eQRm

Welcome to the eQRm website!

eQRm, which stands for engineering Qualifications Recognition model, provides a process for the development of programs to assist international engineering graduates (IEGs) in obtaining licensure as professional engineers in Canada.

eQRm is based on a highly successful engineering qualifications recognition program established at the University of Manitoba in 2003, and draws lessons from a second program established at Ryerson University in Ontario in 2007. Both programs provide IEGs with an alternative path to licensure through a combination of classroom studies and a paid work term.

Recognizing that each provincial and territorial engineering regulator has its own processes to assist international engineering graduates in attaining licensure, eQRm is flexible enough to accommodate significant local differences while achieving the ultimate goal of assisting IEGs in earning Canadian licensure and successfully pursuing an engineering career in this country.

The Need

Each year, thousands of international engineering graduates immigrate to Canada. They may be seasoned engineering professionals who have been practicing in their native countries, recently graduated engineering students or they may be working in jobs that would be technologist or technician positions in Canada. Regardless of which group they fall into, many of these international engineering graduates arrive in Canada expecting to begin work as engineers.

They are often surprised to learn that, by law, they must be registered with a provincial / territorial engineering association (regulatory body) in order to practice engineering in Canada. Further, they encounter obstacles to full labour market participation in the form of difficulties in obtaining recognition of their foreign credentials and in obtaining Canadian engineering experience.

From the Canadian engineering employers’ perspective, factors influencing international engineering graduates’ level of employment are communication skills, prior related Canadian experience, and professional licensure. The question has been: how can Canada make use of this important resource while ensuring that professional standards are adhered to fully?

Foreign Credentials Recognition (FCR) and Qualifications Recognition (QR) are terms used extensively in the field of foreign credential assessments for regulated and non-regulated professions. Engineering regulators in Canada have, for many years, included FCR and QR in their admissions processes. A large number of IEGs have obtained licensure—and continue to obtain licensure—by these means.

However, the traditional route to engineering qualifications recognition has not worked equally well for all IEGs. The profession has long acknowledged the need for alternative routes to qualification. For instance, at an October 2002 meeting in Halifax representatives of Canada’s provincial and territorial regulatory bodies unanimously agreed that “the profession should work together to facilitate the integration of foreign trained engineers into the profession, ensuring that they can obtain their P.Eng. more quickly and efficiently, without lowering admission standards or compromising public safety.¹”

Support from the Professional Engineering Community

Development of eQRm arose from an initiative undertaken by Engineers Canada², the national organization of the provincial and territorial associations that regulate the practice of engineering in Canada and license the country's professional engineers.

In 2003, Engineers Canada embarked on From Consideration to Integration (FC2I), a multi-year, three-phase initiative to address the issue of integrating international engineering graduates into the profession in Canada. The objectives of the first two phases were to:

• understand the immigration and settlement process for immigrants;
• develop solutions for consistent and transparent foreign credential recognition processes for licensing purposes; and
• begin to build consensus among stakeholders on issues such as implementation of the selected solutions.

The eQRm project was undertaken as part of From Consideration to Integration’s implementation phase (Phase III). The project’s purposes: to develop a new process to assist international engineering graduates in obtaining an engineering licence without compromising public safety or lowering professional standards and to help those newly licensed engineers find meaningful engineering employment.

¹ Engineers Canada, From Consideration to Integration, Final Report From Phase 1, p. 6.
² Engineers Canada is the business name of the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers.