Armed with degrees, they drive our cabs
Thousands of professionals have been lured to Canadian cities like London with promises of lucrative careers and a prosperous, secure future in a new land. Once they get here, the reality is sobering. And dream-shattering.
Jennifer O'Brien, Free Press Reporter 2004-01-17 03:30:12
Maybe he picked you up one day. Maybe he took you to work on a rainy morning.
And while his windshield wipers slapped water away from your view of the outside world, maybe you didn't see the pile of medical books on the passenger seat of his cab.
His name is Dr. Mohommad Farhad Bayat. He's a London taxi driver.
He's happy here because his family is safe.
He's happy here because his children grew up with Storybook Gardens instead of landmine fields, and they go to good schools and will never be forced to fight for any army.
He's happy because his wife won't be killed or threatened, even though her hair shows.
His prayers have been answered.
But not his dreams.
They lie between the covers of the medical books Dr. Bayat still studies in his taxicab, while parked between fares.
The books are from Kabul, Afghanistan, where he earned his medical degree and set up practice as a family physician. They helped him continue his practice for four years in Pakistan, where he lived in a refugee camp after escaping Afghanistan's brutal regime.
And the knowledge from those books helped him get to Canada in 1991, when he applied as an immigrant to forge a better life for his wife and daughters.
But once he arrived, Dr. Bayat's books -- and his credentials -- were as helpful as his used airline ticket. Despite them, he couldn't get work as a doctor, a nurse, or in any other medical profession. Employers wanted Canadian certification and Canadian references -- re-education that would have cost thousands of dollars he didn't have.
So Dr. Bayat joined thousands of other foreign-trained professionals in an occupation he was qualified to do. He became a taxi driver.
* * *
Hundreds of professionals like Bayat drive London's streets.
Hundreds more deliver pizza. More clean buildings.
Some are doctors, some are lawyers, some are engineers, some are economists and some are teachers.
Most of them have lived through famines, wars and tragedies too horrible for native Londoners to imagine.
Most of them came here because Canada wanted them for their skills.
* * *
Some are judges.
Aboutown taxi driver Abdalla Abosharia spent several years in the Sudan judicial system, backed by a law degree as he worked his way from legal assistant to lawyer to provincial court judge.
"I was living a very sophisticated life," the large man says. "I had a nice house, I had a nice car and I was very well respected . . .
"That's one of the hardest things about driving a taxi. The way people talk to you, some people think drivers are hired servants.
"It is not a good feeling when you are treated badly," he says, stooping to place a pink-coloured Sudanese fruit drink in front of his visitor. "Is it worth it? For my family it is."
As he speaks, voices of his teenage children float down the stairs into the simple living room. "My kids are getting a Canadian education. For them, life will be good."
Abosharia had only one son when he fled Sudan in 1984, after then-president Muhammed Nimeiri had ordered all courts to follow Islamic law -- sharia.
It was not a good situation for civil court judges who had been educated according to the British system -- the same one Canada uses. Sharia law is based on Islamic regulations and values and includes severe penalties such as stoning to death.
On top of the new rules, judges found themselves under threat of arrest by government officials who requested friends be treated leniently, Abosharia says.
Judges who didn't comply were jailed. Some disappeared.
"I knew they were going to arrest me, so finally -- in my 30s -- I went to Yemen, to work as a legal consultant."
Abosharia left his wife and one-year-old son, who followed him later. He remained in Yemen until 1992, when political instability and job insecurity there made him fear again for his future. He knew returning to Sudan was out of the question, especially now he was considered an activist.
But he had heard of peace in Canada.
With his education and law background, he was a shoo-in. He settled in St. Catharines. But to become a lawyer, he would need two years of law school, despite his law degree.
"I was not a landed immigrant, could not get OSAP, and had no money to pay for law school," he says.
He would have been happy to work in any legal capacity. But no Canadian references meant no work.
So Abosharia found other jobs -- as a paper boy, then a pizza deliverer.
Desperate to support his wife and three children, and save enough for school, Abosharia moved in 2001 to London, where many immigrants were taxi drivers.
Driving cab at night, he completed Fanshawe College's courts administration and tribunal agent program with 12 As and four Bs.
The diploma yielded him no job, despite dozens of resumes, he says, but it did give him the background and references he needed to shorten his re-certification period in law school.
He is to attend the University of Ottawa in September, where he must pass 12 courses before he can take the Canadian bar exams.
He's on his way, but still frustrated with the system.
"We have to go back to school and the problem is . . . getting the money to go to school and finding a school that will accept us with our foreign credentials."
It's not that he doesn't appreciate life here. "The most important thing is my kids' education," he says. "Canada is a better place in every other way, but I am a qualified judge."
