From "Landed Immigrant" to "Retirement"

 "A country should be judged on the basis of how it treats its minorities"

 FROM "LANDED IMMIGRANT" TO "RETIREMENT. 

A manifesto for new immigrants to Canada with a professional background.                           

We had no choice! 

We had to move away from Uganda in 1967, a country that was in political ferment, to a country that offered some semblance of personal security, opportunities and promise of the good life for us but particularly for our children!   Canada was our choice.

We were aware that our arrival in Canada was not going to be an easy one.  It might have been so had we had substantial savings. As it turned out, our meagre savings just about paid for our airfares, leaving us with only five hundred American dollars.  As a result, I left my family in the care of relatives in Uganda, and made my way alone to Sudbury, Ontario where I was to be met by a friend from my college days in India who assured me that he would be at the airport when I arrived.  He was.   I was immediately transported to a cheap but clean hotel where I sat alone in sceptical wonder as to how things would turn out for me in this alien land. The fast traffic viewed from my hotel window filled me with awe and it frightened me.  I had not seen such fury on the roads before in small town Zanzibar where I grew up.   Would I be up to the challenges that uncertainty invariably generates?  I could not help thinking whether this was the same kind of uncertain feeling that those from the pioneering days of Canada had when they arrived?  After all, like me, they had no safety nets accept a generous and protective government that lavished them with land and the promise of a good future.  I must admit that I felt like a twentieth century pioneer, with no land endowed on me, but this gave me a greater will to succeed in spite of the odds.

 My first observation was that I was thrust among predominantly white people whereas I had come from a country where practically everybody was black.  But this was not upsetting to me in any way. It was simply reminiscent of Africa during the British Colonial times of which I was very much a part.   In fact, I found it most refreshing and somehow reassuring.  What caused me the greatest worry and frustration, however, was the biting uncertainty of securing a teaching position but having nobody who could point out to me the process or show me the ropes as to how this could be achieved. Being alone, I had no one to share my frustrations and receive any encouragement.  There was always the danger of feeling sorry for myself, but I constantly reminded myself that it would be counter productive.   I envied the people who had the facility of networking with friends that they grew up with and knew, but this was a privilege for those who grew up here. Fortunately, through the good offices of “Manpower and Immigration” which at the time of my entry into Canada was an empathetic, generous and immensely helpful organization, (a surrogate friend as it were) I was able to secure my first job at “Silvermans” in downtown Sudbury at $1.25 an hour, the minimum wage.  “Silvermans” was a retail store on Durham Street in downtown Sudbury that sold quality menswear and an assortment of children’s wear. Hitherto, I had no experience in selling anything, but in a short time after shadowing an experienced salesman, and appealing to the latent salesman in me, I learned the techniques that tailored me into a very effective salesman..  “Silvermans” was reminiscent of the sitcom from Britain entitled “Are you being Served” but dreadfully devoid of any humour.  I think that I was perhaps the only salesman in Sudbury who sold many over-sized suits and got away with it, though from time to time I could feel my ears twitch and that told me something.

After a couple of weeks I was brave enough to move into my own apartment on Lorne Street since I had to make provision for the family who were yet to arrive in Canada and who I missed very much. Though on minimum wages, I still thought that I could afford paying the rent for the apartment but just barely. However, this meant that I had to go on a very mean diet in order to survive.  I discovered that having a can of Campbell soup for breakfast, one for lunch and yet another for dinner was all that I could allow myself and was in retrospect perhaps the best diet for losing weight. What I lost in weight I gained in modestly fattening my lean bank account.  But this was no consolation to Mrs. Smith one of my colleagues in the sales department.  She noticed the weight loss and was most concerned that I might be coming down with something serious.  Bless her heart, she cornered me and asked me what the matter was and I explained to her that it was perhaps because I missed my family a whole lot.  But she was not to be deluded.  She invited me to lunch at one of the restaurants but knowing that I would be required to reciprocate the invitation, I politely refused the invitation. I just did not have the resources to socialize.   It would seem to me that Mrs. Smith was endowed with a sixth sense and that she was reading my mind. She would not take no for an answer.  It was my first visit to a Canadian restaurant.  A menu was placed before me.  I kept looking at the prices of the various dishes and was convinced that I would never be able to enter a restaurant again.  The cheapest dish was “Chicken in a Basket” and I ordered it in a form of an apology to Mrs. Smith.  When the dish was placed before me I actually thought that I would be able to inhale the whole lot of deliciously fried chicken and I was hoping that my stomach would not give me away by growling as it did most of time because it was so vacant.  After eating a couple of chicken legs I felt so satisfied that I could not go on.  Apparently my stomach had become so used to the micro quantity of chicken soup that it would not take anything more. Mrs. Smith explained to me that I could have the remaining pieces of chicken packed and taken home.  What she did not tell me is that she had another order of Chicken in the Basket packed as well.  I never forgot Mrs. Smith’s concern and kindness and made sure that once I became solvent through steady work I would treat her to a sumptuous dinner.  I was able to do this after I received my first salary as a School Principal.

