrating.

“It’s a long and difficult process to achieve the licenses here -- we need to pass again the exam and find the residency here,” she said Tuesday.

She is one of approximately 387,000 newcomers estimated to join B.C.'s workforce in the next decade -- filling 38 per cent of the one million more jobs that will be available -- in a province already facing a major labour shortage.

Atamaniuk’s frustration was shared by other internationally trained professionals at a town hall meeting Tuesday with Premier David Eby,

The province pledges to begin rolling out new rules this month to make it easier for foreign-trained professionals to get credentialed in B.C.

It’s not just health-care jobs that are the focus of the plan, it’s all fields including teachers and social workers -- an ambitious goal, given there are 235 occupations governed by 50 regulatory bodies in the province.

“We have to treat them right when they get here,” said Premier Eby Tuesday, when talking about foreign-trained doctors at the town hall. “We have to treat you right -- we have to recognize the skills that you’re bringing and that you’re offering to our community.”

Recent consultations identified a complex credentialing system as a prime complaint, with 85 per cent of international professionals calling the application and licensing process too difficult.

It’s a hurdle the province plans to address.

“Make sure that folks like yourself have a voice in the process and that it actually makes sense and that the barriers that are in place -- the tests that are there -- are ones that are necessary,” said Andrew Mercier, parliamentary secretary for skills training, when talking at the town hall with a foreign-trained social worker.

The new legislation will aim to make credentialing less complicated and time consuming, so a province facing a labour shortages – and expecting an influx of immigrants -- can benefit from that foreign expertise.