The "Canadian Experience" Trap: A Policy That Doesn't Add Up

How a "magical pathway" for temporary workers is leaving 13,000 Canadian citizens and permanent residents behind.

Today, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced what sounds like a win for healthcare: a new Express Entry category for international doctors. The headlines write themselves - ”Canada fast-tracks immigrant doctors to solve healthcare crisis.”

But I’ve learned to read government announcements very carefully. And when I did, I found something that doesn’t add up. Not just bad policy, but policy that contradicts itself.

Let me walk you through what I found. Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

The Announcement Says One Thing. Logic Says Another.

Here is what IRCC announced: They will create a new Express Entry category for international doctors with “at least one year of Canadian work experience in an eligible occupation, gained within the last three years.”

The eligible occupations? General practitioners and family physicians. Specialists in surgery. Specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine.

Read that again. These are not healthcare-adjacent jobs. These are not medical research assistants or hospital administrators. These are practicing physicians. People who diagnose patients, perform surgeries, prescribe treatments.

Now shouldn’t this raise our curiosity? How did these temporary residents get licensed to practice medicine in Canada when thousands of permanent residents and citizens cannot?

To work as a general practitioner, specialist in surgery, or clinical medicine specialist in Canada, you need a medical license. Full stop. You cannot legally practice medicine without one. So if these temporary residents have been “helping patients and contributing to our health care system” as the announcement claims, they must have licenses.

But we are constantly told that licensing is the barrier. That the process takes years. That residency spots are limited. That exams only run a few times a year. That return-of-service contracts are required. That’s why an estimated 13,000 foreign-trained physicians in Canada are not practicing medicine.

So which is it?

Either licensing is a nearly impossible barrier - in which case, how did these temporary residents get through it?

Or licensing pathways exist for some people and not others - in which case, why are permanent residents and citizens being left behind?

The Two-Tier System the Announcement Is Silent About

Here is what is actually happening, and it exposes something uncomfortable about how Canada treats immigrant professionals.

Some provinces actively recruit doctors from abroad. They bring them in on work permits, often to fill gaps in rural or underserved areas. For these doctors, the chosen ones - there are streamlined pathways. Provisional licenses. Supervised practice arrangements. Practice-Ready Assessment fast-tracks.

But if you are a foreign-trained doctor who came to Canada through the normal immigration process? If you became a permanent resident through Express Entry or sponsorship? If you are now a Canadian citizen? You face the full weight of the licensing maze. Limited residency spots. Years of waiting. Exams that cost thousands. Return-of-service contracts that domestic graduates never face.

The same credentials. The same skills. Different treatment based on how you arrived.

This new policy does not fix that two-tier system. It rewards it.

A Policy That Adds Zero Doctors

Let’s think about this practically.

The doctors targeted by this announcement are already working in Canada. They are already seeing patients. They are already “contributing to our health care system.” Giving them permanent residence does not add a single doctor to a single clinic.

It changes their immigration status. That’s it.

Meanwhile, the doctors who would actually add capacity to our healthcare system - the 13,000 foreign-trained physicians who are permanent residents or citizens but cannot practice, get nothing from this announcement. They will still be driving taxis, working in call centres, doing whatever they must to survive while their medical degrees gather dust and with time, lose their currency of practice.

If the government wanted to add doctors, they would open licensing pathways for the people already here who want to practice. That would add thousands of physicians to the system.

Instead, we are giving an immigration upgrade to people who already have what matters most: a license to practice.

The government is solving a problem that doesn’t exist for people who don’t need the help, while ignoring the people who do.

We Have Seen This Movie Before

If this feels familiar, it should.

In 2008, the government faced a similar “problem.” Employers complained that foreign-trained professionals lacked Canadian work experience. Instead of addressing why Canadian experience had become such an impossible barrier - the discrimination, the risk aversion, the credential devaluation - the government created the Canadian Experience Class (CEC).

The CEC essentially said: If you manage to break through the barrier on your own, we will reward you with permanent residence.

On paper, it looked like a success. CEC immigrants have high employment rates. But that is because only the survivors made it through. The policy did nothing for the thousands who could not find that first Canadian job because employers refused to take a chance on them.

And the cost? A 2019 RBC report estimated that immigrant underemployment costs Canada $50 billion in lost GDP annually. Not because immigrants lack skills, but because we built a system that forces them to work below their qualifications.

We created a deskilling machine, then spent billions on “integration programs” to fix the damage.

