looking migrate to Canada, HELP!!

mctina_20 · Mar 26, 2006

there is an agency who will look for an employer in your behalf. but u have to pay them for the job. US$2000... dont worry, they are the one who look for my husbands employer at BC. his papers are on process already...

[edited - advertising]

Good Luck

suzanne4, RN · Mar 26, 2006

I am British nurse looking to go to Canada, Ontario to be precise. I can not find any agencies that help british nurses with the imigration process. There are so many agencies recruiting for american but very few for Canada. those that are available are only recruiting to Vancuver, british columbia and so on but as yet i havent found any for Totonto. If anybody has any ideas on how i can find a job and migrate to Toronto, i will be very grately. I have already sent my registration forms to the Ontario College of Nurses and i am awaiting a reply. Any ideas guys????

Two problems that I see directly. From the UK, you have a three year degree, Ontario is now requiring the BSN or equivalent. Sme of the other provinces only require a two year degree, that is why you see recruiting to there. But the biggest issue is if you are a farily recent grad from the UK, you will not have enough hours in all of the required areas, same as you would need to work in the US. Canada, as well as the US, require the generalist approach and you have had specialist training.

lboogie · Mar 28, 2006

Sorry, i had not seen your replies thats why i posted another one, i am still new to this website. I have a four degree for my nursing training and 6-7 years experience.

lboogie · Mar 28, 2006

Did you say your husband is going to BC? i am looking for one in Ontario, if you hear of any. I have one for BC and vancuvar, but i really want to go to Toronto.

hugeviper · Mar 28, 2006

If I were you, forget Toronto becuse there is any employer there who hires foreign nurses. If you applied already with CNO, just take the CRNE and once you pass it, you can transfer your papers to other province like BC where there are so many employer's hiring foreign nurses.

My friend is in BC now who originally passed her CRNE in Ontario. She tried to apply in Toronto after but for some reason, nobody was interested. And she was an experienced ICU nurse in the UK. So went to BC instead.

Sorry but this is the reality. Hope you'll be lucky enough to find an employer.

Jay-Jay, RN · Mar 28, 2006

I have to disagree on Toronto hospitals not hiring foreign trained nurses. Toronto is a city of immigrants. Native-born Canadians like myself are very much in the minority here. It just may be that jobs are harder to find, because EVERYONE wants to work here.

Anywhere I have worked in the Toronto area (nursing homes, hospitals, home health agencies) the story is the same. The nurses I work with come from every country and every ethnic background.

Good luck with your move! I haven't had to go through a move as a nurse, but I did have to get my Alberta teacher's certificate, after graduating on Ontario. The paperwork took FOREVER, and they mislaid half of it, and I nearly got laid off from my job because my temporary certificate had expired! :rolleyes: I couldn't believe the inefficiency of the whole process (and it was the Alberta end that was to blame, not the Ontario end!)

tankmp · Apr 7, 2007

hi we fall in same catagory. Basically I am from india. my nursing education was assessed by cno. they told me that I am eligible to write crne. once you have this letter and canada pR then it would be very easy to apply for a job. as a rule they issue liscence to only the person who has PR status. one you land in canada this all process will be easy. important thing is to prepare your self for crne exam.

Hardworking Nurse · Apr 17, 2007

I am British nurse looking to go to Canada, Ontario to be precise. I can not find any agencies that help british nurses with the imigration process. There are so many agencies recruiting for american but very few for Canada. those that are available are only recruiting to Vancuver, british columbia and so on but as yet i havent found any for Totonto. If anybody has any ideas on how i can find a job and migrate to Toronto, i will be very grately. I have already sent my registration forms to the Ontario College of Nurses and i am awaiting a reply. Any ideas guys????

