The Ontario Bridge Training Program assists skilled immigrants by providing support while they get their credentials, licenses, and professional certifications settled in their new home, and helping them find jobs in their fields once they have.
Recently, the provincial and federal governments announced that they will be "expanding and enhancing" the program over the next three years.
Details are right now scarce—representatives for Ontario's Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration could not spell out any of the particulars—but we're told that more announcements are coming soon. What we do know is that the province is putting $63.6 million into the program over three years, and the federal government is kicking in another $16.6 million; of that pot $15 million of provincial money is "additional support."
Mamdouh Shoukri is president of York University, which runs a certification program for skilled immigrants, and which hosted government officials for the announcement. "These important programs are helping to build a globally connected economy and to support diversity in our communities," he said, addressing an audience of dignitaries and skilled immigrants.
Representing the federal government, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander chimed in: "We need to remind ourselves of that economic logic of immigration, of the desire of immigrants themselves to work in their fields, to build lives, to provide for their families, and to contribute."
Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration