Supporting immigrants, newcomers, and helping build our skilled workforce
Hard working immigrants and newcomers who come to Ontario in the hope of building a better life, but are often not given a fair shot at success when they arrive. Despite coming to this province with skills, education, and experience - lack of proper procedure to recognize international training or education and fairness for immigrants in the workforce often leads to underemployment and intergenerational struggles that leave our communities behind.
Throughout the pandemic, internationally trained healthcare workers were unable to help relieve the unprecedented strain on our healthcare system despite their skills, training, and willingness. Many had to watch from the sidelines while their communities struggled to get access to basic healthcare amidst a public health crisis.
Doly knows how difficult it is for those in our community who come here to build a new, better life in Ontario but are not given the support, resources, and opportunities to do so. She has heard from and supported immigrants - both old and new - as they navigated barriers such as lack of language access, culturally appropriate care, and most importantly, lack of pathways to recognize their skills and training.
Doly and the Ontario NDP want to build a province where everyone has a fair shot at building a good life. We will work towards:
- Building a system to recognize the skills and credentials of internationally-educated workers, including healthcare professionals
- Expanding and updating the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program to not only attract more skilled immigrants to Ontario but also making sure they are able to work in their fields
- Implementing a language access strategy to make sure that multilingual Ontarians from all walks of life - Indigenous communities, Franco-Ontarians, immigrants - can access services in their language of choice