* * *
"It's a complete paradox," says Alexa McDonough, federal NDP foreign affairs critic.
"People are very anxious to come to Canada, and if they have professional skills . . . it helps them gain entry."
About 225,000 immigrants move to Canada every year. They are the lucky ones, chosen by Canada's Immigration Department based on education, skills and language abilities. Applicants must score 67 out of a possible 100 points to be accepted here.
And in scoring high, educated professionals have good reason to believe they're needed here, McDonough says.
"Professionals have all the assurances in the world from Canada: 'We want you, we need you,' then they hit a stone wall."
Six in every 10 immigrants to Canada were forced to take jobs other than those they were trained to do in 2000 and 2001, a Statistics Canada study says.
* * *
Some are engineers.
Torpikay Yusufzai and Hashim Mohommed didn't ask to come here. They were invited.
They didn't know much about Canada at the time. The couple and their young son were living in a refugee camp in India when an immigration officer knocked on their door.
"I was sitting at home and a person came to our house and said, 'The Canadian government chose you and your husband to go to Canada . . . You have good education, good qualifications,' " says Yusufzai in her Wonderland Road apartment. "You're the immigrant they are looking for."
Yusufzai, a mechanical engineer, once designed systems for the Water and Power Ministry in Kabul. Mohommed, a civil engineer, designed structures and highrises there. They were happy, successful, until 1992, when militants overthrew the government.
It was a brutal year.
That year, 1,500 civilians were killed or wounded in fighting.
Yusufzai was terrified to leave her apartment, but she wasn't safe inside, either.
The young family fled to a refugee camp in India, where Yusufzai's family was living at the time. Job shortages made it impossible to find work as engineers. Mohommed took work translating Russian.
They stayed three years, hoping to return to Kabul -- and to their careers -- if the fighting ever stopped.
But then there was that knock at the door.
Suddenly, Yusufzai and Mohommed had new hopes. They met with the Canadian officials, who said they could get work as engineers here.
"We came here with hope we would find something."
Not quite. The family arrived in London in 1998. They went to London's Global House, a Cross Cultural Learner Centre resource facility that helps newcomers get essentials, such as ID, health services and English courses.
Global House has connections with employment agencies but no one who sits down to match professional immigrants with specific careers.
The government pays for food, clothing and lodging for one year for all refugees. After that, information about welfare is provided.
* * *
Thousands of professionals have been lured to Canadian cities like London with promises of lucrative careers and a prosperous, secure future in a new land. Once they get here, the reality is sobering. And dream-shattering.
Jennifer O'Brien, Free Press Reporter 2004-01-17 03:30:12
Maybe he picked you up one day. Maybe he took you to work on a rainy morning.
And while his windshield wipers slapped water away from your view of the outside world, maybe you didn't see the pile of medical books on the passenger seat of his cab.
His name is Dr. Mohommad Farhad Bayat. He's a London taxi driver.
He's happy here because his family is safe.
He's happy here because his children grew up with Storybook Gardens instead of landmine fields, and they go to good schools and will never be forced to fight for any army.
He's happy because his wife won't be killed or threatened, even though her hair shows.
His prayers have been answered.
But not his dreams.
They lie between the covers of the medical books Dr. Bayat still studies in his taxicab, while parked between fares.
The books are from Kabul, Afghanistan, where he earned his medical degree and set up practice as a family physician. They helped him continue his practice for four years in Pakistan, where he lived in a refugee camp after escaping Afghanistan's brutal regime.
And the knowledge from those books helped him get to Canada in 1991, when he applied as an immigrant to forge a better life for his wife and daughters.
But once he arrived, Dr. Bayat's books -- and his credentials -- were as helpful as his used airline ticket. Despite them, he couldn't get work as a doctor, a nurse, or in any other medical profession. Employers wanted Canadian certification and Canadian references -- re-education that would have cost thousands of dollars he didn't have.
So Dr. Bayat joined thousands of other foreign-trained professionals in an occupation he was qualified to do. He became a taxi driver.
* * *
Hundreds of professionals like Bayat drive London's streets.
Hundreds more deliver pizza. More clean buildings.
Some are doctors, some are lawyers, some are engineers, some are economists and some are teachers.
Most of them have lived through famines, wars and tragedies too horrible for native Londoners to imagine.
Most of them came here because Canada wanted them for their skills.
* * *
Some are judges.
Aboutown taxi driver Abdalla Abosharia spent several years in the Sudan judicial system, backed by a law degree as he worked his way from legal assistant to lawyer to provincial court judge.
"I was living a very sophisticated life," the large man says. "I had a nice house, I had a nice car and I was very well respected . . .
