Author Archives: CICS Immigration Team

More New Immigrants Moving to Smaller Cities- Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg Among Most Popular

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A downtown Vancouver sidewalk. The portion of new Canadian immigrants that settled in Vancouver declined from 13.7 percent in 2006 to 13.3 percent in 2011 as Canada’s smaller cities, particularly in the prairies, attracted newcomers with their strong labour markets (CICS News)

A Vancouver Sun report published Wednesday, titled Canada’s ‘Big Three’ metro areas lose lustre as newcomers opt for smaller cities, examines the phenomenon of immigrants choosing the Big Three Canadian cities less in favour of Canada’s smaller cities:

Released Wednesday by Statistics Canada, the 2011 numbers reveal that Toronto’s share of newcomers fell to 32.8 per cent, down from 40.4 per cent in 2006, while Vancouver’s share dropped to 13.3 per cent from 13.7 per cent. Montreal was the only “Big Three” immigration city to post a gain: 16.3 per cent of newcomers, versus 14.9 per cent in 2006.

Excluding the Big Three, the cities drawing the most newcomers were those with the most promising job markets: Calgary, at 6.1 percent of all new immigrants, Edmonton (4.3 percent), and Winnipeg (3.9 percent).

The oil wealth of Alberta has contributed to the province having the lowest unemployment rate and the highest per capita GDP in the country, making the immigration shift to that province’s cities unsurprising.

Another factor contributing to the shift to cities other than the Big Three is the Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs), which provide those hoping to immigrate to Canada with new routes to immigrate if they are able to acquire eligible work experience in a province.

Some PNPs, like the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program (MPNP), have a lower work experience threshold for eligibility and are granted a higher quota by the federal government for the number of foreign nationals they can nominate for permanent residence annually, and this has resulted in a boost in the number of immigrants settling in their corresponding provinces.

Canada Has Second Largest Immigrant Population In Developed World -StatCan

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Among the advanced economies, only Australia has more foreign born residents as a portion of its total population than Canada

Canada is behind only Australia in the relative size of its foreign born population, according to a new Statistics Canada report. Among the G8, Canada’s foreign born component, at 20.6 percent of the total population, is the largest.

The statistics follow the trend in recent years of Australia followed by Canada having the highest per capita immigration rates in the world.

Public opinion in the two countries, as well as in Finland and South Korea, has been the most accepting of immigration among the advanced economies.

The Statcan report shows that about 1,162,900 foreign-born individuals entered Canada between 2006 and 2011 and that combined they make up 17.2 percent of Canada’s total foreign-born population.

Among this group, 56.9 percent came from Asia and 78 percent are visible minorities. This is a reverse of the situation prior to 1970, when only 8.5 percent of the foreign born population was from Asia and 12.4 percent were visible minorities.

Family Class Immigration Increases by 15% in 2012

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Family class permanent residence applications increased by 15 percent in 2012 over the year before according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced on Tuesday a 15 percent increase in the number of individuals admitted under the family class immigration program in 2012 over the year before.

In the announcement, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney promoted CIC’s faster processing of family class applications:

“By reducing the backlog through increased admissions, we have dramatically reduced wait times so that parents and grandparents no longer have to wait close to a decade to be reunited with their loved ones.”

The increase in admissions occurred despite CIC having stopped accepting new applications under the Parent and Grandparent stream of the family class program in November 2011. The moratorium on new Parent and Grandparent sponsorship applications likely contributed to the reduction in the program backlog.

CIC is targeting a 50 percent reduction in the family class application backlog and in the processing time of applications in 2013.

The department has been moving away from sponsorship of Parent and Grandparents for permanent residence, and moving toward extended temporary stays, with the creation of a new ‘Parent and Grandparent Super Visa’ in December 2011 that allows unlimited re-entries for parents and grandparents of Canadians for up to ten years, and allows them to stay in Canada for two years on each visit.

Federal Skilled Worker Program Opens to Immigration Applicants

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New Canadians taking their Citizenship Oath. After nearly one year, the Federal Skilled Worker Program opened to new applications on May 4 with a set of changes to the applicant assessment process (Citizenship and Immigration Canada)

The federal government began accepting Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) applications on Saturday, marking an end to a nearly one year moratorium on the skilled worker program.