Once again through the efforts of Manpower and Immigration and particularly of Mrs. Lidstone who was my counsellor and who constantly reassured me that I could have cash for the asking if I was running short but which I refused on a matter of personal pride. I was put in touch with Dr. Ed Newbury, President of Huntington College who was kind enough to consent to meet me immediately.  Through Dr. Newbury, I secured the position of “Principal” of Allen and Bigwood Public School in the French River District. You can well imagine my surprise but then I had to remind myself that I had come to a country of opportunity.  Dr. Newbury, now deceased, was one of the kindest men that I encountered.  He made me his personal responsibility and arranged to drive me to the interview since I had no transportation.  Dr. Newbury was recognized by the community for his untiring support for anybody who needed help and at any time of day or night.  In recognition of his philanthropy and generosity, he was granted the Order of Canada which was an honour he richly deserved just before he passed on. He must occupy a special place in heaven!!

The interview went well and both my wife Margaret and I were hired by the School Board.  This appointment was a step in the right direction.  Having no experience as a “Principal” I was encouraged by the fact that my wife Margaret would mentor me during the formative stages. She had much experience as Principal of a government grant-in-aid High School in Zanzibar and was very concerned that my stewardship at the School would be worth a premium.   Our experience at Allen and Bigwood Public School gave us many opportunities to gain in confidence and though it was not easy in the beginning to run a school with students who in the past had their own way, and discipline was tenuous at best, I was able to bring the students in line with behaviour that was acceptable in a school setting.  “The Strap” was the antidote against unacceptable behaviour and swifter than any other behaviour modification programme and was the catalyst in restoring sanity to the School.  The isolation of the School also gave us an opportunity of saving some money if only to give us a sense of security.  I had no knowledge about economic practices in Canada such as building a credit rating by virtually living a life of controlled credit.  Credit cards were alien to me.  I had lived in a culture world where you paid cash for anything that you bought. If you did not have cash, you did without it. This is one reason why we slept well through the night. Perhaps today I would be exalted as the poster boy in this tenuous economy that encourages people to pay off their debts and save.  In retrospect I have come to realize how much easier it might have been then if I did use the allowable credit at the time.

My first car was a brand new blue eight-cylinder Chevrolet Belair. I had to buy one as quickly as possible rather than ride the bus with the students.  This was not kosher for a School Principal. With gas being only fifteen cents a gallon, a large car seemed to be a wise choice since it also afforded a sense of security on the highways.   It became possible for me to buy this car after we had worked and saved for six months and had the two thousand five hundred dollars to pay off for the car in cash.  I found it strange that the car dealer “Mac Lang” in Sundridge Ontario tried to persuade me to make a small down payment and then make smaller payments each month until the car was paid for. As a School Principal I was considered a good security risk.  It was also a good system for the Company to maximize its profits.   He found it equally strange that I would insist on paying cash.  Was this the kind of “Canadian Experience” I so lacked?!

My next move was to the French River District Secondary School where I obtained a high school teaching position through the intervention of Ross Flynn my School Superintendent with whom I had developed a good working relationship.  This was my choice.  I saw no glamour in being a School Principal and yearned to return to the classroom where I could have direct contact with students and help in a substantive way in their character and educational formation. Margaret obtained a position at Monetville Public School and so we moved to an apartment in Noelville.   The community in Noelville were generally of French persuasion.  These were former migrants from the Ottawa Valley and typical of small town Ontario, everybody was related in some way to other families in the area.  In a year’s time we were able to get a loan from the “Caisse Populaire” (a credit union) to enable us to buy an old broken down house in Noelville.  It cost us ten thousand dollars.  We decided that we would buy the house on condition that we paid off the mortgage in a little over a year.   As soon as we had done this, we renovated the house both inside and out and were lauded by the community for producing a product that was aesthetically beautiful and an example for others to follow. After three years, we recognized that our children needed to be moved to a city where they would ultimately want to live and where they would be exposed to things cultural that were totally lacking in our area. 

