The entire article can be accessed online at http://www.canadianbusiness.com/managing/article.jsp;jsessionid=FLNNLDLPOMOB?content=20050314_65971_65971.

Some excerpts below:
Help Wanted - Canada needs more skilled workers. What the provinces can do to get them here.

Rodney MacDonald is a busy man. The Nova Scotia MLA is the provincial minister of tourism, culture and heritage. He's also the minister of health promotion and the minister responsible for the province's Heritage Property Act. And in January, Premier John Hamm named him minister of immigration as well.

Given that Nova Scotia attracts only about 1,700 immigrants a year, you might think being sworn in as its immigration minister is akin to being named the minister of fisheries for Saskatchewan. But immigration is no laughing matter in the province. In fact, MacDonald's latest portfolio might well be the most important position in the entire cabinet when it comes to Nova Scotia's economic survival. "We want to see more immigration coming into the province," says MacDonald. "We are facing declining birth rates and potential labour shortages, and we need to address that by attracting more immigrants. This is an issue that is on the front burner." To that end, MacDonald has set himself a lofty goal: doubling immigration to Nova Scotia by 2010.
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Manitoba and Quebec, in particular, already exert considerable control over their own immigration policies, and many other provinces are following their lead. Given the legendary dysfunction of the federal department of citizenship and immigration, this latest trend can only be seen as a positive development.
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It's true that the 235,826 immigrants Canada accepted last year represent important challenges in terms of their economic and social integration with the rest of the country. And these difficulties have spurred critics of immigration to call for a reduction in our intake. But given the backdrop of our looming labour-market necessity, creating new barriers and lowering our numbers are not the answers.
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One of the most pressing immigration challenges is the fact that 76% of all newcomers have chosen to settle in the three major urban centres: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. The so-called MTV Problem has put pressure on the three big cities to integrate a large number of immigrants while denying most other areas of the country the benefits of an expanding pool of labour that immigration can bring.
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Just over 1% of all immigrants to Canada chose to settle in Atlantic Canada in 2004. Nova Scotia received half of those, but, based on past statistics, the bulk of them could be expected to pack up and leave. Nova Scotia's immigrant retention rate is a mere 40%, the second-lowest in Canada and far below the national average of 82%. So the province not only fails to attract immigrants in any great number; it has trouble keeping them. "Immigration is the key to our future economic success," says Peter Kelly, mayor of the Halifax Regional Municipality and a leading voice in encouraging greater provincial attention to the issue.
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The provision of integration services, such as English as a second language and skills training also figure in the decision-making process. And immigrants are drawn to areas were there are already large numbers of their own community, which is what makes Toronto and other big cities so attractive.
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Complicating these issues is the fact that the federal government has no real ability or motivation to force immigrants to pick Halifax over Toronto. While Joe Volpe, the current federal immigration minister, has talked about encouraging more newcomers to settle in smaller centres, he lacks any real coercive powers. "Ottawa has failed in terms of encouraging immigrants to settle in alternative areas other than MTV," observes Crowley. "Only the provinces can take this argument to heart."
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It seems clear that the federal immigration system is crumbling under the weight of its own processes and internal politics. And since no immediate solutions to these problems are in the offing from Ottawa, it is now up to the provinces to chart their own course.
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The key to provincial plans for taking a greater role in immigration is the provincial nominee program. The innovation allows provinces to select their own immigration candidates separate from the backlogged pool of permanent visa applicants overseen by Ottawa. The selection criteria can be based on the unique circumstances of the provincial labour market or other factors the individual provinces find desirable. The federal government's involvement is limited to the security, health and documentation checks that are standard for all immigrants. That makes the process considerably faster and allows the provinces to make their case directly with potential immigrants to avoid the MTV problem.
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No province has seized the opportunities presented by the provincial nominee program better than Manitoba. "We need to focus on immigration to grow our economy," says Nancy Allan, that province's labour and immigration minister, making the same arguments MacDonald does. But Allan can point to some real accomplishments since 1998, when Manitoba first began accepting nominees. "Our nominee program started off with 600. This year will see 7,500," she says. "Our goal is 10,000 immigrants by 2006, and we will definitely meet that target." Manitoba attracts more immigrants than other provinces with comparable populations. And most of these are nominees deliberately selected by the province.
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The fact that Manitoba can negotiate the total number of immigrants it lands each year puts it close to Quebec in terms of immigration autonomy. However, Quebec's system is far more expensive, since it actively recruits French-speaking newcomers using nine international Quebec-run offices. Manitoba's, on the other hand, appears a much cheaper and more sensible alternative, since it involves no duplication of the federal government's overseas presence.
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The real advantage to Manitoba, however, is its ability to apply its own selection criteria to potential immigrants. While the federal immigration system has been criticized for putting emphasis on post-secondary education when judging candidates as economic immigrants, Manitoba has designed its nominee program to focus on skill shortages in its own labour market. This means skilled tradesmen are in greater demand than PhDs.
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Manitoba's demands for fairer treatment of international students has also led to a provincial pilot project that allows them to work off-campus. Students are frequently seen as an attractive source of migrants since they are Canadian-trained, typically fluent in English or French and likely to settle close to where they studied. But, outside of Manitoba and New Brunswick, they are limited to on-campus jobs while in school and, after graduation, they suffer the same fate as other temporary workers--they must leave the country in order to apply for permanent status, even if they already have a job. To date, Allan has been able to use the provincial nominee program to allow 205 students to become permanent residents without the bother of leaving the country.
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As provinces such as Nova Scotia replicate Manitoba's success in creating an individualized immigration policy based on provincial needs instead of federal dictates, the immigration system should become more efficient and relevant. It should also improve the integration of immigrants into Canadian society--a key component of making the immigration system work. "Many federal integration programs are not working particularly well," says Naomi Alboim, a fellow at the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. She observes that since the provinces control most of the social programs that are responsible for settling and integrating immigrants into Canadian society, such as education, health care, welfare, and share labour-market training with the feds, it only makes sense that they take a bigger role in implementing immigration policy.

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/managing/article.jsp?content=20050314_65971_65971

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This means skilled tradesmen are in greater demand than PhDs.

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There is nothing wrong with it. I know several very happy electrician, carpenter and tradesman with Engineering degrees. Most of them pull in $120K+ and have no regrets. If you are a tradesman working independently providing services to businesses, you can easily command $75 - 150 per hour.

It is just Indians and SE Asians who think that if they are engineer/professionally educated, they are somehow superior "race" compared to tradesman.

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Orginally posted by ThinkingOne

Recently, I heard the wierdest talk in which a PhD was saying better I do some electrician course, at least he will get a job in technical trade category! And I was like .. what???

Foreign credentials recognition program need to become more efficient, quicker and comparative results producing.

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It is like reinventing wheel rather than feeling as superior race

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Orginally posted by AnilKG

It is just Indians and SE Asians who think that if they are engineer/professionally educated, they are somehow superior "race" compared to tradesman.

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AnilKG,
I understand what you are saying in your post. My intention was to point out the concern of non-utilization of already avlbl skills within an immigrant.
Regards.