Canada plans to make language tests mandatory for fresh applicants in Economic class

Although the Bill C-50 that proposes controversial legislative amendments in Canada’s immigration law is still pending, the ministry of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has plans to make mandatory for all applicants in the Economic Class (Skilled workers and business immigrants) to undergo a formal third-party language test in English or French to prove proficiency in one of Canada's official languages, regardless of their nationality, mother tongue, or language of instruction.

The policy change, if implemented, would not be applied hopefully to applications already in process, or to those who have applied under the family class.

At present, applicants in skilled worker and business categories can “elect” to take a language test from any of CIC’s approved organizations or submit other evidence of their abilities in one of Canada’s official languages. However, the proposed change will require a fresh applicant in these categories to undergo a language test from an approved organization, which includes IELTS (International English Language Testing System) for English and TEF (Test d’évaluation de français) for French.

In my opinion, this planned requirement will actually not hurt the current frequency of fresh applications worldwide, but a fair policy with reasonable exemptions would be acceptable for everyone. It is a fact that assessing an individual’s language skills based on evidences other than IELTS or TEF is typical and affect the overall process time of an application but requiring native English or French speakers to take the test would not be fair and consistent. Likewise, it would also not fair to use the same language benchmark for applicants in different job categories. For example, applicants in Skill Level B, C and D may require a lower score in language test than Skill Level A or Skill Type 0.

For you, it should be helpful to know that proficiency in English, French or both will significantly help you in your settlement in Canada and in Canadian job market. If you feel more comfortable in English than French (or don’t know French) your score in IELTS can help you to claim up to 16 points in immigration assessment. CIC recognizes IELTS as a trusted and valid indicator of your English language abilities and awards points based on your individual scores in Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking capabilities. For the purpose of immigration to Canada, you will be required to select the General training option of IELTS test while you can use language test result for one year from the time you took the test.

IELTS is one of the fastest growing English language tests in the world, which is jointly managed by British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations. IELTS tests are available up to 48 times a year at 500 authorised test centres in 120 countries. More than 6,000 education institutions, faculties, government agencies and professional organisations in over 68 countries recognise IELTS. In 2007, over 940,000 candidates around the world join IELTS to fulfill university entrance requirements, new immigration policies and professional recognition throughout the English-speaking world.

Peterborough formed a partnership council to develop and implement local immigration strategy

Following a partnership between the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration (MCI) to strengthen the role of local and regional communities in serving and integrating immigrants, the city of Peterborough has recently formed a council to draw immigrants and sought funding from federal and provincial governments to plot their integration plan.

The Peterborough Partnership Council (PPC) includes more than 25 representatives from Peterborough city, economic development agencies, law enforcement, education, and the industry. This Council will not only prepare a strategy to increase immigration to Peterborough area but also develop a resettlement strategy for comprehensive integration and retention of newcomers to Peterborough. This Council will also prepare an application to demand federal and provincial funding for the development and implementation of local solutions and take ownership of social and economic integration of new immigrants.

Other associations which are playing a major role in the partnership process include the Greater Peterborough Area Economic Development Corporation (GPAEDC), Community and Race Relations Committee, Trent University and the New Canadians Centre Peterborough. The role of these associations in the partnership council is to help ensure a strong labor force for the future by focusing on different areas such as settlement services, language training, international students and labor market integration.

Peterborough has the second oldest workforce in Canada but one of the lowest attractions of immigrant rate. Statistics Canada's 2006 census population numbers, released in December 2007, show that 12,450 immigrants live in Peterborough and area. That's about 10 per cent of the 131,520 total populations. Of the more than 12,000, about 10,000 are from Europe and the United States, and only 2,625 are visible minorities from Asia, Africa and Latin America. According to Statistics Canada, immigrants living in the Peterborough region had a median wage 3.5 per cent more than all residents.

Canada announces new funding to support the advancement of newcomer women and their families

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 and providing stakeholders necessary funding to support these initiatives.

A new funding of $947,370 has recently been announced for St. Joseph Immigrant Women’s Center to continue delivering settlement services to an estimated 530 newcomers in Hamilton and surrounding area. In addition to already granted over $2.5 million for this organization in 2008, this new funding will specifically be used to start a new Family Settlement Center in addition to support the essential settlement services including language and job skills training, finding job and getting settled in their new community. The new proposed Family Settlement Center in East Mountain area will specialize in providing settlement services to newcomer women and their families, support their advancement and full participation in the community.

Similarly, a new funding of more than $8.4 million has been announced for five partner agencies in the Kitchener-Waterloo region to deliver settlement services, including language training and employment-related support, to new immigrants. These five agencies include the following: YMCA of Kitchener-Waterloo ($4,330,299), Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Center ($411,306), English at First ($848,065), Waterloo Catholic District School Board ($2,861,477) and Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning ($36,539). This funding is expected to help an estimated 1,200 immigrants in Kitchener-Waterloo area.

Few weeks earlier, Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning has been granted $3.2 million for developing and delivering brand new English-language training services to meet the increasingly diverse needs of newcomers. That funding was provided to Conestoga under the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program to train more than 250 newcomers in Kitchener-Waterloo area.

Likewise, the YMCA Cross Cultural and Community Services in Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge has recently received $1.4 million to fund a business mentoring program for immigrants, developed and administered by YMCA.

These funding for essential settlement services and advancement of newcomer women and their families to Ontario are provided under the $920 million Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement (COIA) over five years and are part of $1.4 billion package over five years to provinces and territories other than Quebec, which was committed by the Canadian federal government in budget 2006.

Newfoundland introduces new immigration stream to help reunite immigrant families

The provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador has recently added a new immigration stream to its Provincial Nominee Program (NL-PNP), which would allow immigrant families living in the province for at least one year to sponsor their overseas family members wishing to relocate and work in the province.