I applied to over a hundred schools in and around Toronto, but was quite surprised by the number of form letter rejections that I received at a time when there was such acute shortage of teachers in Ontario in general. Being a former School Principal in Ontario on my resume somehow did not cut it with the recipients of my applications.   A sceptic I knew suggested to me at that time that it might have had something to do with my surname which was not Anglo Saxon in origin.  I also realized that many school administrators in early seventies found visible minorities a bit too exotic to become a part of their “team” which was whiter than white and this encouraged their fear that minorities might just not “fit in”. These became the buzz words at the time to sometimes disguise the real reasons which might have been deemed unacceptable by the Human Rights Commission.  Yet other administrators were suspicious of foreign trained teachers and their competence particularly as it related to class discipline and their ability to control students with discipline problems.  Whatever the reason, I was interviewed by only four Schools but soon discovered that the interview sessions were merely a formality that they had to go through. My observation was that the more the panel praised my “impressive” qualifications (their words not mine) and experience, the less likely was I to get the job.  The interviews lacked any seriousness in enquiring from me about how I would be able to contribute towards their respective schools.    This was quite disappointing since I knew that I had the competence and the experience to be a very effective teacher and had proved it not only in India, Africa, but also in Canada.  In retrospect it is my belief that it was their loss and not mine, though at the time the rejection that came in crowds was not uplifting and did claw at my very sense of self worth as an educator.

I finally was called in for an interview at Britannia Secondary School in Mississauga.  The school was a Vocational School which had the reputation for having some of the roughest students in the system some of them being immigrant students who unfortunately were sent to Vocational School because of the inherent bias of Standardized Tests that bore very little relationship to the student’s experiences and background or intelligence.  Through my good luck the interview went well and I was hired for the new school year. I had some ideas why tears came to my eyes when my appointment to the Staff was made official and it somehow restored my faith in human nature.   My initial experience at Britannia Secondary School was frustrating and very stressful to say the least.  Many of the students were unmotivated, rude, drug addicted and manipulative but in no way intellectually challenged as they should have been to be channelled to this school.   I really did not think that I would last in this environment.  A colleague of mine from the French River District Secondary School days had secured a teaching position at Cardinal Newman Secondary School in Scarborough and was blissfully happy there.  He reached out to me and informed me that there was a position vacant at his school in my subject field and that he would talk to his Principal about the possibility of having me interviewed for the job.  I was offered the position but then my acceptance of the job hinged on whether I would be able to break my contract with Britannia Secondary School and that was not going to be easy.  On my long drive home from the interview on that frightfully blistering winter night on the 401 in keeping with the turmoil in my head, I had to consider the disruption that my move would cost the family.  The children were happy in their respective schools, and my wife was happily employed by the Catholic School Board in Mississauga.  I therefore made up my mind, quite reluctantly I might add, that I would remain at Britannia and address the many difficulties that I encountered as a challenge.  Little did I realize that I would remain at Britannia until I retired.  I guess that one can get used to punishment.

However, in 1982 I applied for leave of absence from the Peel Board of Education to enable me to teach in Papua New Guinea. I needed time off from what I was doing and had some personal issues that I had to deal with.  Getting away from this environment, seemed to me the way to go.   The Federal Government appointed me as Senior Subject Supervisor of Maprik High School in the East Sepik Province.  My job description was twofold.  I was to assist in training local teachers in the field and had the added responsibility of monitoring the teaching competence of teachers from overseas who were hired on contracts.  I found the responsibilities entrusted to me to be exacting but very fulfilling.  Unfortunately, I had to return home within a year since I had come down with a viral infection of my spine (a common affliction that “do-gooder expatriates” suffered in PNG ) and found it difficult and painful to sit or walk.  I was flown to Australia for treatment but was made aware that my immune system had to fight off the infection and that there was no medication but pain killers that would offer me any relief.  With that prognosis I returned to Canada in a wheelchair.   Shortly after my return, my illness disappeared just as dramatically as it appeared. My trip to Papua New Guinea was motivated by the fact that I needed a change from the increasing politicizing of education in our schools.  On application, I was appointed “Senior Subject Supervisor” by the Federal Government of Canada and was to train teachers in the field.  My wife was appointed to teach in the same School.  Maprik Secondary School was a co-ed school and all the students were boarders on the School campus.  The Australian Principal ran the School like an army camp and to a visitor it seemed as though the manicured surroundings, deep in a forested area like an unintended oasis, made possible by working the students, and the students looking over their shoulders while they chatted, was an ideal School.  However, for a person coming from Canada or for that matter anywhere in the free world, this was a “Gulag” and the Principal walked around as though he ruled the place.  He showed very little compassion for the students in the name of self-reliance.  There were times when his disciplinary methods bordered on cruelty.

