TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – July 28, 2008) – Skilled workers who are new to Canada will get the help they need to integrate into the workforce and their communities through a new project funded by the Government of Canada. Senator Hugh Segal announced today on behalf of the Honourable Monte Solberg, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, an investment of over $800,000, in partnership with the Maytree Foundation.

“The Government of Canada is creating the best educated, most skilled and most flexible workforce in the world,” said Senator Segal. “This project will help employers better integrate skilled new Canadians into the workforce and their local communities.”

Speaking at Deloitte’s head office in downtown Toronto, Senator Segal announced funding for the Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies (ALLIES) project with the Maytree Foundation.

Through the federal government’s Foreign Credential Recognition Program (FCRP), Maytree will receive funding to develop a comprehensive set of online tools on immigration to enable employers and community groups to better integrate skilled immigrants into the Canadian workforce, enabling them to better contribute to Canada’s economic and social development. Through these online tools, employers and immigrants will obtain information on mentoring, internships, co-op placements, loan programs, best practices and success stories. The project will build a stronger awareness among employers about the value of international experience and credentials, and help create new opportunities for skilled immigrants across Canada.

“Maytree is pleased to partner with the federal government in building a pan-Canadian project that will connect employers across the country and leverage their capacity to tap into the talents of skilled immigrants,” said Ms. Ratna Omidvar, Executive Director, Maytree “ALLIES will develop online learning tools so that employers can adopt winning strategies when hiring skilled immigrants. This project will also assist local communities in coordinating and replicating successful immigrant employment programs.”

“We are honoured to be named one of the first national corporate partner of the ALLIES initiative,” noted Ms. Jane Allen, Chief Diversity Officer for Deloitte. “As part of our commitment to supporting and celebrating diversity, both within our workplace and in the communities in which we live, we look forward to leveraging the consulting expertise of our people to support this outstanding project.”

The FCRP is improving the integration of internationally trained newcomers into the workforce by funding and working with the provinces, territories, and key stakeholders to implement projects that facilitate the assessment and recognition of qualifications acquired in other countries. Attracting and retaining the most talented individuals including those with education and skills acquired abroad, and ensuring that all Canadians are able to reach their full potential are critical to ensuring the country’s long-term economic success and prosperity.

Source: www.hrsdc.gc.ca

If you want to work in Canada after you graduate from your studies, you must apply for a work permit under the Post-Graduation Work Permit Program.

Post-Graduation Work Permit Program

The Post-Graduation Work Permit Program allows students who have graduated from a participating Canadian post-secondary institution to gain valuable Canadian work experience.

A work permit under the Post-Graduation Work Permit Program cannot be valid for a longer period than the length of your studies. For example, if you graduate from a four-year degree program, you could be eligible for a three-year work permit if you meet the criteria. If you graduate from an eight-month certificate program, you would be eligible for a work permit that is valid for no more than eight months.

Source: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/study/work-postgrad.asp

For Saskatchewan employers struggling to hire people skilled in the mechanical trades, relief will soon be on the way.

New Canadians with international training who immigrate to Saskatchewan will be able to integrate into the work force more easily, under a recently announced federal pilot project.

The federal government has invested $3 million in the Foreign Credential Recognition Support for Labour Market Needs in Saskatchewan project.

Through the federal government’s Foreign Credential Recognition program, the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology’s (SIAST) will establish a system for verifying that credentials and job experience obtained abroad are equal to established Canadian standards.

Immigrants will be able to obtain their certification before coming to Canada.

The project will be piloted in Saskatchewan and target prospective immigrants from the Ukraine, the Philippines and Vietnam with skills and experience in the mechanical trades (welding, heavy duty equipment and agricultural machinery).

Article from Daily Commercial News

There are far better ways to deliver a fair and effective immigration system than giving the minister of immigration sweeping subjective power to pick and choose immigrants. Some suggestions:

1. Change the point system and give extra points to applicants with in-demand skills and to those who have relatives in Canada. In Australia, this logical and objective approach to the point system is widely regarded as one of the most efficient and progressive and has recently been adopted by the United Kingdom.

2. Increase the annual number of permanent immigrants into Canada from 260,000 to 330,000, one per cent of the Canadian population.

3. Hire more staff in overseas visa offices to process the backlog rather than arbitrarily discarding tens of thousands of family members of Canadians, all of whom deserve fair treatment.

4. Take advantage of existing technology and establish an e-filing system so the application process is more transparent, faster and more effective.

Canada is ripping off the best and the brightest from developing nations while wasting their talents in Canada.

Medical professional bodies need to provide more internships for foreign trained doctors and expedite their credential recognition.

