A man describes the difficulty of finding employment, even though he had a degree, due to the lack of Canadian experience.
P.F.: The first job, when I got here, the next day they had taken me to the Sun Life company by luck.
Because you know, they say we’ll go there, we’ll go there, you know, and they had taken me to the Canadian Pacific
and to another company to do… In Sun Life they told me they had... they were hiring many, from Greeks, Italians...
because there was immigration from these parts and from Egypt and all these, and I saw acquaintances and also people I knew from Egypt.
And I was interested because my father was insured in Sun Life in Egypt. Sun Life had offices since 1892
and until 1949 and my father was insured and then,
when he died in 1949, aged 40, they were aware that my mother had assistance from the insurances and all that.
Therefore, it wasn’t something unknown. And when I was in South Africa, they also had offices there and I was seeing their name on the newspaper
and thus, when I saw that here that I can work… But they tell me the only thing is we can’t hire someone who’s been less than six months in Canada,
because he needs to see a bit how things are… meaning how you go about, how you relocate, how you commute and so forth. And he offered me an advice,
they tell me “Look, over here it is about insurance marketing
and such with the people, and you need to see whether you’re interested in that thing, there are benefits because you’ll be independent
at work and all that, it’s got benefits, but find out then, you’ve got six months”.
And at that time in Christmas, there were some stores here in Downtown,
close to Saint Catherine, opposite this building, one can work for Christmas December January.
And you’ll talk, you’ll do, how do they say, show that you’ve got a little Canadian experience. That’s what many are asking for. You come here an immigrant
and whatever work you know they tell you “have you got Canadian experience?”. Huh, how can I?
I just arrived (Laughs). Isn’t it?
