Canada's Immigration News

July 2010

July 3, 2010 National Post
Chinese must play by Canada's rules; Construction accident inquiry stonewalled
Foreign investors must be carefully monitored in Canada, and I believe Investment Canada should put on hold any investments by Chinese corporations or entities until a three-year-old case involving worker deaths, abuses and legal stonewalling is resolved in Alberta. Canada is the prettiest "girl" at the resource dance, so we can afford to pick and choose with whom we want to do business. Chinese entities have been quietly investing billions in Alberta's oil sands and are now circling, ready to pick up many of this country's junior energy and mining companies (particularly those that were income trusts). But this case is why Investment Canada, and the federal government, must stop any more takeovers.

July 8, 2010 Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Immigration policies must improve to meet economic needs: report; Labour shortages could stifle growth
OTTAWA --  Immigration policies need to be modernized to avoid a stifling of economic growth in the future caused by labour shortages, according to a new report from the Conference Board of Canada.  The Ottawa-based think-tank suggests, among other things, placing more importance on the skills of prospective immigrants and whether they match the labour-force needs of Canada.  The report, written by the Conference Board's chief economist Glen Hodgson, said the recent recession provided some relief from tight labour markets.


July 9, 2010 Gazette Montreal
Immigration is not a quick fix to fill labour shortages; Canada should aim to attract people who can adapt to market changes
It's a miracle that as many as four in five Canadians support immigration, calling it a good thing for the country, according to a recent poll. For years we've been told our immigration system is dysfunctional: People arrive not knowing either official language; their qualifications don't match Canadian standards; the job vacancies they were brought in to fill have usually vanished in the years it took them to make it through the 800,000-application backlog.


July 16, 2010 Vancouver Sun
Suspected migrant ship heading this way
A ship believed to be carrying 200 illegal migrants may be heading to B.C. from southeast Asia. Authorities are monitoring a Thai cargo ship named the MV Sun Sea, which was last seen in the Gulf of Thailand and is heading for Canada.  The vessel is under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, reported Sri Lanka’s English newspaper, the Sunday Observer, last weekend. Several leaders of the separatist organization -considered a terrorist group by many countries, including Canada- are onboard the vessel, said the report.

July 21, 2010 Edmonton Journal
Foreign worker program reassessed; Airlines benefit most, minister jokes
EDMONTON -- Canada's temporary foreign worker program is no longer working for Alberta, the province's employment and immigration minister said Tuesday. "In my opinion, it was a program that had fulfilled its mandate, (by) suddenly providing a large number of workers to an economy that suddenly had a massive shortage of workers," Thomas Lukaszuk said. "It's not working well now. It's a temporary solution to a permanent problem."


July 22, 2010 Montreal Gazette
Bar association assails 'abusive' immigration process
A change made last month by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to how citizenship applications are processed in Canada is an "underhanded and abusive" tactic by the government to circumvent the law, the Canadian Bar Association charged yesterday. Anyone seeking Canadian citizenship as a new skilled immigrant is required to speak either English or French, the country's two official languages.


July 22, 2010 National Post
Ottawa asked to review immigrant language test
A Toronto immigration lawyer has applied to Federal Court for a judicial review of a new government requirement that new immigrants take a language test -- even if their native language is French or English. Cathryn Sawicki, with the Toronto law firm Green and Spiegel, said the revision has not only disadvantaged her clients but has impeded her ability to practise law.


July 24, 2010 Edmonton Journal
Adjudicator awaits sentencing in sex-for-favours refugee case
TORONTO --  A disgraced former immigration adjudicator caught offering a refugee claimant a favour-able ruling in exchange for sex says he feels "profound remorse." Steve Ellis, who was convicted this spring of breach of trust and violating the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, delivered a personal statement on the final day of his sentencing hearing Friday.


July 24, 2010 National Post
Put an end to affirmative action
The Conservatives may have misstepped on the census, but they have it right on affirmative action. This week, Cabinet Ministers Stockwell Day and Jason Kenney announced that the government will review discriminatory affirmative action policies that, for the last quarter-century, have given preferential hiring treatment to women, minorities, aboriginals and the disabled in the civil service. According to Mr. Kenney, “I strongly agree with the objective of creating a public service that reflects the diversity of Canada, and with fair measures designed to reach that goal. But we must ensure that all Canadians have an equal opportunity to work for their government based on merit, regardless of race or ethnicity.”


