Mission, Vision and History

Mission, Vision and History

Vision Statement
Recognizing the emerging inter-disciplinary nature and frontiers in engineering and other professions under technological convergence, the emerging crisis due to narrowly defined educational disciplines in regulated professions, ineffectual skills development and employment barriers under globalization, CAPE is positioning its members to combat employment challenges, rapid change in the workplace and transition into today’s engineering jobs in Canada.

Mission Statement
To achieve its vision, CAPE will:

  • Support members to develop skills suited to today’s engineering and other regulated professions
  • Support its members to gain access to meaningful skills-commensurate employment
  • Support members in pioneering engineering innovation in Canada.
  • Engage with other professions to meet changing needs under convergence and to work across professional and disciplinary boundaries
  • Take a client-centred approach where CAPE develops unique solutions that give its members a competitive edge while meeting different client needs. CAPE clients under this structure will include its members, employers, service providers and the government.

Values                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

  • CAPE will not support the underutilization of immigrants holding engineering and other professional credentials, experience and competencies.
  • CAPE will not promote the self-interests over public interest in defining regulation of professions.
  • CAPE will focus on employment rather than licensing/regulation of its members.
  • In respect of engineering 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.
  • 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): Unincorporated

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

Organizational Structure (2006-2012): Incorporated

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 its inaugural Annual General Meeting held in November 2007.

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

Increasingly a partner of choice for Service Providing Organizations (SPOs) and other agencies working in the settlement of immigrant engineers and other professionals 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 having professional backgrounds in their struggle to find their rightful place in engineering and other professions in Canada. CAPE has built a reputation for rigorous, independent and innovative work.

Since the beginning of 2012, CAPE has entered into a transition to change its organizational structure in keeping with emerging demands for inter-disciplinary and inter-professional collaboration within engineering.

A chronology of projects and initiatives we have undertaken is tabulated below

YEAR INITIATIVE PURPOSE OUTCOMES
2006 CAPE Volunteers Employment supports Developed online employment support tools for CAPE Members
2006/2008 HRSD/MTCU/CAPE Skills Commensurate Engineering Access Project Project began December 2006:

  • Identified non-core engineering Occupations and emerging engineering occupations
2008/2009 CAPE Volunteers Training supports Developed online skills Gap Analyzer
2008/2010 MTCU/CAPE Leveraging Global Engineering Skills Project Piloted employer driven curricula development process deriving from the skills Gap Analyzer Approach for selected specializations for:

  • Environmental Engineers
  • Structural Engineers
  • Industrial/manufacturing plant engineers
  • Electrical/electronic switchgear and circuits engineers
2011/2012 MTCU/CAPE Exploratory Study – Navigator Project CAPE secured funding from the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities to carry out an exploratory premised on the fact that the CAPE talent integration process addressed and could strengthen processes needed to address many of the critical issues facing HHR planning and deployment.This exploratory study specifically included a literature review and environmental scan of HHR practices and stakeholders. The objective of the exploratory study was to achieve the broader goals of:

  • Identifying stakeholders responsible for HHR management and deployment in Ontario
  • Sharing information about the CAPE talent integration process with these stakeholders to engage them in piloting the application of this technology for health professions. A comprehensive literature review of the state of HHR planning in Canada, its jurisdictions and Ontario and new developments in HHR practices identified 117 HHR stakeholders. Of these stakeholders, 34 were federal and 83 were Ontario based. A framework categorizing these stakeholders as governmental, inter-provincial, regional, multi-professional, profession specific or other emerged from a multi-dimensional analysis. 40 stakeholders (4 from federal organizations) participated in the environmental scan as key informants and provided feedback on adapting the CAPE Talent Integration Process for health professions. 19 of them also participated in a Multi-Stakeholder Consultative Meeting held in Toronto on January 31, 2012 to validate the project hypothesis and develop a conceptual framework for a piloting the CAPE Talent Integration Process. This framework resulted in a pilot framework comprising a profession-specific pilot, a multi-profession pilot and a pilot gaps-driven bridge training program for health professions. A number of stakeholders including regulators, profession-specific and multi-profession associations and bridge training programs expressed interest in joining the advisory committee and/or participating in the pilot project.
2012/2014 MTCU/CAPE Pilot Navigator Project for Selected Health Professions CAPE secured funding from the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities to carry out the IEHP-Pilot Navigator Project for Selected Health Professions to duplicate its knowledge products for the Health Sector in order to investigate the potential for this new strategic driver. The objective of Navigator Project for Selected Health Professions was to improve the quality of employment preparation and skills development for health providers (focusing on the foreign trained entrants) from selected health professions using the CAPE employer-driven curricula development process. Using special knowledge intensive competency-based tools to match health professionals skills in real-time with employer needs to identify the gaps and surpluses in skills, CAPE will develop and enhance stakeholder knowledge of the changing nature of skills requirements for particular professions and promote immigrant talent sourcing and management. This project focus was on:

  • IEHPs (Internationally educated health professionals) looking to get licensed and seeking employment in Ontario
  • Capturing IEHP skills and competencies targeting the gaps analysis for audiologists, speech language pathologists and physician assistants  (Engaging AIPSO and CASLPO as partners)
  • Pilot evidence-based  and competency gaps driven training for physician assistants (Engaging SfC as partners))
  • Creating real-time LMI for HHR development