"That's one of the hardest things about driving a taxi. The way people talk to you, some people think drivers are hired servants.
"It is not a good feeling when you are treated badly," he says, stooping to place a pink-coloured Sudanese fruit drink in front of his visitor. "Is it worth it? For my family it is."
As he speaks, voices of his teenage children float down the stairs into the simple living room. "My kids are getting a Canadian education. For them, life will be good."
Abosharia had only one son when he fled Sudan in 1984, after then-president Muhammed Nimeiri had ordered all courts to follow Islamic law -- sharia.
It was not a good situation for civil court judges who had been educated according to the British system -- the same one Canada uses. Sharia law is based on Islamic regulations and values and includes severe penalties such as stoning to death.
On top of the new rules, judges found themselves under threat of arrest by government officials who requested friends be treated leniently, Abosharia says.
Judges who didn't comply were jailed. Some disappeared.
"I knew they were going to arrest me, so finally -- in my 30s -- I went to Yemen, to work as a legal consultant."
Abosharia left his wife and one-year-old son, who followed him later. He remained in Yemen until 1992, when political instability and job insecurity there made him fear again for his future. He knew returning to Sudan was out of the question, especially now he was considered an activist.
But he had heard of peace in Canada.
With his education and law background, he was a shoo-in. He settled in St. Catharines. But to become a lawyer, he would need two years of law school, despite his law degree.
"I was not a landed immigrant, could not get OSAP, and had no money to pay for law school," he says.
He would have been happy to work in any legal capacity. But no Canadian references meant no work.
So Abosharia found other jobs -- as a paper boy, then a pizza deliverer.
Desperate to support his wife and three children, and save enough for school, Abosharia moved in 2001 to London, where many immigrants were taxi drivers.
Driving cab at night, he completed Fanshawe College's courts administration and tribunal agent program with 12 As and four Bs.
The diploma yielded him no job, despite dozens of resumes, he says, but it did give him the background and references he needed to shorten his re-certification period in law school.
He is to attend the University of Ottawa in September, where he must pass 12 courses before he can take the Canadian bar exams.
He's on his way, but still frustrated with the system.
"We have to go back to school and the problem is . . . getting the money to go to school and finding a school that will accept us with our foreign credentials."
It's not that he doesn't appreciate life here. "The most important thing is my kids' education," he says. "Canada is a better place in every other way, but I am a qualified judge."
* * *
"It's a complete paradox," says Alexa McDonough, federal NDP foreign affairs critic.
"People are very anxious to come to Canada, and if they have professional skills . . . it helps them gain entry."
About 225,000 immigrants move to Canada every year. They are the lucky ones, chosen by Canada's Immigration Department based on education, skills and language abilities. Applicants must score 67 out of a possible 100 points to be accepted here.
And in scoring high, educated professionals have good reason to believe they're needed here, McDonough says.
"Professionals have all the assurances in the world from Canada: 'We want you, we need you,' then they hit a stone wall."
Six in every 10 immigrants to Canada were forced to take jobs other than those they were trained to do in 2000 and 2001, a Statistics Canada study says.
* * *
Some are engineers.
Torpikay Yusufzai and Hashim Mohommed didn't ask to come here. They were invited.
They didn't know much about Canada at the time. The couple and their young son were living in a refugee camp in India when an immigration officer knocked on their door.
"I was sitting at home and a person came to our house and said, 'The Canadian government chose you and your husband to go to Canada . . . You have good education, good qualifications,' " says Yusufzai in her Wonderland Road apartment. "You're the immigrant they are looking for."
Yusufzai, a mechanical engineer, once designed systems for the Water and Power Ministry in Kabul. Mohommed, a civil engineer, designed structures and highrises there. They were happy, successful, until 1992, when militants overthrew the government.
It was a brutal year.
That year, 1,500 civilians were killed or wounded in fighting.
Yusufzai was terrified to leave her apartment, but she wasn't safe inside, either.
The young family fled to a refugee camp in India, where Yusufzai's family was living at the time. Job shortages made it impossible to find work as engineers. Mohommed took work translating Russian.
They stayed three years, hoping to return to Kabul -- and to their careers -- if the fighting ever stopped.
But then there was that knock at the door.
Suddenly, Yusufzai and Mohommed had new hopes. They met with the Canadian officials, who said they could get work as engineers here.
"We came here with hope we would find something."
Not quite. The family arrived in London in 1998. They went to London's Global House, a Cross Cultural Learner Centre resource facility that helps newcomers get essentials, such as ID, health services and English courses.
Global House has connections with employment agencies but no one who sits down to match professional immigrants with specific careers.
The government pays for food, clothing and lodging for one year for all refugees. After that, information about welfare is provided.
* * *