Unotec, setting standards isn't protectionism, or racism (or what you really meant, xenophobia), it's commonsense. Some argue that it's useless- just for show- but it's far more useful than relying on compensating the victims of incompetent engineering after the fact by means of insurance. Licensure in Canada is general in terms of right to title, but nobody working under a C of A as an employee requires a license to get a job- the only person you have to prove you're an engineer to is your prospective employer. Some employers use licensure as a proxy for a proper technical interview, but that's merely a luxury afforded to the employers by the fact that there's a HUGE oversupply of candidates to choose from.
While many foreign trained engineers come through a structured internship program and/or have a Bachelors' which is equivalent to a Canadian Bachelors' AND Master's degree, there are also programs offered in some parts of the world that are really technician/technologist level. The graduates of many of those programs think they're every bit as well prepared to be a professional engineer as I am- I know, because I've met many of them and given them technical interviews, and some of those folks couldn't engineer an escape from a wet paper bag...handing them a license would be foolhardy and dangerous. Are some people unfairly asked to write exams? I'm sure it's happened. You think it's unfair that the local fresh grads don't have to write any exams? Most grads from most US, UK, Australian and Western European engineering programs don't have to write a single tech exam either- but there are over 2,000 degree-granting programs on file with the local licensure body's ERC, from over 100 countries, so that's rather hard to keep track of, don't you think? I guess we could ask everyone to write the same exams in the name of fairness- but that would be a tremendous waste that we would all pay for, and the people having to write them 15 years after school would still be claiming that the fresh grads had an unfair advantage! Only grads of local CEAB-certified engineering programs are given the tech exam waiver here- there are Bachelor of Technology programs offered here in the past few years whose grads will have to write tech exams if they want an engineering license too.
If your argument is that borders are artificial and irrelevant, as some do, then we fundamentally disagree. I think citizenship actually means something, that nations serve a meaningful purpose, and that nations have a responsibility to set rules and regulations to protect their population and to serve their population's economic interests as well. When only 1/3 of our own grads end up working as engineers, it puzzles me how anyone could consider continued economic immigration of foreign-trained engineers to be in Canada's continued economic interest. In the interest of certain employers of engineers? Absolutely- the benefit there is obvious.
Your complaint about the lack of commonsense etc. is definitely a valid one in your industry, and I think you've discovered the root cause too. It's not a failing of Canadian engineering education in my view as much as it is a reliance upon codes and standards as a proxy for engineering judgment.