The specialty of this new Family Connections category is that it will allow eligible sponsors in Newfoundland and Labrador to sponsor their overseas family members, which are not covered in the regular Family Class category of Federal immigration program. These include brother and sister (plus step brother and sister), brother and sister in-law, uncle, aunt, first cousins, niece, nephew, grandchild, and son and daughter (plus step son and daughter).

To be eligible, these overseas family members (or beneficiaries) must have to fulfill few conditions in terms of age, guarantee of settlement assistance from their sponsor, education/training, job experience, language skills and settlement funds.

For the sponsors, it would be necessary that they must be living in Newfoundland and Labrador for at least twelve consecutive months, must be self-supporting, and able to provide settlement assistance to family members during the immigration process and after arrival.

Primarily, the provincial government has imposed no limit to the number of family members that can be sponsored nor require that a sponsor earn a minimum income before being eligible to support a family member.

Canada passes legislation to restore citizenship status to Lost Canadians

The Canadian Parliament has finally passed proposed amendments in country’s existing Citizenship laws, which will become law no later than a year following Royal Assent.

These amendments in Canada’s citizenship laws were proposed by the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) few months earlier to retroactively grant or restore citizenship to those who have lost or never had Canadian citizenship because of several obscure provisions in existing and former legislation.

The need to overhaul country’s existing citizenship laws was first arose just after the Lebanon evacuation crisis in 2006 and following the introduction of US travel rule (WHTI) in the beginning of 2007, when many of the Canadians who were applying for passports for the first time found out that they were unknowingly stripped of their citizenship. 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.

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. These were include (a) Canadian-born children who have lost their citizenship because their fathers became citizens of another country at a later stage; (b) The law from 1947 to 1977 required people living outside of Canada on their 24th birthday to sign a form to keep their citizenship; (c) Immigrants born in a hospital south of the border, or abroad, were not considered citizens unless they later registered as Canadians; and (d) Some immigrants were stripped of their citizenship because they or their ancestors were considered illegitimate.

After its implementation, the new Citizenship Act will 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.

The government has no estimate on the number of people who will take advantage of this legislation after it becomes law, but it has been estimated that new 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.

Canada announces major changes to its work permit program for international students

To attract and retain qualified international students and assist employers to capitalize on the skills and experience of international students, Canadian government has announced to simplify its Post-Graduation Work Permit program for international students.

The changes, which will effective immediately, will make it easier for those international students to work in Canada who graduate from eligible programs at certain Canadian post-secondary institutions. For the first time, these international students would be able to obtain an open work permit under the Post-Graduation Work Permit Program, with no restrictions on the type of employment and no requirement for a job offer.

In addition, the duration of the work permit has been extended to three years across the country from the one to two years allowed previously. However, this extension in length of visa would apply only to those international students who have completed at least two years of study in Canada. if the student’s program of study is less than two years but at least eight months, the student would be eligible for a post-graduate work permit. In this situation, the length of work visa must not be longer than the period of study of graduate at the particular post-secondary institution in Canada.

According to the preliminary data of 2007, 63,673 international students came to Canada that year, which is 4.6 per cent higher than 2006. These open and longer work permits will not only provide international students with more opportunities for valuable Canadian work experience and skills development but also facilitate them in their transition to permanent residency after the implementation of Canadian Experience Class in September this year, hopefully.

This short-term solution to fulfill the needs of Canadian labor market will not only provide an option to those international students already studying in Canada and intend to remain in Canada but also attract more international students to stay and build their lives in Canada. This will in turn help increase Canadian competitiveness in global market for international students.

Manitoba taking significant steps to protect temporary foreign workers from potential exploitation

To adequately protect foreign workers from potential exploitation, the provincial government of Manitoba is not only improving its Employment Services Act that governs the activities of third-party placement agencies but also increasing its coordination with federal government.

As part of its legislative improvements and increased monitoring, the Labor and Immigration Ministry has proposed a new Worker Recruitment and Protection Act. This proposed legislation will replace the existing Employment Services Act that hadn’t been amended since 1987.

The proposed legislation, which is the first of its kind in Canada, will introduce provincial license to regulate third-party placement agencies that recruit temporary foreign workers from other countries. It will also make necessary for such agencies to be members in good standing of either a law society in Canada or the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC, http://www.csic-scci.ca/). It would prohibit recruiters from charging workers, directly or indirectly, any fees whatsoever for recruitment.

The proposed legislation will also look to help employers get access to "legitimate and reliable" recruitment choices by requiring all employers to first register with the province before the recruitment of foreign workers begins. The registration would ensure that employers are using a licensed recruiter and have a good history of compliance with labor legislation.

The proposed legislation will introduce significant steps to improve the enforcement of new Act. For example, there would be penalties for employers and recruiters who will fail to comply with the legislation. As an another step, province would have the authority to refuse or revoke a license, investigate and recover monies from employers and recruiters who force a foreign worker to work on changed terms and conditions than promised. This improvement in enforcement mechanism would help to reduce incidents of workers arriving with no job or an illegal job and incidents of extortion and exorbitant charges.

As part of its increased coordination with federal government, Manitoba and federal ministry of Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC) have developed a Letter of Understanding (LOU) that will strengthen protections for temporary foreign workers. After Alberta and British Columbia, Manitoba is the third province that the federal government has begun collaborating with to ensure that these workers are guaranteed safe working conditions and the fulfillment of employment contracts.

Through a legislative improvement and increased monitoring, Manitoba intend to create a positive, sustainable recruitment process that will provide business with access to skilled labor and respond to issues of worker vulnerability. Through federal-provincial coordination of services, Manitoba will be able to better understand the arrival, location and numbers of temporary workers as well as increase overall compliance with employment standards and workplace safety.