The annual reset of the program’s quota was scheduled for July 1 2012, but was postponed due to a backlog of FSW applications that Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) said it needed to work through, and to give CIC time to make changes it said were needed to make the program better meet Canada’s economic needs.

The new annual quota for the FSWP is set at 5,000 applications, which is less than the 10,000 application cap of 2012, and is expected to be filled quickly as immigration hopefuls rush to apply after a years-long wait. The 5,000 applications accepted are expected to represent about 12,500 people as they will include spouses and dependents of principal applicants.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney promoted the goals of the program changes on Friday, saying they would benefit Canada:

“The government’s number one priority remains jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity. Our changes ensure not only that Canada can select the immigrants most needed by our economy, but that they are best positioned for success.”

These changes include a greater weight placed on English or French language ability, applicants of a younger age, and Canadian work experience, in assessments of FSW applicants. The changes were made after research and consultations to find the factors that most often accompanied successful economic integration and employment by immigrants.

The program has also introduced a requirement for applicants to provide Educational Credential Assessements (ECAs) for credentials earned outside of Canada, provided from one of three organizations designated to provide ECAs.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada Announces New Funding for Immigrant Settlement

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Children in preschool. The HIPPY Canada program provides parents with limited education and/or income, and with pre-school aged children with counselling on preparing their child for school

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced it would provide $2.6 million to the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) Program on Wednesday, saying that the funding will help new immigrants integrate more quickly after arriving in Canada.

HIPPY Canada describes itself on its website as:

an evidenced-based program that works with families in the home to support parents, primarily mothers, in their critical role as their child’s first and most important teacher. HIPPY strengthens families and communities by empowering mothers to actively prepare their children for success in school.

Over the past 13 years, HIPPY Canada has reached out to provide more than 6,000 low-income newcomer, Aboriginal and other Canadian mothers with structured lessons and practical information that develop their own and their child’s personal skills, ensuring both children and families a better opportunity to succeed in school and society.

In Canada, HIPPY’s efforts to measure results, combined with more than 20 years of research in the United States and eight other countries, have proven the benefits of the program for children, mothers, families and communities.

Commenting on the funding, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said:

“Though programs like HIPPY, our government is giving newcomers the best chance possible to integrate into Canada and contribute to a prosperous society. The government has had a strong affiliation with the HIPPY Program for many years and is proud to help immigrant parents in their vital role as their child’s first and most important teacher.”

CIC will spend about $600 million this year on settlement services for new immigrants, up for $200 million in 2005-06. The funding is motivated in part by the federal government’s mission to improve immigrant integration in order to reverse the growing income and unemployment gap between new immigrants and other Canadians.

Toronto Star Reports On Government Efforts Against Marriage Fraud

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Efforts by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP seem to be reducing the number of fraudulent marriage sponsorships (Ra Boe)

The Toronto Star, the most widely circulated newspaper in Canada, published a story on Wednesday that describes the marriage sponsorship fraud that authorities are clamping down on and some of the obstacles the anti-abuse measures are imposing on Canadians seeking to sponsor foreign spouses.

The article, by the Toronto Star’s immigration reporter, Nicholas Keung, profiles Sarem Soomro, whose marriage sponsorship application was rejected by Canadian immigration officials due to the education and age gap between the younger, high-school educated, Soomro, and his Pakistani wife, who has a degree in economics.

Despite showing logs of Facebook chats, wedding photos, receipts, and a wedding certificate, authorities did not accept the sponsorship application.

In another case, a spouse who was already living in Canada while the sponsorship application was being reviewed received a surprise visit at her home which convinced the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) that the marriage was a fraud:

That occurred in a case where border officers noticed the address on Xiu Yi Xuan’s driver’s licence was different than the address of her Canadian husband.

In a scene reminiscent of the 1990 romantic comedy Green Card, about a marriage of convenience, the Canada Border Services Agency made an unannounced visit to the couple’s Markham home to investigate.

