About CAPE

Why we need CAPE
Although immigrants having engineering backgrounds who have been arriving in Canada since 1986 are more highly educated and experienced than the host population and represent the leading edge of migrant workers associated with globalization, they have been locked out of their profession in Canada. There is a strong need for these immigrants to have an organization to analyze their concerns, promote their professional and economic interests, and act as a stronger public voice for them. CAPE is this organization.

CAPE Council for Access to the Profession of Engineering is a membership organization for Immigrants with Engineering Backgrounds (IEBs) coming to settle in Canada to support them in realizing their aspirations and potential through the utilization of their engineering education, experience and skills in Canada.

Vision Statement
CAPE will leverage global engineering skills and experience of immigrants with engineering credentials from counties other than Canada to enhance the global/international mobility of engineers and make Canada a world leader in engineering innovation.

Mission Statement
To achieve its vision, CAPE will:

• Support its members in achieving commensurate employment and creating self-employment opportunities.
• Support members in developing cutting-edge skills and pioneering engineering innovation in Canada.
• Take a client-centered approach where CAPE develops unique and innovative solutions that place immigrants with engineering backgrounds at the centre while meeting different client needs. CAPE clients under this structure will include its members, other immigrant professionals, employers, service providing organizations and government Agencies.

Values

• CAPE will not promote the under-employment or under-utilization of the skills of its members.
• CAPE will focus on employment rather than licensing of its members.
• CAPE will continue to adopt the positions outlined in its various submissions namely:
• The reserved title and assumption of deficiency of credentials locks immigrants with engineering backgrounds out of the practice of engineering and is unjustifiable.
• Due to the absence of a definition of the constituent elements of the one year experience under a professionally licensed engineer, the limitation period attached to the provisional license, the lack of criteria to appeal against licensing decisions, and legal issues that exist in this, the regulatory process must be addressed.
• Due to the absence of the definition of the ‘skills gap’ between immigrants with engineering backgrounds and mainstream engineers, and non–recognition of these by PEO, bridging programs to address the ‘Canadian experience’ needs of employers and regulators for immigrants with engineering backgrounds need to be reviewed.
• The recommendations of the licensing process task force of PEO place an unnecessary burden on applicants and only serve to make the licensing process more onerous.
• The employer drive for recruitment of ‘engineers’ under the Provincial Nominee Programs in Alberta, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island is at variance with Provincial Professional Engineer Acts and regulation.
• While CAPE will look into the possibility of skills commensurate employment, this stand will not condone the locking out of immigrants with engineering backgrounds from the practice of professional engineering.
• CAPE will continue to support the stand that Ontario and the rest of Canada must meet the obligations signed to under NAFTA and GATS.

History
Organizational Structure (1990-2006): Group/Project

CAPE was established as a small advocacy group of immigrants with engineering backgrounds between 1990 and 1993 in response to the difficulties that this group was facing in accessing the engineering profession in Ontario.

In 1994, the Coalition for Access to Professional Engineering (CAPE) was officially founded under the chairmanship of Mike Dang and comprised of a body of immigrants with engineering backgrounds, individuals and service organizations. From 2003 to 2006, CAPE functioned as a project under the trusteeship of the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA).

Organizational Structure (2006-2010): After Incorporation

In June 2006, CAPE incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation to serve immigrants with engineering backgrounds after election of its First Interim Board of Directors. The Interim Board went through an intensive period of training and developed its first independent strategic plan presented to CAPE members at the Inaugural Annual General Meeting in November 2007.

After incorporation CAPE, has been intermittently faced with sustainability challenges, both financial and physical, since staff and resource funding have consistently relied upon project funding. However, through its robust fee-for-service initiatives and strong volunteer and staff base, CAPE is able to sustain its services to members

Increasingly a choice partner for Service Providing Organizations (SPOs) and other agencies working in the settlement of engineers as professional immigrants in Ontario, CAPE continues to leverage its knowledge capital products (including groundbreaking research and online curriculum development/ learning tools) into fee-for-service offerings, sustaining it in times when its own funding is limited. CAPE has also consistently demonstrated its ability to receive project funding from different Ontario ministries, a vote of confidence in the value it adds to the service of immigrants with engineering backgrounds in their struggle to find their rightful place in engineering in Canada. CAPE has built a reputation for rigorous, independent and innovative work.

For more information please see our detailed Chronology