Canada simplifies citizenship for children adopted overseas

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has announced a new amendment to Canadian citizenship laws that will streamline the process of obtaining citizenship for children adopted abroad by Canadian parents. This amendment, known as Bill C-14, has become effective December 23, 2007.

Bill C-14 will actually remove those interim measures on Adoption that was implemented in July 2001 as a means for foreign-born children adopted by Canadian parents living outside Canada to acquire citizenship. Under this temporary solution, adoptive parents first had to apply to sponsor the child to come to Canada, then seek permanent resident status for him or her, before finally applying for citizenship for their adopted child. This process took up to 18 months to complete.

Now, for the children adopted abroad after February 14, 1977, Canadian parents can skip the first two steps and apply directly for their adopted child's citizenship through the appropriate Canadian government office outside of Canada. The child can even obtain a Canadian passport before entering Canada. This reduces the necessary paperwork considerably as the steps are merged into one, and minimize the difference in treatment between children adopted abroad and children born abroad to a Canadian parent.

To protect the best interests of the adopted child, Bill C-14 also entails some legislative requirements to ensure that the adoption conforms with both the adoption laws of Canadian province or territory of residence of the adoptive parent and the country where adoption took place.

However, Bill C-14 has some exceptions. This applies to the cases where the adoption is to be completed in Canada, or if it is a guardianship arrangement rather than a full adoption. In these situations, the adopted child may still have to go through the regular immigration process.

Bill C-14 is part of those broader efforts of Canada’s Conservative government that was announced in May 2006 by the Prime Minister Stephen Harper to smooth bureaucracy for new immigrants.

Alberta develops offshore assessment facility for internationally educated nurses

To cope with critical shortage of internationally trained healthcare professionals, the federal government of Canada is supporting over 40 initiatives under Internationally Educated Health Professionals Initiative, which provided $75 million over five years to provinces and territories and NGOs to address the issue.

The Alberta Health and Wellness is one such project and, with federal contribution of $536,000, it has launched a new pilot project to fast track entry of internationally trained nurses into Alberta's healthcare system through an “offshore assessment” program.

With this new offshore pilot project, 36 nurses will be able to complete the assessment process overseas, thereby reducing the amount of time between landing in Canada and entering the work force. During this process, their language, knowledge, and competencies will be measured against Canadian Registered Nurse (RN) competency standards and the nurses will be informed if they require any additional learning or training before immigrating and starting to work in Alberta.

The pilot project, which will run until March 31, 2008, will allow nurses in London, Dublin, Dubai, Qatar, and elsewhere in the United Arab Emirates to undergo a Substantial Equivalent Competency Assessment before immigration to Canada. Traditionally, foreign-trained nurses who wanted to work in Alberta had to take assessment exams at Mount Royal College in Calgary.

The project aims to speed up the licensure process by enabling internationally educated nurses to undergo a Substantial Equivalent Competency Assessment before they immigrate to Canada. The initiative is an important component of the broader health human resources strategy, which is essential to ensuring timely access to care in communities across the country. The project will also increase Alberta’s capacity to assess internationally educated nurses with the training of additional assessors.

The newly funded project is a collaboration between Mount Royal College’s Internationally Educated Nurses Assessment Centres in Calgary and The College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta.

Over the past several months, Alberta has taken number of initiatives to recruit internationally educated nurses in particular for immigration into the province.

Earlier this year, three Calgary Health Region representatives traveled to Ireland, England and two Persian Gulf countries in a bid to recruit between 50 and 60 registered nurses to work in the local health system. During the two-week recruitment trip, officials interviewed about 110 candidates in several cities, including Dublin and London as well as Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Doha, Qatar.

A "hiring blitz" in December last year allowed the health authority to conduct group interviews and conditionally hire large numbers of health professionals. Similar events were also taken place in January and February this year.

CHR also launched an ad campaign in newspapers around the country to attract nurses from other provinces, and the health authority has advertised for medical professionals in international journals.

The University of Calgary has also increased the number of nursing students it is training.