Calgary Herald July 24, 2010
Bring on colour-blind hiring
"Equal opportunity" should mean exactly that, which is why the Conservative government's decision to examine affirmative action policies mandated by the Public Service Employment Act is so refreshing. Merit -- rather than colour, creed, or gender -- should be the ultimate arbiter for just about any employer sifting through applications and is bound to bring better results.


July 31, 2010 The Gazette
It's time to reassess affirmative action
So-called "affirmative action" has always been controversial. This policy of deliberate bias in favour of previously excluded groups made some sense when first introduced, in the United States half a century ago.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act and other U.S. legislation signalled the end of segregation, but a signal was not a reality; social attitudes and private opinions yielded to what we now see as simple justice more slowly than the law. To move beyond words in a law book, it seemed necessary actually to discriminate against whites. Now, in Canada, another difficult decision has to be made about affirmative action. Last week two federal ministers announced plans to review public-service hiring policies which give preference to aboriginals, women, the disabled, and visible minorities.

Source: CanWest Interactive. July, 2010.

June 2010

June 7, 2010 Calgary Herald
Many immigrants get poor health care: study
OTTAWA — Many immigrants to Canada suffer maladies they don’t know are treatable and not enough doctors know to look for them, a study led by researchers at the University of Ottawa has found. Such illnesses typically include depression, tuberculosis, iron-deficiency anemia, hepatitis B, cervical cancer and HIV. Many of the conditions are either treatable or preventable in Canada, even though they can be life-threatening in the home countries of many immigrants and refugees.

June 7, 2010 National Post
Attracting the best and brightest
In early 2010 both the Ontario and federal governments made a concerted effort to attract more international students by announcing several new measures. Why is this happening now? Canada recognizes that there is an opportunity to be taken advantage of. It is now possible for the country to attract students who might normally have gone to educational institutions in the United States or Australia.  Last year in Canada, 178,000 international students spent $6.5- billion, creating 83,000 jobs. Compare that to the $13-billion international students spent in Australia -- that country's third largest source of foreign revenue.

June 15, 2010 Montreal Gazette
Montreal immigration consultant faces criminal charges
MONTREAL - A Montreal-based immigration consultant faces criminal charges alleging he counselled clients on how to get around immigration laws and organized fake marriages for them. Richard Yalaoui, 46, of Montreal, is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday where he faces two conspiracy charges as well as three counts of violating the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.


June 15, 2010 National Post
Frances Woolley: Should recent immigrants be eligible for Old Age Security?
Most Canadian seniors are guaranteed an income above the poverty line by Old Age Security, Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Canada Pension Plan. Seniors are less likely to be poor than children or adults under 65 – with one exception. Mike Veall has found that 71 percent of recent immigrants aged 66 and older have incomes below the poverty line. Although recent immigrants were just 2 percent of the 66 and over age group, they constituted 20 percent of those in poverty (2004 numbers based on tax return data).


June 21, 2010 National Post
Overlooked talent pool
Wasif Ali Raja immigrated to Canada from Pakistan in 2005. He had a post-graduate degree in information technology and had set up shop as a software developer, but the would-be entrepreneur decided Canada held more opportunity. "I applied as a skilled worker," Mr. Raja says. "I thought with my educational and work background I would get a job in my sector, maybe not at the same level, but definitely in IT." But that isn't what happened. His story is one many internationally educated professionals who move to Canada share. According to Statistics Canada, only 24% of foreign-educated professionals find a job in their field. At the same time a demographic shift will see more people leave the workforce than enter it, resulting in a significant labour shortage, an irony not lost on Mr. Raja.


June 28, 2010 Vancouver Sun
Vancouver becoming destination for house-hunting tours from China
VANCOUVER — Chinese interest in Vancouver-area real estate is so strong that it's fuelling a market for real estate tourism, with groups of wealthy travelers scheduling visits to the city for the sole purpose of house hunting. China-based Internet sales company SouFun is organizing two tours — groups of about 20 each from Beijing and Shanghai — which will visit Vancouver and Toronto in August on the hunt for "million-dollar or multi-million-dollar" listings.