Now we are doing the exact same thing with doctors.

The Math Does Not Work

Let me put some numbers on this.

Canada has approximately 13,000 foreign-trained doctors who are not practicing. These are not hypothetical people overseas. They are here. They are permanent residents and citizens. They have committed to this country.

In 2024, 5.7 million Canadian adults - 17% of the population reported not having a regular healthcare provider.

If we licensed even half of those 13,000 doctors, we could make a real dent in that shortage.

Instead, this new policy reserves 5,000 spaces for provinces to nominate licensed doctors with job offers. Doctors who, by definition, already have licenses and jobs. We are not adding capacity. We are shuffling papers.

The Question We Should Be Asking

Here is what I want to know, and what every foreign-trained doctor in Canada should be asking:

If there are pathways that allow temporary residents to get licensed and practice, why are those same pathways not available to permanent residents and citizens?

Why does a doctor recruited on a work permit get streamlined licensing, while a doctor who immigrated through Express Entry - often selected precisely for their medical credentials faces years of barriers?

Why is the solution always “create a new immigration category” instead of “fix the licensing system”?

The announcement itself admits the problem: “Foreign credential recognition and licensing for doctors are the responsibility of each province and territory.”

So the federal government knows licensing is the barrier. They know it is a provincial issue. And their solution is... an immigration category that does nothing about licensing?

This is not a healthcare policy. This is an immigration announcement dressed up as a healthcare solution.

What We Should Be Doing Instead

I am not just a critic. I believe in solutions. Here is what I think would actually work:

First, use federal leverage to fix licensing. The Canada Health Transfer sends billions to provinces annually. Make licensing reform a condition. Require provinces to expand Practice-Ready Assessment programs. Set targets for integrating the doctors already here. No more hiding behind “provincial jurisdiction” while the problem festers.

Second, prioritize the queue. Before creating new immigration pathways for temporary residents, fast-track the professional integration of foreign-trained doctors who are already permanent residents or citizens. They chose Canada. They committed to Canada. They deserve a chance to contribute.

Third, end the two-tier system. If licensing pathways exist for provincially-recruited doctors on work permits, those same pathways must be available to permanent residents. Same credentials should mean same opportunity.

Fourth, fund clinical assessment centres. Build the infrastructure to assess the thousands of unlicensed doctors currently in Canada. Get them out of survival jobs and into supervised practice where their skills can be evaluated. And used.

Fifth, stop using “Canadian experience” as a filter. It was a mistake in 2008, and it is a mistake now. If a doctor is qualified enough for Canada to want them permanently, they are qualified enough to practice. Assess competence, not tenure.

The Real Message from the Announcement

This announcement sends a clear message, though not the one the government intended.

It tells foreign-trained doctors who became permanent residents: You made the wrong choice. You should have come on a temporary work permit and hoped a province would recruit you.

It tells the Canadian healthcare system: We are not serious about adding doctors. We are serious about making announcements.

It tells taxpayers: We will continue spending billions on integration programs to fix the underemployment we helped create, rather than removing the barriers that cause it.

And it tells the 5.7 million Canadians without a family doctor: We know there are thousands of qualified physicians in this country who could help you. We are choosing not to use them.

The Pattern We Must Break

In 2008, we refused to fix employer discrimination against foreign credentials. We created the Canadian Experience Class instead, and manufactured a $50-billion underemployment crisis.

In 2025, we are refusing to fix licensing discrimination against foreign-trained doctors. We are creating another immigration category instead, and the predictable outcome is already taking shape: more doctors driving taxis, more patients without care, more billions spent on programs that treat symptoms instead of causes.

The pattern is clear. When Canada faces a problem rooted in how we treat immigrant professionals, we do not fix the root cause. We create workarounds that reward the lucky few who break through on their own, and we leave everyone else behind.

Then we wonder why the problem never goes away.

Then we wonder why foreign-trained professionals are leaving the country.

It is time to break the pattern. Not with another immigration category. Not with another band-aid announcement. With the courage to look at our licensing systems, our credential recognition processes, and our institutional biases - and finally, actually fix them.

We owe it to the doctors who chose this country. We owe it to the patients who need them. And we owe it to ourselves, because a country that wastes its own talent cannot complain when it runs short.

Dapo Bankole is the host of The Immigrant Life podcast, exploring the real experiences of internationally trained professionals navigating Canadian systems. Are you a foreign-trained doctor stuck in the licensing maze? Share your story.