Canada introduces legislation to restore citizenship status to Lost Canadians

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has announced amendments to existing citizenship laws, which will retroactively restore citizenship to those who have lost or never had Canadian citizenship because of several obscure provisions in existing and former legislation. Commonly knows as ‘Lost Canadians’, these people either had their citizenship denied or unknowingly allowed to expire due to several little-known particularities in Citizenship Act, which was last replaced in 1977 after its introduction in 1947. The obscure provisions under the Citizenship Act were installed in 1977 to "safeguard the value of citizenship," but only began to potentially affect people as of February 15, 2005.

The Lebanon evacuation crisis last year and the US travel rule (WHTI) earlier this year ignited the debate over citizenship, when many of the Canadians who were applying for passports for the first time found out that they were unknowingly stripped of their citizenship. Some of these people are children of Canadian parents but who were born abroad; or they are children born in Canada but whose parents later became citizens of another country. Another significant portion of these 'Lost Canadians' are foreign-born family members of Second World War veterans, granted citizenship when they moved to Canada after the war, but were unaware of the little-known clause requiring them to reaffirm their citizenship later in life.

The proposed legislation would restore citizenship to anyone born in Canada or who became a Canadian citizen on or after January 1, 1947, and then lost his or her citizenship. This includes women wed to Canadian men during World War II (war brides) who have not yet become Canadian citizens. It also includes those born in Canada prior to 1947 who became citizens when the first Citizenship Act took effect. It does not, however, include those who renounced their citizenship with Canadian authorities, those born in Canada to a foreign diplomat, or those whose citizenship was revoked by the government because their citizenship was obtained fraudulently. Those who were born abroad to Canadian parents on or after January 1, 1947, if not already a citizen, will be recognized as Canadian citizens from birth, on condition that they are the first generation born abroad. The exceptions would be those who renounced their citizenship.

Although a bill, announced by Minister Diane Finley this past May, has now been drafted, its delivery may be delayed by a Commons committee report containing recommendations on how to deal with the problem. However, a ‘probably fine-tune’ legislation is expected by February 2008, which would create a broad and generous legislative solution to help most 'Lost Canadians' to regain citizenship status.

Just how many people across Canada risk falling into the category of Lost Canadians is one of the key questions. A CBC investigation put the number of "lost Canadians" at roughly 200,000.

The government has no estimate on the number of people who will take advantage of this legislation if it passes, but it has been estimated that proposed legislation should take care of 95 per cent of those people who either lost their citizenship or shouldn't have, or who never had it in the first place but should have, while others will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. About 700 people have applied to have their citizenship restored until now, while in 2007 approximately 100 cases were resolved through special grants.

It's also not clear what the government would do for war brides and their children who were born before 1947. Nor is it clear whether the government would extend citizenship to second-generation children of Canadian families born overseas.

Canada planning to set up seamless academic infrastructure for internationally trained immigrants

As part of its long-term goal, the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) is planning to set up seamless academic infrastructure to help internationally trained newcomers get their credentials assessed and recognized more quickly so they can work in their chosen field as soon as they land in Canada.

In past, the government has dealt with criticism for problems migrants face in having their credentials recognized by employers. However, in order to overcome the delays and difficulties of getting foreign credentials recognized in Canada, a new government office was established in May this year to provide services to assist newcomers in navigating the credential recognition process.

The Foreign Credential Referral Office (FCRO) is a new project that has been designed to help internationally trained individuals, who plan to work in Canada, get their credentials assessed and recognized, as well as detailed information on Canada's labor market and job availability. In its first phase, FCRO will help newcomers and prospective immigrants access what they need to become accredited. As outlined in Budget 2007, $32.2 million has been set-aside for the first five years of the FCRO's operation.

The services offered at the FCRO's offices include in-person and online information and benefit both internationally trained jobseekers as well as Canadian employers, who are dependent on immigration for labor force growth. At launch, in-person service was available at Service Canada centers in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Halifax and Winnipeg. However, it has now been extended and available at more than 320 Service Canada centers across Canada.