 When I got better, I moved into Adult Education for a further ten years and then retired when I had obtained my ninety factor allowing me a pension without any penalties.  (Age+Service = 90)

The foregoing description of my professional life, on the face of it, appears to be dreadfully uneventful and mundane.  Let me assure the reader that each stage in my life was fraught with challenges and complicated by prevailing social mores, current mythologies and urban myths pertaining to race and the politics of the day.  For example, before I arrived in Canada, though I had spent five hard years at University away from my wife and two children under the Commonwealth Fellowship Plan (Indian Award), and having obtained two university degrees, I arrived in Canada only to be informed that my degrees would not be given full recognition. It did not seem to matter that the College that I attended was referred to as “the Oxford of Asia” in the nomenclature of universities.  This was an earned reputation since every professor was required to have a doctorate from Oxford to qualify to be part of the staff at St. Xavier’s College in Bombay.  I was issued with a “Letter of Permission” to teach in the Province of Ontario.  This certification meant that I was not considered “qualified to teach” but was allowed to teach as long as a qualified teacher did not come along for the job.  I found this not only to be humiliating but it also injected into my life a whole lot of insecurity. Furthermore, I was to present myself at the Department of Education in Toronto to appear for an exam in English and Mathematics and thereafter, to meet the “Special Committee” in the afternoon.  I spent several hours traveling by bus from Sudbury and got to the Department of Education in Toronto early in the morning sleepy and tired.  I had no idea what the exam was all about and my nervousness before the first question paper was put before me must have been palpable.  The English test was most surprising and disconcerting to say the least.  I expected the paper to deal with some of the very challenging or controversial areas of English Literature and all that it contained was a very brief story about an owl with a few questions based on the story. I guess it was intended to examine my comprehension.   I was apprehensive that this was some kind of mistake.  I was suspicious that I might have been given the wrong questionnaire. I asked for the supervisor. The supervisor looked at his list, discovered that my name was recorded, and assured me that the questionnaire was the right one. I still got the impression that the questions must have been trick questions.  However, after reading the story and the questions several times I was convinced that the standard of education in the Province of Ontario must have been abysmally low if this was the expectation of teachers certified by the Department of Education. The English paper was one that could be answered by a Grade four student.  It was the same with the mathematics paper.  In the afternoon, I was called in for the interview by the Special Committee.  The Committee was seated in a large office with a long heavy mohogany table the likes of which I had not seen before. Very impressive!  There must have been at least a dozen individuals dressed formally who formed this Special Committee.   To add insult to injury the person in charge congratulated me on my excellent performance in the tests.  He then pushed an anthology of poems in front of me.  He asked me to read any one of the poems that I might fancy.  I did choose one and explained to the group that I needed just a little time to read it through so that I could capture the essence of the poem.  I was asked to shut the book and was immediately offered a teaching position in Toronto.  I had to explain to the group that I was already ahead of them and that I was already the Principal of a School.  There were surprised nods of approval.

The following day I immediately went to Laurentian University in Sudbury to apply for admission to do the make-up courses that were mandated by the Department of Education to have my academic degree from overseas recognized.  These courses were to be taken at night School (after a hard day at work) during the winter months and during the day in the summer. It also meant that I had to drive thirty miles each way to the University and back.   In two years time I was able to meet the requirements and had my overseas qualifications recognized.  I was issued with “A letter of Standing” by the Department of Education.  This was a step up from a “Letter of Permission”.  It also meant that my degrees were now valid documents in the Province of Ontario.  Being aware that my Indian Degrees, though recognized now, would always be viewed with some scepticism and suspicion by School Boards around the Province, I continued to take further courses at the university in order to secure an Ontario Degree which seemed the only way to lend respect, dignity and credibility to the “Ontario Teaching Certificate” and to make myself more marketable.  A few years later I graduated with an Honours degree in Geography which entitled me to an “Ontario Teaching Certificate”.  I then enrolled at “Queens University” in Kingston, Ontario to attain my “Specialist Certificate” in the teaching of Geography.  Since I was teaching in a “Special Education” setup, I was advised by the school administration to take courses in “Special Education.”  Consequently, I joined “York University” and obtained a “Specialist” Certificate in Special Education. This took me a further two years. 

