International Organization for Migration (IOM)

language skills, finding employment, obtaining necessary documentation for
immigration and licensing, and assessing educational credentials. The workbook also
includes an extensive glossary of links to all of the online resources discussed here,
including Working in Canada, Occupation Facts, and directories of SPOs.
Box 11.3: The federal credentials referral office (fcro) in focus
the federal credentials referral office (fcro) is a part of citizenship and Immigration
canada (cIc). cIc jointly administers entry to canada with hrsdc and the canada border
services Agency (cbsA). the fcro was launched in may of 2007 following extensive
consultations with stakeholders over the previous year which yielded the conclusion that
the recognition of foreign credentials was among the most significant barriers to the labour
market integration of skilled immigrants. the initiative to form the fcro in 2007 was
accompanied with funding for hrsdc’s foreign credential recognition program, which ran
from 2007 to 2009 (fcro, 2008).
the fcro’s chief role is to facilitate access to information about the recognition of foreign
credentials. this service is delivered through call centres run by service canada, a federal
government department responsible for delivering public services in canada. service
canada maintains over 300 locations that can be reached toll-free, which immigrants
can call for information or referrals to information sources. the fcro also produces and
publishes resources for employers and immigrants, many of which are discussed elsewhere
in this report. this includes detailed guides on immigrating and hiring, respectively, for
immigrants and employers, and occupation facts, which is discussed later in this section.
this amalgamation of information is an important feature in canada’s delivery of LmI to
immigrants, as over 400 different regulatory bodies are responsible for credentialing skilled
workers in canada.
the fcro is currently working on the pan-canadian framework for the Assessment and
recognition of foreign Qualifications. this framework aims to guarantee that foreign
credential recognition (fcr) is fair, transparent, timely, and consistent, despite the number
of regulatory bodies and levels of government responsible for fcr. the fcro has been
focusing on different sets of target occupations in two-year spans to achieve this goal.
the fcro also works with nearly a dozen stakeholders on a variety of initiatives, such as
outreach and pre-departure orientation, sector-specific guidebooks, micro-loans to facilitate
fcr, research and policy development, the development of offshore examination locations
for some occupations, and many others.
Pilot projects and programmes delivering services to potential immigrants
abroad with SPO support
The pilot projects run by CIC, some in partnership with SPOs, are of greater interest,
as they establish direct contact between potential immigrants or temporary workers
living outside of Canada and Canadian businesses or government departments. The
first of these, the Canadian Immigrant Integration Project (CIIP) originated as a fiveyear
pilot project in 2005 by HRSDC, and continued as a CIC project from 2010
onwards (ACCC, 2011); in 2010, the pilot project was evaluated and judged to be a
success, at which point CIIP was converted to an ongoing commitment (CIC, 2010c).
The primary actor, however, was and remains the SPO partner, the Association of
Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC). With funding from CIC, the ACCC
implements the CIIP in accordance with goals established through consultations with
HRSDC, CIC, other SPOs, and the result of the evaluation of the pilot project.
country studIes – CANADA
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