A new web portal http://www.credentials.gc.ca/ is a key component of the FCRO project, featuring a new search engine called “Working in Canada”. This tool helps individuals identify occupations in Canada for which they may be qualified, as well as the regulatory body appropriate for their needs, and provides advice for completing the process quickly and successfully to work in Canada. The tool also provides individuals with detailed labor market information, based on where they live or plan to live. It is first of its kind in Canada to be offered on national scale and will be available both in Canada and overseas, through FCRO website and Going to Canada immigration portal http://www.goingtocanada.gc.ca/.

Service Canada now providing information, client referral and path finding assistance to immigrants in Canada via a dedicated phone service (1-888-854-1805).

The agency also has a presence overseas to serve individuals in the immigration process and to encourage people to come to Canada. Offices have been opened in China, India and the Philippines as an overseas pilot project and might be expanded if results are positive.

This federal initiative comes after Ontario’s Fair Access to Regulated Professions Act, which became law in March of this year targets occupations moderated by professional organizations, such as engineering or chartered accountancy, in order to improve fair treatment of foreign-trained individuals. There were also reports recommending professional regulatory bodies, work under provincial laws, to revise or remove needless impediments to newcomers.

Canada’s employment rate is higher than that of the United States and most European countries

According to the most recent international data available, Canada's employment rate was higher than that of the United States and most European countries (excluding Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden) in the second quarter of 2007.

Employment rose by an estimated 43,000 in November, moving forward the employment rate to another record high (63.8 per cent), according to the latest numbers from Statistics Canada released. As more people entered the labor force in November, the unemployment rate moved up 0.1 of a percentage point to 5.9 per cent.

Employment has increased 2.3 per cent (+388,000) over the course of the year in 2007 that is stronger than the 1.8 per cent increase seen over the same period in 2006.

Employment growth in November was a mix of full- and part-time work, with notable increases in British Columbia (+26,000 all in full-time), Quebec (+19,000 all in part-time), Saskatchewan (+5,000) and New Brunswick (+5,000).

Following three months of strong increases in the public sector, November's employment gains were mostly in the private sector (+49,000). There were continued public sector gains (+19,000) in November, and declines among the self-employed (-25,000). However, employment growth in the public sector (+6.3 per cent) has continued to outpace that of the private sector (+0.9 per cent) for the past 12 months.

Compared to November 2006, more public sector employees were working in public administration (municipal and federal); health care and social assistance (nursing care facilities and hospitals); education (primary and secondary schools); and in utilities (electric power generation, transmission and distribution). Most of these employment gains were in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta.

Four industries recorded employment increases in November: transportation and warehousing (+17,000); business, building and other support services (+15,000); educational services (+14,000); and natural resources (+6,000).

Manufacturing continued its slump in November with losses of 16,000. So far this year—that is, from December 2006 to November 2007—factory employment losses have totaled an estimated 98,000, with most of the declines in Quebec and Ontario. These employment losses have been recorded mostly in wood; fabricated metal; and furniture products, as well as in motor vehicle and parts manufacturing.

Gains were concentrated among men aged 25 to 54 years (+33,000). Despite this increase, so far in 2007 employment growth has been slightly better for women (+1.6 per cent) than for men (+1.2 per cent) in this age group. Strong employment gains in the last three months for both men and women helped bump up this age group's employment rate to a record high of 82.6 per cent in November.

Growth in average hourly wages remained strong in November, with a year-over-year increase estimated at 4.2 per cent, well above the most recent increase in the Consumer Price Index (+2.4 per cent).

Canada announces funding for settlement of newcomers and enhancement of online services, content and tools

To help newcomers settle, adapt and integrate into Canadian society, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), in partnership with provinces, territories and settlement providers, has been delivering programs and services to migrants of more than 40 nationalities for over 16 years, and providing stakeholders necessary funding to support these initiatives.