June 28, 2010 National Post
Federal government puts new limits on skilled immigrants
OTTAWA — The federal government has put a cap of 20,000 on the number of visa applications it will review from skilled immigrants over the next 12 months and also has reduced the number of occupations under which foreign workers can apply. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says the changes, which are effective immediately, were needed to avoid creating new backlogs and processing times under the foreign worker program. In the first quarter of this year alone, there were more than 33,000 applications, according to government figures.


June 29, 2010 The StarPhoenix
Efforts to keep immigrants pay off: city, province
The population increase experienced both in Saskatchewan and Saskatoon can be credited to recent efforts to attract and retain new people, says City of Saskatoon senior planner Bill Holden "Unlike the last 10 or 15 years, we seem to be holding more international migrants in the last while and interprovincial migration has stepped up as well. There has been a natural birth increase, but really the increase we've been seeing in the last few years has really been about attracting new people," he said Monday.

June 30, 2010 Vancouver Sun
Chinese investors fuel population growth in B.C.
The population of Canada has surpassed 34 million, and British Columbia again has the highest rate of growth among the provinces. According to new Statistics Canada figures, B.C.'s population grew by 16,626 people in the first four months of the year, bringing the total to 4,510,858 residents. The largest driver of this immigration boom? Chinese investors.
 

Source: CanWest Interactive. June, 2010.

May 2010

May 8, 2010 Edmonton Journal
Jobless rate blamed on migrants
Most job gains among people aged 15 to 24
EDMONTON — Alberta gained 10,000 jobs in April, but the province's unemployment rate edged down only 0.1 percentage point in April to 7.4 per cent, Statistics Canada reported Friday. That's because the labour force, or the number of people working or available for work, also increased by 9,300 people over the previous month. "We're starting to plateau," said Alberta Employment and Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.

May 13, 2010 The Gazette
Auditor general targets government waste
Renaud Lachance, Quebec's auditor-general, targeted shortcomings in immigration, school boards and computerized health records, in his semi-annual report to the National Assembly yesterday. In all three cases the auditor-general, whose job it is to check whether Quebec taxpayers are getting their money's worth from government, suggested improvements. And the three ministers whose management was questioned, rejected the criticisms or said changes are already being made.


May 18, 2010 Calgary Herald
Back to U.K. for Calgary transit workers recruited during boom
Province balks at extending visas of Britons
Eighteen transit drivers from the U.K. -- settled in Calgary for the past year and a half -- will have to leave Alberta by next spring, victims of the province's slowed economy. Brought over to work for Calgary Transit when the boom years made it difficult to fill many city jobs, the drivers have been told by the provincial government their temporary work permits are just that -- temporary, and they cannot stay when the two years run out.


May 22, 2010 The Gazette
Feds ponder tougher controls over immigration consultants
OTTAWA — The body currently regulating immigration consultants in Canada could be replaced by a more accountable organization with stronger investigative powers under new measures the federal government is preparing to introduce in Parliament. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is expected to propose a more robust regulatory body as part of a long-promised legislative package aimed at cracking down on unscrupulous "ghost" consultants, Canwest News Service has learned.


May 23, 2010 The Province
Victims protest immigration fraud
Many seeking to bring family members here lost up to $20,000 to consultants
Victims of immigration fraud rallied in Surrey Saturday, asking the federal government to better regulate immigration consultants. "There are hundreds of people in Vancouver and Surrey who have hired these different immigration consultants to facilitate visas to get their family members to Canada," said organizer Aditya Mohan. "They paint a very rosy picture.


May 28, 2010 Calgary Herald
Winnipeg offers jobs to displaced Calgary transit workers
Eighteen transit operators from the U.K. who can no longer work in Alberta may not have to return home, with Winnipeg offering employment. "We are interested in the possibility of bringing some or perhaps all of them to Winnipeg," said Keith Martin, manager of operations for Winnipeg Transit. "Any time we can get very experienced operators, it's of interest to us."


May 28, 2010 Calgary Herald
When cultures collide
To see the new face of century-old Brooks, take a look at an ESL class at Brooks Composite High School. Filling the desks are teens from Ethiopia, Sudan,  Cambodia and other far-flung nations. Take Sabah and Suad Mohamed, 14- and 15 year-old sisters who sit together, clad in long skirts and head scarves, busily jotting down adjectives to describe the pictures on their assignment sheets. Somali refugees who spent time in Yemen and Ethiopia, they arrived in Brooks a mere month ago, their playful sense of humour miraculously intact.


May 30, 2010 Financial Post
Banks banking on new customers
When Jagdeep Walia arrived in Canada last month, waiting for him was a checking account and credit card at Bank of Nova Scotia. And the bank offered him a safety-deposit box for one year, free of charge. The paperwork had already been completed before he left India, where he attended a pre-immigration workshop, part of the bank’s Start-Right program for those planning a move to Canada.
 

Source: CanWest Interactive. May, 2010.

April 2010

April 1, 2010 Vancouver Sun
Why immigration won't save us -- but babies will
Why worry about how many babies Canadians have? If the country needs more people, we can loosen the tap on immigration. Problem solved. Anyone who has ever suggested people should be concerned about Canada's fertility rate -- which is far below what is needed to maintain the existing population -- has heard this response. There are almost seven billion people on the planet. Why do we need to make more? I wish it were that simple. But it's not. There are two big reasons why immigration is no solution to our low fertility rate. The first comes from the nature of the problem. The demographic dilemma we face is not --at least not in the next 30 years-- population decline. It is population aging.

April 3, 2010 Vancouver Sun
Becoming fluent in the language of 'office'; Failing to understand nuances of work-speak can be an obstacle to finding a job for newcomers
OTTAWA -- For many newcomers to Canada, learning English or French is just the first hurdle. To secure their future in their new land, they need to become fluent in another vernacular -- the language of the workplace. When the boss greets you by your first name, do you respond in kind? If you choose the standard voice mail greeting over a personalized one, what kind of message does that send? Is this Roberto Luongo who is mentioned so often across the desks a statesman or a deity? No matter your qualifications, fail to understand the nuances of this language and you could have trouble finding and keeping a job, in your field or otherwise.


April 08, 2010 Financial Post 
Quebec told to help integrate immigrants
High unemployment
MONTREAL - Quebec, Canada's most indebted province, has a major problem integrating newcomers into the workforce and desperately needs to solve it ahead of a looming labour shortage, according to new research by a university research group.
The level of immigrant workforce integration is barely half of what it is in other provinces, the findings by Montreal's Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organizations show. In 2006, the employment rate of immigrants in Quebec was 11.4 percentage points below that of native-born Canadians living in Quebec. The gap is much smaller in the rest of Canada: five points in Ontario, 5.1 points in B.C. and 4.9 points for Canada as a whole.


April 14, 2010 Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Feds urged to bring in skilled immigrants
OTTAWA -- Ottawa is woefully unprepared to deal with the looming shortage of skilled labour, and business leaders and government need to get their heads out of the sand before it's too late, business leaders were told recently. The warning came from Carleton University professor Linda Duxbury, and from Rosemarie Leclair, CEO of Hydro Ottawa, during a two-day leadership summit, Addressing Ottawa's Talent Needs. The summit, organized by Hire Immigrants Ottawa, brought business leaders and senior managers from the public sector together to learn about recruiting and retaining skilled immigrants.


April 14, 2010 Ottawa Citizen
Quebec's original paranoia; The backlash against 'foreigners' has its roots in an age-old fear of English immigrants threatening the French identity
In his classic 1914 novel, Maria Chapdelaine, author Louis Hemon evoked "the Voice of the Land of Quebec" in a long elegiac declamation. Two sentences remained in Quebec's consciousness: "All around us foreigners have come whom we are pleased to call barbarians. They have taken almost all power, they have acquired almost all the money, but in the land of Quebec nothing has changed."  This view of the immigrant as usurper stigmatized English speakers who established logging companies, mines and the textile manufacturers. In time, immigrants speaking other languages were also seen as a threat to French Quebec's identity.


April 22, 2010 The Gazzete
'The feeling of having been conned'; New study paints an alarming portrait of underemployment among immigrants to Quebec
As an honour roll MBA from Universite Laval, Amine Essalhi had every expectation of a brilliant career. But three years after graduating third in his class in finance and management, he is still jobless. "We came here with so much hope, with a desire to serve," said Essalhi, 29, who immigrated to Quebec from Morocco in 2005 with stellar academic credentials and high hopes of achieving success in a land of equal opportunity. But despite sending out up to 200 applications a day, he has found only poverty and rejection.


April 23, 2010 National Post 
Want more seats? Attract more immigrants
This week the House of Commons debated a motion, introduced by the Bloc Quebecois, calling for the government to guarantee that it will respect the "Quebecois nation" by ensuring that Quebec retains 25% of the seats in the House of Commons. Quebec currently has 75 out of 308 seats, or just over 24%. The motion would not preclude the government from granting seats to other provinces, but would oblige it in these cases to also increase the number of seats in Quebec, to maintain its 25% representation.


April 23, 2010 Montreal Gazette
Top court to rule on immigrant sponsor costs; Ontario argues that debts must be repaid and there is no leeway for forgiveness
OTTAWA -- The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to settle a case involving eight immigrants who are on the hook for repayment of social assistance benefits collected by relatives they sponsored to come to Canada.  Without giving reasons, the court granted leave to appeal yesterday to the Ontario government, which argues that sponsorship debts must be repaid and that there is no leeway for forgiveness, regardless of the circumstances.


April 29, 2010 LeaderPost
Look towards youth, First Nations and immigrants to fill need for construction workers: Wayne Morsky
REGINA — Canada will need more than 300,000 new construction workers within seven years, the head of the Canadian Construction Association told a Regina audience Thursday. Morsky, a Regina businessman who is serving a one year term as the chair of the board of directors of the Canadian Construction Association, said the recruitment of young people — particularly young aboriginal people — should be a big part of the solution to finding new workers to fill vacancies and to replace retiring workers.

Source: CanWest Interactive. March, 2010.

March 2010

March 2, 2010 Calgary Herald
Support for job seekers, students hit as Alberta shifts spending priorities
An estimated $87 million in provincial budget cuts to Alberta Employment and Immigration will slash a wide swath of services -- including income supports, training programs and recruiting foreign workers -- affecting people of all ages. The Stelmach government's estimated $4.7-billion deficit and huge increase to health expenditures is forcing the province to chop spending in most departments, including a seven per cent whack to Employment and Immigration.

March 3, 2010 The Gazette
Mail-order brides 'out of the box'
Three to six months of emails, a 14-day visit to Russia and a new wife. That's the promise of Mark Scrivener, a Martensville man who on Jan. 1 opened a Canadian branch of the Volga Girls mail-order bride service. Though available for 10 years via the Kentucky-based head office, Scrivener says he is providing Canada-specific services to men looking for a wife who is a little bit more "out of the box." He said most of the single men he's counselled "would rather have a cup of coffee and a sandwich . . . than a $4,000 paycheque a month brought to them," and those foreign women signed up for his service are willing to provide just that.

March 5, 2010 Montreal Gazette
Feds offer limited support to Quebec in niqab uproar
OTTAWA — The Harper government has offered some support to Quebec in its plans to restrict the use of head garments that can hide the faces of people who receive public services or attend public schools. Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Josee Verner said Thursday she agrees the provincial government's recent decision to expel a student from a French course at a Montreal-area college for refusing to remove her niqab, a head garment which is worn over the entire face with a slit for the eyes.


March 7, 2010 The Province
Jailed for fraud
A West Vancouver immigration consultant will spend a year in jail after being convicted of fraud and uttering a forged document. Fereydoun Hadad, 72, was convicted March 1 and given the one year sentence, plus a year's probation, after pleading guilty to the charges.

March 9, 2010 National Post 
Toronto language diversity offers glimpse of Canada's future
Ever since mass migration began changing the face of Toronto in the late 1960s, the city has grappled with providing service to its citizens in the language they speak. Rose Lee, the city's co-ordinator of diversity management, says one in every two Torontonians speaks a language other than English or French. The city does not see this linguistic challenge as a burden, she says, but rather as an opportunity.


March 9, 2010 Montreal Gazette
"We want to see your face," Yolande James tells Muslim women
QUEBEC - Immigration Minister Yolande James said Tuesday she will not compromise in her refusal to allow students to cover their faces with Islamic niqabs or burqas in French classes.“There is no ambiguity about this question,” James told reporters. “If you want to assist at our classes, if you want to integrate into Quebec society, here are our values. “We want to see your face.”


