“Canadian experience” - what is that?
 

I think that “Canadian experience” is not something unique.The way the companies operate here is no different than Europe, and I really quite don’t understand why it is so important for the recruiters to ask for it. My guess is that, knowing you don’t have Canadian experience, they simply want to give you less money for the position. Why Canada accepts Skilled Workers as Landed Immigrants when their experience is not “relevant” – as an immigrant you are shocked when you hear such nonsense!

I totally agree with you Futupop. I have friends in USA and I’ve never heard them saying they were asked for “American experience”…. It’s only for the money, not that the will get better quality! Same thing with the car insurance. You may have 30 years of driving experience but if it’s not in Canada you have to start all over again. And guess what – if you bought a car for $3000 you are going to pay $3000 for insurance for one year. Isn’t that funny?!

It completely depends what field of work you are in.
General labour jobs, it would not matter if you had Canadian experience.

If you work in something like law, accounting, insurance etc though, it would be expected that you would have some experience either working in Canada, or have a very good understanding of Canadian practices in these fields.