While I was struggling to inject some measure of security in my job by taking all these courses, many of which, I would never use, my family particularly my children, felt very neglected. Why wouldn’t they?!  I was away from home during most of their waking hours, and my understanding and loyal wife did everything in her power to cushion the seeming neglect on my part. She knew that what I was doing was in the interest of the family.  My children were too young to understand this.   I know that my children grew distant from me because of my absence, for there was little or no bonding during this time that spanned several years.  

It is a penalty that new immigrants invariably pay in order to satisfy the underbelly of institutional bureaucracies with their archaic and sometimes chauvinistic and chaotic rules governing entry into over-protective professions such as teaching and medicine to name only a couple.  The silent suffering that is imposed with impunity on many immigrant professionals because of the intransigence of professional organizations in Ontario should be the concern of the provincial government and the Human Rights Commission so that they could inject some sanity into the various organizations that assume and radiate colonial attitudes that are long overdue for a radical and dramatic change.  It is hard to feel Canadian when right at the outset you are made to feel like an outsider and that you don’t belong.  I believe that this negative treatment of immigrants is a greater regressive force than any other that I have experienced towards feeling Canadian….and it does leave scars!!!

 Thank God for multiculturalism for it brings together wounded groups who in sharing their grief and wrath are given some kind of consolation to move on in spite of the broken system.  Clearly, in all fairness, while most of us understand that professional organizations are created to uphold at least minimum standards from those who apply for membership, mandating that foreign professionals should redo courses that they have already been done or are just not necessary (sometimes referred to as Mickey Mouse Courses) or which can be done while these professionals are employed, constitutes so much waste of time and human energy. A much better system would be to allow foreign professionals to enter their respective professions when they enter this country and be made to shadow their Canadian professional counterparts until their mentors feel that they are competent enough to go it alone. Given a modest wage while they are going through the process will prevent them and their families from living a life of penury. From experiences of immigrant professionals with whom I have exchanged notes it would seem that these professional organizations subject applicants to sometimes totally unnecessary courses that make their acceptability in the ranks a long drawn and painful process.  I make no apologies for this tirade and criticism because professional organizations are perhaps the main cause of so much human suffering when immigrants try to find their way in this otherwise very generous and sane country. Furthermore, most professional immigrants have had to pay for their university education on their own in their home countries without any subsidies from the Canadian government. The Canadian Government should come to an appreciation and realization that they are getting all this talent sometimes backed with years of valuable experience for free and should be more serious about the placement of these individuals with a minimum of huddles placed in their way. It might also be advisable for the Immigration Department to inform prospective immigrants about the professional requirements for placement in their chosen professions in Canada no matter how insane they might be. This should be done before these immigrants uproot themselves from their homeland so that they know what they are up against before burning all their bridges when they get here.  Perhaps some day sanity will prevail and only then we shall overcome!!! In the meantime, many overseas professionals will continue to be under-employed and will nurture a private hatred and contempt for these organizations and by extension the country that has built a reputation overseas for being fair and humane except when it comes to those that it has invited to be a part of this land. No wonder so many immigrants coming to these shores look to the U.S. where they obtain a more mature assessment of their qualifications but are not able to enter the country without obtaining a green card.  They are therefore caught between a rock and a hard place.

 My tumultuous career as a teacher spanned roughly thirty years. When I look back I do so with nostalgia and recall all the challenges that I faced but I particularly remember the many students who left with a part of me.  Needless to say, I sometimes wonder how much more I would have been able to contribute had it not been for the hundreds of wasted hours spent on the useless pursuit of having my foreign qualifications recognized and still find that after four decades, these professional organizations still continue to make sometimes frivolous demands on qualified professional immigrants like a sore that refuses to heal. 

George (Ives) Pereira