Hi there,

Our experience here in Toronto is this. We're six nurses, some male some female nurses who migrated to Canada. Most of us initially work in numerous sweatshops just to get by, just to make both ends meet. But we were able to pursue nursing, canadian education wise. I mean we are licensed in our respective countries of origin and have relevant number of years of experience. We had made a research and followed the steps as provided for by CNO (College of Nurses of Ontario), RNAO (Registered Nurses Association of Ontario). We had to spend our own money. Some were even rejected to obtain a student loan (OSAP) because what I heard is, the loan is ONLY for college diploma or university education or post graduate education such as MBA. Futhermore, the system really made it difficult for the recently landed immigrants to get RN or RPN jobs. CNO will make you complete all the requirements (you have to spend substantial money and time like about 3 years). However most facilities and hospitals do not care about that because they want somebody who underwent clinicals in ontario and they want education obtained in canada or in particular in any one of those colleges or universities in ontario. Forget about your over 5 or 10 years professional, highly valued, and relevant nursing experience in your home country because that will become irrelevant and immaterial once you encounter the high touted "canadian experience" in the workplace. Its like a chicken and egg thing. You need a canadian experience to get that RN job. And you need to work as RN in ontario to get a canadian experience. In other words there are numerous roadblocks along the way after you complete the CNO requirements. Remember that your final objective is to get that RN job. What I will advise you to do is to conduct a research first, not a passive one but active research. You may start from immigration policy first (CIC website), its point system. Then you may look for the prevailing rates and salaries of nurses in different parts of ontario. Forget about the recruiting agencies that recruit foreign trained nurses because there are none. Then look for the prevailing or current practice of recognizing foreign credentials such as education and work experience. Since you are from Britain, you have an edge in language skills. I do not want to sound racial because that is taboo in this website but I think you have an edge if you come from Britain. For credentials, I hope the following websites will help you.

http://pcerii.metropolis.net/Virtual%20Library/FinalReports/Grant2005.pdf

http://www.utoronto.ca/ethnicstudies/Reitz_Skill.pdf

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051119/w5_broken_promises_051119?s_name=&no_ads=

http://www11.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/cs/sp/hrsdc/arb/publications/research/2000-001263/page08.shtml

On the matter that Toronto is multicultural and welcome immigrants, yes its true. Hospitals, nursing home facilities, etc. employ immigrants whether visible or not. It is really diverse. But there is a catch. The preferred destination of immigrants is ontario particularly toronto (you can see this in CIC website, just google it). In effect, the labor market is highly saturated. Although the news about lack of personnel in health care in ontario is spreading fast, the reality is its difficult to get that RN or RPN jobs, unless of course you want to settle for caregiver or nanny jobs just to get by while you are completing your requirements. And most of those visible immigrants who are working now in the hospitals or other facilities are on the average have over 8 years of stay in canada. In other words, they spent a lot of time and must "pass through the eye of the needle" to get their desired jobs (average age of RN and RPN is over 40). Some of them are permanently working but over a majority number of nurses are working part time. If you want to take a look at canada job bank website (http://jobbank.gc.ca/Intro_en.aspx), you will see that working hours are somewhere between 24 to 30 hours per week. Some are 8, some are 12. These number of hours though pay good but you have to juggle from one hospital facility to another just to complete the 40 hour per week work.

I hope I have given you an honest insight about foreign trained nurses who want to work in canada, particularly in toronto, ontario.

Hardworking Nurse · Apr 17, 2007

I am British nurse looking to go to Canada, Ontario to be precise. I can not find any agencies that help british nurses with the imigration process. There are so many agencies recruiting for american but very few for Canada. those that are available are only recruiting to Vancuver, british columbia and so on but as yet i havent found any for Totonto. If anybody has any ideas on how i can find a job and migrate to Toronto, i will be very grately. I have already sent my registration forms to the Ontario College of Nurses and i am awaiting a reply. Any ideas guys????

By the way before I forget, please do not try to obtain your RN or LPN license in other provinces like BC, AB, or QC. Chances are, you will redo everything again once you want to settle in Ontario. I think (though I am still searching this on the internet), other provinces recognize Ontario RN or RPN but not the other way around. I know I have read it somewhere but you can help me out here. For starter here is the link from CNO about registration policy http://www.cno.org/reg/index.htm.

