One in five Centretown residents has moved here in the last five years from abroad, according to the latest Ottawa Neighbourhood Study.
Ottawa’s reception centres for new arrivals say they are feeling the increase.
“Our numbers keep going up and up,” says George Koneval, director of the Newcomer Information Centre, which operates under the auspices of the YMCA/YWCA on Catherine Street. “We have to expand.”
Future numbers are only expected to rise.
A Statistics Canada study released this month found Ottawa’s foreign-born population could hit 30 per cent by 2031.
Mohamed Dalmar, client services manager at the Catholic Immigration Centre on Argyle Avenue, predicts increased demand over the next five years for his agency’s services.
This includes job search assistance, orientation counselling and crisis intervention.
He also says expansion will be necessary.
“It used to be everyone went to Toronto,” says Sharon Kan, executive director of the Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre on Kent Street. “But now people are well scattered in Centretown, Lowertown, Kanata and Barrhaven.”
Centretown, Dalmar added, is a desirable location because it is on several major bus lines and many of the new arrivals don’t have cars.
Koneval said his organization started operations less than three years ago and serves around 10,000 people annually.
According to Koneval the biggest obstacle for new arrivals is finding employment.
Canada’s careful selection process for immigrants means most new arrivals are “highly skilled and educated,” and 70 per cent have some sort of higher education, he says.“Ottawa is now a destination for highly skilled international professionals,” says Koneval.
“People are choosing Ottawa because the (standard of living) is high and there are lots of opportunities.”
Unfortunately, those opportunities often prove difficult to fulfill.
“Sometimes (skilled workers) are forced to take jobs like delivering pizza and driving cabs,” Koneval says. “Our biggest challenge is to help them find a job that corresponds with their qualifications.”
“I have to tell my clients, ‘You’re starting at zero,’ ” says Telius Jean-Baptiste, Catholic Immigration Services’ co-ordinator of French-language programs.
“People come here with a good intellectual background and have to return to school and get a certificate from a Canadian institution. I call it discrimination.”
For example, says Koneval, in programs that prepare foreign-trained doctors to become recognized in Canada, there are at least 10 applicants for every spot.
“These people are very highly educated and there is great disappointment when they don’t find a job,” Jean-Baptiste says.
He stressed that integration is not an instant process.
“You have all the opportunities if you expect to re-begin your life after three or four or five years,” he says.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has noted that professional associations have stood in the way of skilled immigrants looking for jobs.
The government has developed a “Pan-Canadian Framework for the Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Credentials” intended to get foreign professional credentials recognized faster, media reports indicate .
Kenney says he hopes to have all of Canada’s several hundred professional organizations on-side by 2013.
For Koneval and other immigrant advocates, that can’t come fast enough.
“Our future is immigration,” Koneval says. “Don’t drag (the process) out two or three or four or five years.”
“Funding should be found to support these people,” he adds.
Kan acknowledges that the economic uncertainty of the past few years makes jobs hard to come by for new Canadians and established Canadians alike.
“I know some people are thinking, ‘why are Canadians not getting jobs?’” she says. “But when you have a poor economy, you have less jobs. We need to work together.”