March 10, 2010 Leader-Post
Influx of foreigners expected in Sask.
Neelu Sachdev can't see anything but positives in more foreign-born residents arriving in Regina. "What it means for a lot of people is that there will be more opportunities and better opportunities because of the influx of new people coming into Regina," said Sachdev, executive director of the Regina Immigrant Women's Centre. "Services have to grow. There will be more stores that are open longer. There will be more jobs which fuels the economy.


March 10, 2010 Edmonton Journal
New multi-ethnic nation emerging
One in four residents will be born elsewhere by 2031, Statistics Canada says
There is a "new Canada" just over the horizon -- home to a diversity of skin tones, birth countries, languages and religious faiths unprecedented in the nation's history. By 2031, at least one in four people in this country will have been born elsewhere, new population projections from Statistics Canada suggest, and just half the working-age population will belong to families who have lived in Canada for at least three generations.


March 13, 2010 Vancouver Sun
Underlying resentment of diversity poses challenges
Canadians are reluctant to hold open, frank discussions about race and culture for fear of rocking the boat, experts say
The Canadian practice of "papering over" any angst about multiculturalism and immigration must be replaced by a frank conversation if this country is to thrive in an increasingly diverse future, experts say. A report from Statistics Canada this week projected unprecedented population shifts over the next two decades and sparked a wave of vitriolic online comments, yet experts say there's widespread reluctance to admit there are problems here.


March 17, 2010 The Gazette
Kenney disputes UN report on Canada's treatment of minorities
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said that rather than taking Canada to task over its treatment of minorities, the UN should be looking at the "dozens of regimes around the world that are engaged in widespread and systematic violation of minority rights."


March 18, 2010 Edmonton Journal
Foreign-worker abuses on rise, NDP charges
A growing number of Alberta temporary foreign workers are getting ripped off by their bosses, documents released Wednesday by the NDP indicate. Almost three-quarters of businesses employing temporary foreign workers inspected by the province were breaking labour standards. Most of the violations were for things such as failing to pay overtime, statutory holidays and general record-keeping.


March 18, 2010 The Gazette
Close the gates to newcomers
The reality is that for some years now the costs of immigration have exceeded the benefits
Industry Minister Tony Clement has bemoaned the fact that Canada's unemployment figures are at an "unacceptable level" and claims that job creation is a top priority of the federal government. If the minister is serious about this he might then well ask his colleague Jason Kenney, the immigration minister, why our immigration levels are at such unprecedented high levels when there are 1.3 million men and women looking for work.


March 20, 2010 Canada.com
Government is not listening on immigration
For the last 20 years Canada's immigration rate has been about 2 1/2 times higher per capita than the U.S.A. and four times higher than Europe. Since the 1980s Canada's immigration has gone from about 80% European to now 85% non-European. Some said it was unfair to favour our European cousins for immigration but now in an effort to target votes and prove our immigration system is not racist our politicians now favour Asia instead.


March 20, 2010 Times Colonist
Immigrants deserve thanks, not criticism
In economic downturns, Canada has repeatedly turned new arrivals into scapegoats instead of granting them the respect and thanks they deserve. James Bissett's "Cut immigration until job market improves" (March 18) implies that high immigration numbers harm Canadian workers' chances to secure employment. New arrivals are not stealing jobs from Canadians.


March 26, 2010 National Post
Canadian university campuses: hotbeds of discrimination, or is anecdotal evidence to painting an unfairly racist picture?
A first-year student at Lakehead University, who happens to be a visible minority, shows up at an orientation session, only to find that she is the only one from her culture. She complains that the orientation activities do not reflect "who I am as a person."

March 27, 2010
Temporary Foreign Workers
Report highlights violations of employment standards in Alberta
A recently released government report cites examples of temporary foreign workers in Alberta being short changed by their employers. Alberta’s New Democratic Party is touting the report as proof of wide-spread employer abuse, but the governing Conservatives say the opposition misread the numbers and came up with a false conclusion.

Source: CanWest Interactive. March, 2010.

February 2010

February 1, 2010 The Ottawa Citizen
Immigrant centre gets $375,000 in federal funding
OTTAWA — The Elisabeth Bruyere Centre for Immigrants will get $375,000 for renovations, Federal Transport Minister John Baird announced Monday. Run by the Catholic Immigration Centre, the Bruyere centre provides services and resources for new arrivals to the city. The renovation funds, to be matched by the immigration centre for a total of $750,000, will replace the Argyle Avenue building’s elevator, waterproof the basement to prevent flooding, create more office space and update the HVAC system.