Recently, a settlement funding of $38 million for 15 partner agencies in the Halton and Peel regions of Ontario has been announced to assist delivery of settlement and integration services for immigrants in the community. This funding, which is provided under the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement (COIA), will cover the period of October 2007 through March 2010, and expected to help more than 150,000 migrants who have settled in Ontario’s two of the fastest growing immigrant communities. The services will include helping migrants find jobs and assisting them in getting general orientation, translation and interpretation services. The funding will also help migrants with referrals to community resources and counseling services.

Under the COIA, another funding of $2.2 million over two and a half years was provided to a Newcomer Information Center in Ottawa, which is expected to support settlement and employment support services and language training, accreditation and qualifications assistance to more than 2,800 newcomers in its first year of operation. This center will be managed by National Capital Region YMCA-YWCA.

Across Ontario, school boards received $219 million for English as a Second Language (ESL) programs.

These fundings for settlement and language training to Ontario are provided under the $920 million COIA over five years and are part of $1.3 billion package over five years to provinces and territories other than Quebec, which was committed by the Canadian federal government in budget 2006.

Under a separate funding package of $18.8 million, announced earlier this year, enhancement of online information about settling and working across the country and to help immigrants integrate into Canadian society is being provided to several provinces and territories other than Quebec. This funding will enable partner provinces to develop tools and services that will help promote the province as a destination for immigrants, as well as establish programs for social and economic integration of newcomers.

Under this project, the Alberta government has launched a new web portal (www.alberta-canada.com/immigration) that will give potential immigrants to the province a single site for all the information they need to live and work in Alberta. The new portal is an offshoot of a three-year, $1.2-million federal funding from CIC.

Over four years, Prince Edward Island (PEI) will receive $808,000 to promote the province as an immigration destination through the development of online services, content, and tools for prospective immigrants as well as those who have already arrived. The funds can also be used for consultation and outreach. PEI may also choose to provide funding to municipalities to help enhance information at the local level.

Funding of up to $660,000 will be provided to Saskatchewan over a three-year period. This will go toward enhancing online content, tools and services that will promote the province as a destination and help immigrants integrate once they arrive. The funding can also be used for consultation and outreach. As the project develops, Saskatchewan will consider how best to work with municipalities to help improve information at the local level.

Contribution agreements have also been signed with Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Under existing federal-provincial immigration agreements, British Columbia and Manitoba will also receive funding to help them improve the provision of online information for prospective immigrants and newcomers.

Provincial and territorial portals will link to the government’s existing Going to Canada Immigration Portal (http://www.goingtocanada.gc.ca/), which provides online information and services to help immigrants make informed decisions about coming to Canada, and assists them in their integration and settlement once they arrive.

Language diversity changing face of Canada in new century

According to the latest language reports from Statistics Canads’s 2006 census, Canadians speak over 200 languages.

For the first time in Canadian history, allophones (people whose first language is neither French nor English) represented 20 per cent of Canada's population, while continuing slight decline in the proportion of English and French speakers reported. The proportion of Anglophones (people who reported English as their mother tongue) in 2006 was 57.8 per cent, down from 59.1 per cent in 2001, while the proportion of Francophones (people who reported French as their mother tongue) decreased from 22.9 per cent to 22.1 per cent.

In 2006, 70.2 per cent of the country's foreign-born population were allophones, up from 67.5 per cent in 2001. In total, the census enumerated 6,293,110 allophones, an increase of 18 per cent, or 958,265, from 2001. This increase was three times the growth rate of 5.4 per cent for the population as a whole between 2001 and 2006, and well above the 12.5 per cent gain in allophones during the previous five-year period.

Cantonese, Mandarin and other dialects made Chinese is the third most common first language in Canada, rose to about 1,034,000 up 162,000, or 18.6 per cent of allophones over 2001. Also, Chinese language speakers account for 3.3 percent of Canada's population, up from 2.9 percent five years ago.