Until this happens, does it really make sense to bring in doctors from developing countries only to have them drive taxis?

It is time for our country to increase funding for post-secondary and training initiatives, stop demanding repayment of students loans until after their internships and halt the brain drain from developing countries.

Olivia Chow is New Democratic party member of Parliament for the riding of Trinity-Spadina.

This article was taken from “The Vancouver Sun“

This time the U.S. government has really missed the boat. No, I’m not talking about our failed policy in Iraq, the gas crisis, the mortgage crisis made even worse by fact that Freddie and Fannie Mae need a federal bailout when the federal government doesn’t have any money because we’re operating under major deficit spending or the fact that most Americans feel hopeless and helpless as America is losing its economic power worldwide and the average American is struggling to survive. Instead, I’m talking about how our country, in desperate need of highly skilled foreign professionals, many of whom were educated here, has chosen to reject them rather than raise the immigrant quotas to correspond with market need. Our neighbor, Alberta, Canada, is correctly seeking to capitalize on this pool of talented professionals who have had it with the U.S. immigration system—with quotas that create waiting lists that seem to span a lifetime.

Read More Here

OTTAWA — Greg Hamon chuckles to himself as he recalls how he began his courtship with his wife, Sonia, by writing letters to her in El Salvador.

“She didn’t have a computer and we had friends to help us translate,” he says.

Their correspondence began in January 2003 after Sonia spotted Hamon in a photograph taken by her childhood friend, who was a co-worker of Hamon’s.

After more than two years of translated letters and phone calls the couple decided to marry in March 2005.

“We had to use dictionaries at first, but that didn’t matter . . . whatever it takes to communicate,” says Hamon.

More than 10 years in age separates the couple, but age didn’t matter – they were in love.

It mattered, however, to the Canadian government.

The marriage was not deemed “genuine” by Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Sonia was unable to join her husband in his hometown of Regina.

Hamon believes it was because of the age gap.

“As soon as they saw the age difference, right there it was end of story.”

More than 45,000 new immigrants enter the country each year as spouses of Canadian citizens.

But an increased focus on marriages of convenience has sparked a government crackdown on bogus nuptials.

In May, it was reported the Conservative government was deploying five-person teams abroad – nicknamed the “fraud squad” – to investigate how fake couples were scamming the immigration system.

Most recently, the immigration department circulated a letter to the Canadian Bar Association asking for input on changes to rules on overseas marriages.

The association will issue its response this week, but sources say it’s not expected to be favourable.

The changes are “basic,” according to the government, but immigration lawyers worry they will exclude even more genuine couples like the Hamons.

“As a lawyer I see lots of refusals that are ill-founded,” says the couple’s former counsel, immigration lawyer David Matas.

“The problem isn’t acceptances of invalid marriages, it’s the refusals of valid ones.”

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act currently states that a spouse can be denied entry to Canada if the union “is not genuine and was entered into primarily for the purpose of acquiring any status or privilege under the act.”

“The policy change that’s under consideration is to change the ‘and’ to an ‘or’, so that either of those criteria would be the basis for consideration as opposed to both of them,” said Karen Shadd, a spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

So what’s the big deal?

Matas says this simple word change is more significant than it appears.

Immigration officials would be able to subjectively determine a marriage was not genuine, without having to also make a case on the motives for the union. For instance, a marriage based on dowry – not permanent residency – could be rejected.

“The intent is to tighten things up . . . . The message is that it’s going to be easier to refuse,” said Matas.

“The problem, as I see it, is when you make refusals easier you also make it easier to refuse the people that should get in.”

Discussion groups, blogs and websites on the issue show many immigration lawyers share Matas’ fears that too many genuine couples will be turned down by visa officials if the change goes through.

Immigration lawyer David Cohen says the criteria was problematic before the proposed changes, but this could open a “can of worms.”

“We are putting a lot of power in the hands of the first line immigration officer . . . subject to the biases that all humans have,” he says.

“You think in more evolved democracies you move away from things that can be abused and this has the potential to be abused.”

Some suggest adopting a more American approach would be the way to toughen the regulations without increasing the amount of refusals.

In the U.S., newly arrived spouses are given “conditional resident” status for two years before they can apply for permanent residency.

Canada grants the person permanent status upon arrival.

As for Hamon, the soft-spoken phone company worker appealed the government’s decision and fought for three years to sponsor his wife to come to Canada.

Sonia arrived this past April and has already landed a part-time job while continuing to take classes to improve her English.

Hamon says he understands there have to be restrictions on who is allowed permanent residency.

“But it’s kind of tough when the innocent get swept up with the guilty.”

Source:  Canadian Press

OTTAWA – Greg Hamon chuckles to himself as he recalls how he began his courtship with his wife, Sonia, by writing letters to her in El Salvador.