February 4, 2010 National Post
Rick Miner: Ontario's coming unemployed legions
It may be difficult to imagine, but Ontario is on the verge of an unemployment crisis that could be far more destructive than the 2009 recession. That’s because the province faces a growing number of people who will be unemployable, due to levels of education and skills that are insufficient to meet the demands of the new innovation economy. While various policy-makers are grappling with our aging population and the shift to a knowledge economy, no one has put the two together and examined the consequences: More than 700,000 low-skilled Ontarians will be unemployable by 2021. That figure is in addition to the 5% of the population that is traditionally unemployed.


February 4, 2010 The Gazette
Quebec to welcome 3,000 extra refugees
 Extended-family members included
Quebec plans to open its doors to an additional 3,000 Haitian earthquake refugees, and some of them may be financially sponsored by third parties not related to them.


February 5, 2010 Montreal Gazette
Foreigners behind $500,000 medicare scam
'Highly sophisticated' scam; RAMQ creates special investigative unit
MONTREAL – Quebec's medicare insurance board has set up a special investigative unit as a result of the largest fraud in its history in which about 750 foreigners obtained free health care at a cost to taxpayers of more than $500,000. An official with the Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec yesterday described a "sophisticated" scam that lasted five years in which people from the Middle East, almost all from Lebanon, used bogus documentation to obtain medicare cards.


February 9, 2010 Vancouver Sun
Time to exorcise ghost immigration consultants
 Some bilk newcomers, jeopardize national security
 Many immigrants, leaving less than ideal circumstances in their own countries, choose to come to Canada in search of a better life. It's sad, then, that the first experience many of these vulnerable people have in Canada is one of exploitation.


February 10, 2010 The Gazette
Quebec lags in helping immigrants
Entrepreneurs from abroad: 'Far behind other provinces'
When it comes to immigrants starting their own businesses in Canada, statistics show Quebec is far from their promised land. "We are far behind the other provinces," notes Michel Fortin, general manager of SAJE (Service d'aide aux jeunes entrepreneurs) Montréal Métro. And that has been the trend since 2001, according to Fortin, whose non-profit organization assists immigrants in starting and developing small and medium-size companies.


February 15, 2010 The Gazette
Quebec speeds residency for foreign-trained immigrant workers
Montreal high-tech firms applaud new program
MONTREAL – The Quebec government announced Monday a new program to accelerate permanent residency status for foreign-trained workers. Immigration and Cultural Communities Minister Yolande James made the announcement at the Science Centre in Montreal’s Old Port accompanied by the executives from two of the city’s leading high-tech firms, Electronic Arts, and CGI. James said the high-tech sector is but one example of an industry that suffers from a lack of skilled workers and must rely on recruiting from beyond Canadian borders.


February 15, 2010 The StarPhoenix
Program accelerates recognition of foreign credentials
Aimed at boosting immigration to Sask
 In an effort to bring more international workers to Saskatchewan, the provincial government has launched a federally funded program. The federal government will provide more than $1.6 million to Saskatchewan's competency recognition program.


February 17, 2010 The Gazette
Bolstering Bill 101 is useless: study
Key to getting immigrants to learn French is to help them land good jobs: professor
Toughening up Bill 101 is not the way to integrate more allophones into the French-speaking community, says a new study on the role of immigrants in Quebec's language debate. Rather, the province should do more to help immigrants get jobs that would help them become fully functioning members of the francophone majority, argues the report by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, an independent, non-profit group


February 22, 2010 The Ottawa Citizen
Raising faith to cut down gangs
Ottawa's new faith and gangs group listens to Christian and Muslim community volunteers who are trying to find ways to keep kids out of the grasp of street gangs, writes Jennifer Green.


February 23, 2010 –The Montreal Gazette
Human rights group choice disputed
Tories playing politics at troubled agency, Ignatieff says
The Conservative government's choice to head the troubled human-rights organization Rights and Democracy is a former Canadian Alliance candidate who has argued for restrictions on Muslim immigration to Montreal.


