Dr. Ashish Marwaha, a British doctor whose degree comes from Oxford University, told CBC News that he’s ditching Canada because of delays and immigration red tape preventing him from working in British Columbia as a doctor.
Marwaha missed his chance to apply for residence (all doctors who graduate must complete residency) because his immigration paperwork took too long to arrive in the mail. The paperwork in question was his proof of Canadian Permanent Residence, which was required to apply for a job.
The timeline for Dr. Marwaha’s application went like this: he lived in Canada for a year and then applied for permanent resident status as required to operate as a foreign-trained doctor in Canada. However, the approval took six months, but the letter itself came much after it was dated, and too late for his post-graduate residency application.
Six to twelve months is the average time it takes to process such applications, but now Dr. Marwaha is heading to the United States.
The Canadian postal service is not an exact science, and neither are Immigration Visa processing times. So the lesson here is that apply early and complete the application correctly.  Unfortunately for Dr. Marwaha, he was applying in British Columbia where the process for much-needed foreign doctors is not as streamlined as in Ontario.
In Ontario, international medical graduates must either be Canadian citizens, permanent residents or intending to immigrate to Canada, where a copy of your application for permanent residence status or a signed letter stating intent to apply to immigrate to Canada is valid in order to get started according to the Ontario Centre for the Evaluation of Health Professionals Educated Abroad.
President & CEO
Michael Niren
Mr. Niren is CEO of VisaPlace LLC and the President and Managing Partner of VisaPlace Legal Canada, an immigration law firm based in Toronto, and VisaPlace Legal US a law firm registered in The District of Columbia, USA. Mr. Niren is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Canadian Bar Association’s Citizenship and Immigration Section, American Lawyers Association, and an Associate Member of the American Bar Association.