“She didn’t have a computer and we had friends to help us translate,” he says.

Their correspondence began in January 2003 after Sonia spotted Hamon in a photograph taken by her childhood friend, who was a co-worker of Hamon’s.

After more than two years of translated letters and phone calls the couple decided to marry in March 2005.

“We had to use dictionaries at first, but that didn’t matter . . . whatever it takes to communicate,” says Hamon.

More than 10 years in age separates the couple, but age didn’t matter – they were in love.

It mattered, however, to the Canadian government.

The marriage was not deemed “genuine” by Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Sonia was unable to join her husband in his hometown of Regina.

Hamon believes it was because of the age gap.

“As soon as they saw the age difference, right there it was end of story.”

More than 45,000 new immigrants enter the country each year as spouses of Canadian citizens.

But an increased focus on marriages of convenience has sparked a government crackdown on bogus nuptials.

In May, it was reported the Conservative government was deploying five-person teams abroad – nicknamed the “fraud squad” – to investigate how fake couples were scamming the immigration system.

Most recently, the immigration department circulated a letter to the Canadian Bar Association asking for input on changes to rules on overseas marriages.

The association will issue its response this week, but sources say it’s not expected to be favourable.

The changes are “basic,” according to the government, but immigration lawyers worry they will exclude even more genuine couples like the Hamons.

“As a lawyer I see lots of refusals that are ill-founded,” says the couple’s former counsel, immigration lawyer David Matas.

“The problem isn’t acceptances of invalid marriages, it’s the refusals of valid ones.”

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act currently states that a spouse can be denied entry to Canada if the union “is not genuine and was entered into primarily for the purpose of acquiring any status or privilege under the act.”

“The policy change that’s under consideration is to change the ‘and’ to an ‘or’, so that either of those criteria would be the basis for consideration as opposed to both of them,” said Karen Shadd, a spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

So what’s the big deal?

Matas says this simple word change is more significant than it appears.

Immigration officials would be able to subjectively determine a marriage was not genuine, without having to also make a case on the motives for the union. For instance, a marriage based on dowry – not permanent residency – could be rejected.

“The intent is to tighten things up . . . . The message is that it’s going to be easier to refuse,” said Matas.

“The problem, as I see it, is when you make refusals easier you also make it easier to refuse the people that should get in.”

Discussion groups, blogs and websites on the issue show many immigration lawyers share Matas’ fears that too many genuine couples will be turned down by visa officials if the change goes through.

Immigration lawyer David Cohen says the criteria was problematic before the proposed changes, but this could open a “can of worms.”

“We are putting a lot of power in the hands of the first line immigration officer . . . subject to the biases that all humans have,” he says.

“You think in more evolved democracies you move away from things that can be abused and this has the potential to be abused.”

Some suggest adopting a more American approach would be the way to toughen the regulations without increasing the amount of refusals.

In the U.S., newly arrived spouses are given “conditional resident” status for two years before they can apply for permanent residency.

Canada grants the person permanent status upon arrival.

As for Hamon, the soft-spoken phone company worker appealed the government’s decision and fought for three years to sponsor his wife to come to Canada.

Sonia arrived this past April and has already landed a part-time job while continuing to take classes to improve her English.

Hamon says he understands there have to be restrictions on who is allowed permanent residency.

“But it’s kind of tough when the innocent get swept up with the guilty.”

Source: http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hriTtgjGM3DRHnAyezQVT0awA6FA

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — National consultations on Canada’s immigration priorities are getting underway with a session in St. John’s, N.L.

Federal Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finley announced the private consultations following the passage of Bill C-50 which brought about changes to the country’s immigration legislation.

Under the new rules, the minister has the authority to issue instructions on immigration applications.

She can determine which ones become a priority, are returned with a refund, or held for future consideration.

The government says the new law is designed to prevent a backlog of applications.

The consultations are designed to identify critical occupational shortages and the role of immigration in response to those shortages.

Source: The Canadian Press

Never underestimate the common wisdom of the common people. That wisdom prevailed recently following a highly politicized parliamentary debate over Canadian immigration policy.

Opposition parties ranted and raved about Bill C-50, a budget bill introduced by Conservatives last spring that included provisions to modernize immigration procedures.

Read More

Whether a particular housing market anywhere in Canada is running hot or cold, there is one common thread binding them together — the continued need for skilled workers.

Right now, residential construction levels in Alberta aren’t as strong as they have been in the past couple of years while Saskatchewan is seeing its markets strengthening. And in Ontario, where the manufacturing industry is struggling, housing starts are weaker than in the recent past.

Read More