Italian fourth and German remained the fifth most common first languages in Canada. The number of Canadians who speak Punjabi, the sixth most common first language, grew by 34.4 per cent since 2001. Rounding out the top ten were Spanish, Arabic, Tagalog and Portuguese. However, between 2001 and 2006, language groups from Asia and the Middle East recorded the largest gains.

Of Canada's overall population, 9 out of 10 speak English or French at home. Two-thirds (66.7 per cent) of the population spoke English most often at home in 2006, down from 67.5 per cent in 2001. Just over one-fifth (21.4 per cent) of the population spoke French most often at home at the time of the census, down from 22 per cent in 2001. Only 11.9 per cent of the population spoke a non-official language most often at home. However, this was up from 10.4 per cent in 2001, mainly the result of the increase in immigration.

Among allophones, 69 per cent of them use French or English on a regular basis and 40 per cent of them speak one or the other at home.

In Quebec, 81.8 per cent of the population spoke French most often at home, a decrease from 83.1 per cent in 2001. About 10.6 per cent spoke English most often at home, virtually unchanged from 2001. The remaining 7.6 per cent spoke a language other than English or French most often at home, an increase from 6.5 per cent in 2001.

Canada is on track to become 100 per cent immigrant-dependent for growth

Another latest report from 2006 census has been released today by Statistics Canada. This is actually fourth in series and focuses on language, immigration and citizenship while highlights the important contribution of newcomers to Canada’s growth and increasing diversity.

Here are few interesting figures that new census shows:

• An estimated 1.1 million immigrants arrived in Canada between 01 January 2001 and 16 May 2006, which shows an increase of 13.6 per cent in the foreign-born population of Canada that is four times higher than the growth rate of 3.3 per cent for the native born population during the same period.

• As of 2006, immigrants accounted for 17.9 percent of the total foreign-born population and 3.6 percent of Canada's total population of 31.2 million people. This proportion of immigrants places Canada second to and gaining on Australia, which has a 22.2 per cent foreign-born proportion that hasn't changed in a decade.

• As of 2006, the immigrant population in Canada is estimated at 6,186,950. The United Kingdom is the largest source country by birth at 579,620 people, followed by China (466,940), India (443,690), the Philippines (303,195), and Italy (296,850).

• People from Asia and the Middle East accounted for the largest number of newcomers counted in 2006, at 58.3 per cent, followed by Europe (16.1 per cent), Central and South America and the Caribbean (10.8 per cent) and Africa (10.6 per cent).

• 20 percent of the Canadian population is now composed of individuals who do not count English or French as their native language that shows a continuing slight decline in the proportion of English and French speakers. Chinese languages are now the third most spoken, followed by Italian, German, Punjabi, Spanish, Arabic, Tagalog, Tamil, Urdu and Portuguese.

• 97 per cent of all newcomers between 2001 and 2006 have ended up in large urban areas, in which, more than two thirds are heading to Canada’s three largest metropolises, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. In the Toronto region, nearly one of every two people is foreign born. In Vancouver it is 40 per cent and Montreal it is 20 per cent. Only five per cent of the immigrant population lived in rural areas in 2006.

• In Toronto, the city's share of newcomers fell slightly, to 10.8 per cent from 11.4 per cent, while neighbouring Mississauga and Brampton - which are considered part of Toronto's census area - showed respective gains of 2.2 and 4.6 per cent, fuelled by the lure of larger, cheaper homes and the welcoming environment of established ethnic enclaves. Other largest cities and smaller municipalities in their vicinity received these proportions of newcomers between 2001 and 2006: Vancouver (7.20 per cent), Calgary (5.40 per cent), Montreal (4.60 per cent), Windsor (4.30 per cent), Abbotsford (3.80 per cent), Kitchener (3.80 per cent), Winnipeg (3.50 per cent), Guelph (3.10 per cent), Edmonton (3.10 per cent), Ottawa (3.10 per cent) and Hamilton (3.00 per cent).

• Immigrants in the five years preceding 2006 were also younger on average than the Canadian-born population, and thus landed in a job market already struggling to absorb foreign-trained workers.