Sledog1,
I came to Australia with my wife, who is an Aussie, as she wished to return home after 5 years in Canada. The immigration was very easy on a spouse visa.
The process of having the service here process your equivalency is quite painful. They have no predetermined equality matrix as they do with the UK and some other countries, so they examine every Canadian applicant based on what documentation you can provide. This is not simply Degrees and Diplomas, but the actual didactic content, dialectical timeframes, and skill assessments. This takes many weeks, and then you must sit a panel interview with the Medical Director and Multiple Training Officers. They then assign you to a level that they feel you are equivalent to.
They CCP training means nothing here, as they do not really utilize said in the service. A Canadian ACP is for the most part, an Intensive Care Paramedic here. I will have to spend three months working with another ICP to familiarize myself with the P&P before they will authorize me to work alone as ICP's do here. It will take me the better part of a year to be working at the level I had been for 7 years in Canada. The price you pay for the weather and the waves I guess.
I did my CCP training through Ornge in Ontario, they held a class in Alberta for my services flight team and I was fortunate enough to be able to take the training, even though the Alberta College of Paramedics does not yet register CCP's.
BTW, I am originally from Antigonish NS, I almost went to NS to work prior to my wife bribing me with the surfing and riding of the motorcycle year round, and I have found three hockey teams to play on. I would love to show her the east coast some time though.