Xuan, a failed refugee claimant from China, was home at the time and unable to produce her husband’s toothbrush (she claimed they shared one). She couldn’t say whether her husband used an electric razor or a disposable one, nor could she show the officer any evidence of his socks or underwear.

Despite other indications it was a genuine marriage — joint bank accounts, joint insurance, joint donations and ownership of a Stouffville property — Xuan was arrested. The couple’s spousal sponsorship was rejected and, most recently, their appeal to Federal Court denied.

The two types of immigration fraud that Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) encounters, Keung notes, are cases where a foreign national manipulates and defrauds a Canadian, in order to get sponsored by them for permanent residence, and then leaves them once they have gotten what they wanted, and cases of collusion between the Canadian and the foreign national, where both understand that the primary purpose of the marriage is to provide the foreigner with Canadian permanent residency.

CIC has made changes to sponsorship rules to reduce the incidence of the first type, including instituting an initial two year probationary permanent resident status for sponsored spouses. Under the new rules, if the foreign spouse leaves their Canadian partner within that two year period, due to reasons other than neglect or abuse, their conditional permanent residency status is repealed.

The RCMP has had some successes prosecuting crime rings involving the second type of marriage fraud, including one where nearly 300 Canadian women, mostly of Haitian descent, were sponsoring men from North Africa in exchange for money.

The changes by the involved government agencies seem to be having an effect, with more people being deported on charges of sponsorship fraud annually, and a higher percentage of marriage sponsorship applications being found inadmissible due to lack of evidence of a genuine marriage.

Changes Made to Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program

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HRSDC Minister Diane Finley speaking in the House of Commons last September. New rules and increased fees for work permit applications were announced by Finley and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney on Monday (Government of Canada)

Amid controversy and criticism over a series of incidents involving temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in recent months, including a story that emerged last month of Canadian workers losing their jobs to foreign workers at the Royal Canadian Bank, the federal government has announced several immediate and upcoming changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP).

These changes are:

  • An employer is required to guarantee to pay a TFW prevailing wages for that foreign worker to be eligible for a work permit, effective immediately. The rule allowing companies to pay TFWs 15 percent less than prevailing wages for high-skilled positions, and 5 percent less for low skilled ones has been repealed.

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  • The Accelerated Labour Market Opinion (ALMO) has been suspended, effective immediately.

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  • The federal government is seeking the authority to suspend a Labour Market Opinion (LMO) if new information emerges showing that it negatively affects the Canadian economy and Canadian workers, and revoke work permits that were authorized by that LMO.

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  • Fees employers pay for work permit and LMO applications will increase so that a portion of the cost of processing them will no longer have to be paid out of general taxes.

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  • Job requirements for positions that use TFWs can only have English or French as required languages, unless an employer receives a special exemption after having shown Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) why the foreign language is necessary for the position.

The new rules attempt to close some of the major loopholes that critics have identified in the program that they say allow Canadian companies to use foreign workers instead of available Canadian workers.

The changes were jointly announced by HRSDC Minister Diane Finley and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney on Monday.

Nova Scotia Looking to Increase Immigration to Province

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Halifax harbour at night. Nova Scotia’s premier is hoping to boost the province’s economy by inviting more skilled immigrants to the province and encouraging them to settle

Nova Scotia, one of Canada’s Maritime provinces, is seeking to increase the number of skilled immigrants that settle in the province, according to a new provincial strategy announced earlier this year.

The Maritimes region of Canada, which includes Nova Scotia, has suffered from chronic economic malaise over the last two decades, with the highest unemployment rates, the fastest aging population, and the lowest population growth rates of any region in the country.

Attracting skilled immigrants is seen as one way to address the critical skills shortage facing the region and reversing the looming population contraction.

Immigrant worker controversy

The use of immigrants and temporary foreign workers by the Maritime provinces to meet labour shortages has met some controversy however, as the region has the largest pool of unemployed workers in the country relative to its population.

Reforms by the federal government to the Employment Insurance system in 2012 were designed in part to reduce the reliance of seasonal workers in resource sectors in the Maritimes on EI for the portion of the year when they’re off work, in order to encourage more of the region’s population to work year round.

