Meena Janardhan

DUBAI, Jul 3 2006 (IPS) – More than 5,000 Asian and other expatriates, working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), apply for immigration to Canada every year in the hope of a better life and many return with Canadian passports, empty pockets and soured dreams.
I left Dubai with stars in my eyes two years ago to make my life in Toronto, said Rajiv Pillai, an accountant. I dreamt of a good life, better education for my children and making a fortune. But I grabbed the first chance to return when I realised that I would not get a job suited to my qualifications.

All that Pillai managed to get were part-time jobs. I had to work as a salesman at a grocery store and as a cashier at a fast food joint to make both ends meet. Back in Dubai, I am now the financial controller of a firm that owns several retail outlets, Pillai said.

Canada is considered the ideal country for people wanting to begin life anew. The benefits are attractive and include free schooling for children and the right to choose an occupation. Asians, Iranians, Lebanese, and South Africans form the bulk of migrants from the Gulf countries.

But consultants insist that most immigrants do not plan well enough. Canada is not about broken dreams. Many return because of poor planning and wrong advice. Many nurses have had no problems, says Martin White, who works for an immigration consultancy firm.

New immigrants may initially find it difficult to land jobs in their own fields, but Canada still offers a good deal , said former Canadian minister of immigration Gerry Weiner while addressing a seminar in Dubai, last month, on the immigrant investor programme.
Canada created over one million jobs over the last four years, the highest in job creation among the G-7 nations. The quality of life is second to none. There is universal access to healthcare, education is free till university. I tell you it s a good deal. While there are still a lot of areas that new immigrants will find difficult to access, there are countless examples of successes they have made, and there is the additional success that their children will make, Weiner said.

About 300 families from the Middle East settle in Canada annually under the immigrants investment programme. If a person has a net worth of 800,000 Canadian dollars (about 712,000 US dollars) and can show that he had earned the money through his own efforts and through legitimate skills, he then is given a permanent residence status, Weiner said.

While most Asians reach the Gulf to increase earnings, many are tempted to move on to countries like Canada and Australia, using the Gulf countries as a springboard, to have even better prospects in life.

I came to the UAE eight years ago and was happy to find a job for about 3,500 dirhams (about 1,000 US dollars). For the last two years, my wife and I have been earning nearly four times more and I have been contemplating migrating to Canada. Apart from better living conditions for my children I have several of my relatives already in Canada, said Paul Varghese.

Among the driving forces behind migration to Canada are high cost of living and the consequent drop in quality of life, job uncertainty and massive competition for education and jobs at home in Asian countries like India and the Philippines.

We emigrated to Canada four years back but returned to UAE the next year. We wanted to give our children a good education and a good future, but my husband just couldn t get a suitable job even though he was a highly qualified engineer with over 20 years experience. Besides, most of his salary would have gone into daily expenses and taxes, says Archana, an Indian housewife in Sharjah, one of the seven emirates of the UAE.

Professions like medicine, nursing and engineering in Canada require local certification and weeks and months of internship and this can be daunting for most new immigrants.

I will go back next year when my daughter is ready to go to college, but my husband will continue here as we cannot think of paying her fees and also living a decent life without the salary that he gets here. It s a sacrifice but we can t help it, Archana added.

According to a Statistics Canada report, one in six male immigrants leaves Canada for better opportunities elsewhere within the first year of arrival. Those who leave are the cream of the crop businessmen and skilled workers. Migrants from Hong Kong and the U.S. were the most likely to leave, followed by those from South America, Central America, the Middle East, and Australia, in that order.

It is no secret that some people come to Canada with the intention of returning home. The idea that used to exist that the world consisted of a lot of highly educated people who want to come here, and Canada got to pick and choose is something of a myth.. When it comes to immigration, we are in a very competitive market. We have to recruit them and make sure they stay, says sociologist Jeffrey Reitz, of the Toronto University s Centre for International Studies, in the report.

I used to sit for hours in malls when I came here 23 years ago, waiting for Asians to pass by, said Dr Chandra Kumar, a paediatric surgeon from Canada, over e-mail, Now there are so many of them, but most of them stay for a couple of years and then leave they say they prefer to come back to Canada when they retire because healthcare is free and there are pension options too.

While numerous factors contribute to the dissatisfaction felt by many immigrants, many say the major problem they face is discrimination in accessing jobs. For example, qualified doctors can be blocked from practicing by provincial licencing agencies. According to recent government statistics, there are 2,000 doctors in Ontario who are underemployed, while the Canadian province suffers a serious shortages of physicians.

It s only when we are actually there that we realise that our qualifications are often useless, said Pillai. I know at least five families that returned to the UAE to work after migrating to Canada. Doctors have had to work in pharmacies, engineers as machine operators and doctoral degree holders as teachers in primary schools. Some have also returned as they feel the environment is too tough for growing children.

Status consciousness may be part of the problem. Sure, you will have to accept that not everybody will become the president of a construction company, said Weiner. There are a lot of people who will go into retail. I am a pharmacist by profession; I work in a drug store.

Irrespective of all these experiences of dreams turning sour, we still receive enough applicants to keep us busy, which endorses the notion that Canada is still a land of opportunity, said White.