February 23, 2010 Vancouver Sun
Business group warns of labour shortage
Continued growth depends on tapping underused talent pool, Canadian Chamber of Commerce says
Labour shortages may not be top of mind with the unemployment rate running at 8.3 per cent, but they will be back to haunt Canadian businesses once the economy fully recovers, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce warned Monday. "Canada will have too few workers to meet the needs of its economy and of society," said Perrin Beatty, the chamber's chief executive. "We need to expand Canada's labour force if we want the Canadian economy to continue to grow."


February 25, 2010 Vancouver Sun
Few Canadian immigrants working in their fields
Only one-quarter of immigrants educated outside Canada are working in medical, law and teaching occupations for which they're trained, according to a report from Statistics Canada. In 2006, 284,000 employed foreign-educated immigrants in Canada had degrees that normally would lead to work in regulated occupations, which the agency defines as those governed by regulatory or professional associations and requiring specific credentials to practice.

Source: CanWest Interactive. February, 2010.

January 2010

January 07, 2010
Ottawa Citizen
Canada to keep alleged Tamils behind bars; Rarely used, controversial law permits closed-door hearings
VANCOUVER -- In an apparent bid to buy more time in a difficult immigration case, the Canadian government has taken the unusual step of invoking a controversial section of federal law to keep 25 Sri Lankan migrants with alleged ties to the Tamil Tigers behind bars. In coming weeks, closed-door hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board in Vancouver are expected to begin, with Ottawa expected to argue the men represent a national security threat. Edmonton Journal

January 14, 2010
Calgary Herald
Shrinking workforce may lead to chronic deficits
OTTAWA -- Canada's greying population could push federal finances into chronic deficit unless the government sets targets now on how it will climb back to balanced budgets, Parliament's budget watchdog is warning. Over the next five years, Canada's labour force is expected to shrink as baby boomers retire. With a smaller proportion of the country's population working, Canada's economic potential will fall to its lowest level in nearly 40 years.


January 17, 2010
Montreal Gazette
Ottawa fast-tracking about 5,000 immigration applications; For Haitians with Canadian relatives
OTTAWA -- The government is fast-tracking an estimated 5,000 immigration applications to reunite families in Canada with relatives "directly and significantly affected by the earthquake in Haiti."


January 20, 2010
Vancouver Sun
Police complete 120,000 Olympic security accreditations; Allegations of racial profiling denied
Two Muslim men, Ali Karim and Usama Ismail, were trained by a Vancouver-based security company but failed the background checks, and told the CBC they fear they were the victims of cultural profiling. The men, who both reportedly were recently made Canadian citizens, were quoted as saying they feared they were targeted by police because of their faith.


January 22, 2010
Montreal Gazette
Quebec to widen immigrant eligibility; For members of extended families
Going one step further than Ottawa, Quebec plans to allow Haitian Quebecers to bring in members of their extended families. One day after the federal government said it would not loosen up the rules of eligibility, Quebec Immigration and Cultural Communities Minister Yolande James said the province plans to use the wider immigration powers it possesses to let in brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews who survived the earthquake.
The current rules only allow for the reunification of ascendants and descendants - meaning parents, grandparents, children and spouses.


January 22, 2010
Ottawa Citizen
Kenney rejects calls to allow more Haitians quick entry to Canada; Minister says opposition is 'totally irresponsible'
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney blasted opposition parties as "totally irresponsible" Thursday for seeking to expand the categories of Haitians who are being fast-tracked to Canada. Kenney closed the door on calls to expand immigration sponsorship eligibility to siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews of Haitians in Canada.


January 23, 2010
Vancouver Sun
Immigration consultant found guilty of fraud
A West Vancouver immigration consultant, Fereydoun Hadad, has been convicted on charges of fraud and uttering a forged document. West Vancouver police began an investigation in April 2008, after being alerted by Canada Border Services Agency and Vancouver police to the complaints of a Surrey woman, who alleged more than $50,000 had been illegally transferred from an account she had set up on the advice of Hadad.


January 23, 2010
Edmonton Journal
Alberta's need for skilled workers endures; Underlying issues of aging workforce, out-migration need addressing
EDMONTON -- Workers in Alberta were not long ago a scarce resource -- and despite today's job losses, they could soon be again. One prominent Edmonton-based employee recruiter worries Alberta could see a return to severe labour shortages if the energy-based economy revs up again, because little has been done to correct the underlying factors that led to the past worker crunch.

Source: CanWest Interactive. January, 2010.