Still, the governments of the Maritime provinces continue to insist that skilled immigrants are an important tool for alleviating their demographic problems and bringing economic vitality to the region.

Nova Scotia Nominee Program

Nova Scotia has been pressing the federal government in recent years to increase the number of immigrants it allows it to nominate annually through the Nova Scotia Nominee Program (NSNP), and as a result has seen its cap increase by 200 nominees, to a total of 700, in 2012.

The increase in its cap is not as fast as the provincial government would like, so it has been looking for ways to maximize the number of nominations it has available to it.

In a strategy announcement published in late February, the Nova Scotia government said that the international graduate stream of the NSNP would be eliminated, and foreign graduates seeking to apply for permanent residency through it would be redirected to the post-graduate stream of the federal Canadian Experience Class (CEC).

The province says this will allow it to nominate more skilled workers using the spots freed up by moving the foreign graduate nominees to the federal program, and increase the total number of immigrants it invites to the province.

The Nova Scotia government also notes that skilled worker nominees are more likely to bring their families to Canada with them, thereby further increasing the population boost that the redirection of international graduates to the CEC will provide to the province.

Immigration Pushes Canadian Province’s Population Growth to 40 Year High

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Cold winters have historically discouraged Canadian immigrants from settling in Manitoba, but a path to permanent residence through the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program has increased the number of immigrants arriving in Manitoba and led to its largest population increase in 40 years this year

The population of Manitoba, a province in Canada’s prairie region, increased by 16,227 people over the last 12 months, which is the most in 40 years, according to the Manitoba provincial government.

The arrival of 15,199 immigrants to Manitoba over the last 12 months, the highest number since 1946, was the main reason for this year’s record population increase.

Many of the immigrants arrived through the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program (MPNP), which allows temporary residents with six months of work experience in Manitoba to qualify for nomination by the provincial government for permanent residence, subject to meeting official language proficiency requirements for semi-skilled workers.

Manitoba has historically drawn a low percentage of total Canadian immigrants due to its frigid winters and lack of any coastal cities, which tend to be favoured over inland cities.

To reverse this trend, the Manitoba government has been requesting that Citizenship and Immigration Canada increase the cap on the number of immigrants the province can nominate through its provincial nominee program from the current 5,000, to 20,000 by 2016.

Taxes Up 1,787% For Canadians Since 1961

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The tax bill of the average Canadian family has grown at a faster rate than expenditures on basic necessities since 1961 (The Canadian Consumer Tax Index 2013)

Two Canadian economists say taxes are rising faster than wages for typical Canadians, and that the average Canadian family now pays a greater share of their income in taxes than on basic necessities.

The report, by Milagros Palacios and Charles Lammam, was released as part of the 2013 edition of the Canadian Consumer Tax Index.

The index tracks the total tax bill of the average Canadian family from 1961 to 2012, and finds that while taxes to all levels of government have increased 1,787 percent since the beginning of the period, spending on shelter, clothing and food increased by only 1,290 percent, 607 percent, and 578 percent, respectively, over the same period.

The average Canadian family now spends 42.7 percent of their income on taxes, and 36.9 percent on basic necessities. In contrast, the average family spent 56.5 percent of their income on necessities, and only 33.5 percent on taxes in 1961.

The report authors are also concerned that the current tax bill does not capture the full tax obligations being placed on Canadians, as many provincial governments, as well as the federal government, are funding their spending with deficits, which will need to be paid for with future taxes.

The Canadian government has made significant efforts to control the growth in government deficits over the last two decades. Facing a large fiscal deficit and growing debt in the 1990s, the federal government under then Prime Minister Jean Chretien reduced its spending by 10 percent from 1995 to 1997.

These efforts led to total government spending levels declining from 53 percent of GDP in 1992, to 43 percent of GDP in 1998, and the federal deficit being eliminated by 1997.

The decline, in the 1990s, in the share of Canada’s GDP made up by government spending is credited by some economists for the improvement in wage growth in recent years, as Canadians saw average wages increase by 10 percent in the 13 years from 1998 to 2011, compared to a gain of only 4 percent in the 17 year period from 1981 to 1998.