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Apr 17, 2007

By the way before I forget, please do not try to obtain your RN or LPN license in other provinces like BC, AB, or QC. Chances are, you will redo everything again once you want to settle in Ontario. I think (though I am still searching this on the internet), other provinces recognize Ontario RN or RPN but not the other way around. I know I have read it somewhere but you can help me out here. For starter here is the link from CNO about registration policy http://www.cno.org/reg/index.htm.

This is not true. Any nurse who has been registered in another province in Canada may obtain registration in Ontario. From the CNO website above under Registration Requirements:

#8 Labour Mobility

Nurses who have been members of other Canadian nursing regulatory bodies prior to December 31, 2004 will be "grandparented", and may be registered in Ontario after January 1, 2005 without having to meet the new education requirement for entry to practice.

Generally speaking, Canadian nursing credentials are recognized everywhere in Canada once they have been validated. I'm not saying it's easy or cheap, but it's totally possible to go anywhere in this country and practice. You cannot hold licenses in more than one province though.

Caroline0074 · Apr 20, 2007

Hi there,

Let me first of all tell you alittle about me. I am RN BSN schooled and trained in the U.S. I recently married a French Canadian and moved to Quebec, specifically the Outaouais region (Ottawa/Quebec). I am not going to lie, I would have much rather stayed in the U.S. (Texas) to practice because I liked my job and my field (neonatal) is much more in demand there. However, due to circumstances with my husband's job I felt it would be better for me to move to Canada (I can be a nurse anywhere right?) Back then I did not know that I would have to do EVERYTHING (taking the nursing boards specifically) all over so I emailed the recruiter at CHEO (Childrens Hospital of Eastern Ontario) and sent my resume which only consisted of my nursing school training and my 2 years experience in the NICU at Texas Children's Hospital (nowhere near as extensive as yours might be after 7 or 8 years). I got a call within a few weeks by the recruiter herself saying she was interested in meeting me if I could fly in from Texas for an interview. They seemed pretty eager. Unfortunately at the time I was not yet prepared. I had not taken the CRNE, not even applied for registration yet, not to mention I had only begun to apply for permanent residency (a requirement to be licensed in Ontario), which, by the way, takes some time. Considering that I was not prepared at all, I was obviously not able to work for them at the time. But I can say pretty confidently that had I been licensed by Ontario and been a permanent residency at the time (even if I had JUST BEEN licensed for 1 -2 weeks) I would be working at CHEO now.

Once I moved to Canada with my husband I got another call from CHEO within a month of arriving. It was the manager calling this time to see where I was in the process of applying for licensure. The manager told me that I would have been the first foreign trained nurse she would have hired so she does not know exactly how it works. But if I was not licensed yet, understandably, by law, I could not work.

So whats my point? It's ALL RELATIVE. DON'T LET OTHERS DISCOURAGE YOU!!! I have only applied or contacted one hospital so far, CHEO, and I got an almost immediate answer from them. I plan on reapplying there once I receive my permanent residency and I AM CONFIDENT I will have a job.

That being said, the system here in Canada is NOT that efficient which makes it a bit of a challenge. It is not that they don't want to hire foreign nurses, its that they are not yet well versed in the matter because the government seems to think its still not a big enough problem (all governments are blind) and therefore not facilitating the recruitment process. The best advice I can give you on the matter is to keep your job in the U.K., if you can, while applying from OUTSIDE Canada under the skilled worker class. You can also register with the college of nurses of Ontario from outside Canada and once your credentials have been recognized you can fly to Ontario to take your exam and if you pass (I am sure you will), all you have to do is wait alittle longer for your permanent residency card and start applying to the place of your choosing (yes I said the place fo your choosing). This way, you would not have lost a bunch of money to come here and sit on your butt doing nothing and stress out. It takes a lot of pressure off you. Trust me, if I had it to do over I would have taken the advice I just gave you.

Nursing career aside, I am sure you know that moving to another city or state (province) is already hard work, so I am sure you have imagined the hard work it would take to move to a different country. BUT it is NOT impossible. There are success stories out there, probably more that failures, its just not as easily broadcasted. Take care and good luck. If you have any specific questions please don't hesitate to PM me.

Sorry that was so long...

God Bless,

Caroline