Author Archives: CICS Immigration Team

Federal Government to Provide $160,000 for Immigrant Women Organization in Calgary

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The federal government announced it is giving the Calgary Immigrant Women Association $160,000 to help immigrant women in Calgary find employment in the city

The federal government announced on Monday that it will provide $160,000 in funding to the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association (CIWA) to help it carry out a 24 month project to help low-literacy immigrant women in Calgary.

The CIWA project will engage Calgary’s social service agencies and business community to create solutions for reducing barriers for employment for immigrant women in order to increase their economic security and prosperity.

“Through this project, we are working to ensure that new Canadian women are able to contribute to, and reap the tremendous benefits of, our Canadian economy,” said Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women Rona Ambrose in announcing the funding.

CIWA provides services like literacy education, support for child care and employment counselling to immigrant women in the Calgary area.

New Poll Shows Most Canadians Favour Immigration Limits

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A new survey shows most Canadians welcome immigration, but want limits on the number of immigrants admitted

A new poll conducted by Forum Research for the National Post finds that 70 percent of Canadians favour having limits on the number of immigrants admitted into the country each year.

Among Canadians born in another country, 58 percent reported being in favour of having immigration limits, compared to 73 percent of Canadians born in Canada. Perhaps surprisingly, the poll shows a small but significant minority of Canadians, 23 percent, support removing all immigration limits and admitting all applicants.

Average views differed slightly between Canadians of different political affiliations. Conservatives were on the average the most in favour of immigration limits and restrictions, with 76 percent disagreeing that immigrants should be able to bring their extended family to Canada, while 61 percent of Liberals and 59 percent of Greens said the same.

The most common anti-immigration view expressed by Canadians in the survey was that only immigrants from countries that share Canadian values should be admitted. 49 percent of respondents agreed with this position, while 43 percent said immigrants from all countries should be accepted.

B.C. Magnate Gets One Step Closer to Kitimat Refinery

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The proposed Kitimat oil refinery would be one of the largest in the world, and would turn bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands region into refined products like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel (Walter Siegmund)

David Black, a British Columbia-based newspaper publisher and billionaire whose idea to raise financing for a refinery in Kitimat was largely dismissed by the oil industry when first proposed last August, saw those plans take a big step toward reality this week with the announcement that a major investment firm was ready to back the project.

Switzerland-based Oppenheimer Investments Group said this week that it is willing to lend the necessary $25 billion to build the mega refinery, which would convert heavy bitumen to light refined products like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, for export to world markets.

The refinery would reduce the environmental risk of energy products exported from Canada’s Pacific Coast, due to the reduction of bulk of the product, and the fact that refined products are lighter and quicker to dissipate in the event of a spill than the heavy bitumen that would be transported from Alberta.

The refinery would also earn significant revenue by adding value to the raw materials extracted in the Alberta oil sands. Its construction would employ an estimated 6,000 people, and create more than 3,000 permanent jobs once it is up and running.

When Black proposed the project late last year, many pundits and oil industry insiders argued that Canada’s environmental regulations and relative lack of investor interest made the project infeasible, and that it would be easier to build refineries in India or China.

Black says it makes business sense to build the plant in Northern B.C. due to

  • the low cost of the oil feedstock it receives from the oil sands region of Alberta
  • the much lower cost of natural gas in the province, which would power the refinery
  • the scale of the refinery, which would reduce per unit refining costs
  • the reduced shipping costs of transporting refined products vs shipping raw bitumen, and transporting from the Pacific Coast rather than the U.S. Gulf Coast

It would be the largest single investment in B.C. history, with $16 billion for the refinery, $6 billion for an oil pipeline, $2 billion for a natural gas pipeline to power the refinery, and possibly new tankers for $1 billion.

Canadian Immigration Department Issues over 15,000 Super Visas Since Dec 2011

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Parents and grandparents of permanent residents and citizens of Canada can visit Canada for up to ten years with a Parent and Grandparent Super Visa (Diego Grez)

The federal government has issued over 15,000 Parent and Grandparent Super Visas since the launch of the program in December 2011.

The visa replaces the prior Parent and Grandparent Family Class sponsorship stream, whereby Canadian permanent residents and citizens could sponsor their parents and grandparents for permanent residence.

Instead, the Super Visa gives holders multiple re-entries into Canada for up to ten years, and allows them to stay in Canada for up to two years on each stay, unlike other visitor visas which only allow a stay of up to six months each time.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) says that Super Visa applicants are required to prove they are financially self-sufficient, have comprehensive medical insurance during their stay in Canada, and have passed the medical check required of applicants for immigration to Canada, that verifies that the applicant has no costly medical conditions.

The acceptance rate for Super Visa applications is 86 percent according to CIC.

China, Philippines and India Top Sources for Immigration to Canada in 2012

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Vancouver International Airport, pictured above, was the port of entry of many the over 250,000 permanent residents admitted in 2012

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has released immigration figures for 2012, and for the first time since 2009, it shows China regaining its status as the largest source country for immigration to Canada.

From 2010 to 2011, the Philippines was the leading country of origin of immigrants to Canada, but the 32,704 Filipino permanent residents admitted in 2012 were edged out by the 32,990 Chinese immigrants arriving last year.

India remained the third largest source country for immigration to Canada, with 28,889 permanent residents admitted in 2012 – a significant increase from the 24,965 admitted in 2011.

In total, 257,515 permanent residents were admitted in 2012, a level that in the post war era has only been surpassed in 2005 and 2010. The long term trend over the last 18 years shows increasing immigration levels, with Canada admitting an average of 30,250 more permanent residents per year in the 2006 to 2012 period than from 1996 to 2005.

Nearly 10,000 Immigrants admitted through Canadian Experience Class in 2012

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A total of 9,780 individuals became permanent residents of Canada through the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) in 2012 (Citizenship and Immigration Canada)

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced on Thursday that the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) admitted a record 9,780 immigrants in 2012, a 30 percent increase from the number admitted in 2011.

The increase is part of a long term plan to make the CEC a bigger part of the immigration system, which CIC set upon after concluding that individuals with prior Canadian work experience were more likely to successfully integrate into Canada’s labour market and economy as permanent residents.

The CEC requires a foreign national to have work experience in Canada in a skilled occupation, defined as an occupation in NOC 0, A or B, in order to qualify for permanent residence.

The requirements for qualifying under the CEC were made more permissive in January 2013, when the minimum two year Canadian work experience requirement was reduced to one year.

For applicants in the post-graduate stream of the program, the time frame during which they could obtain their work experience was increased from up to two years prior the date of the application, to three years.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney lauded the increase in the number of people using the CEC in 2012, and said the program benefits the Canadian economy.

“The CEC allows these skilled and educated individuals to bring their skills and talents, contribute to our economy and help renew our workforce so that Canada remains competitive on the world stage,” said Kenney.

Immigration Canada Announces That Over 100,000 International Students Entered Country in 2012

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UBC campus in downtown Vancouver. The number of international students entering Canada has increased by 60 percent from 2004, to over 100,000 last year (CICS News)

Canada admitted over 100,000 international students in 2012 according to an announcement by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) on Tuesday. The number marks a 60 percent increase over the number of foreign students hosted by Canada 2004, and demonstrates the growing significance of international education to the country.

CIC promoted the milestone by noting that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT)’s report on international students in Canada, titled International Education: A Key Driver of Canada’s Future Prosperity, estimates that the annual economic contribution of international students is more than $8 billion.

In another report, commissioned by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and released last summer, the author of the report, University of British Columbia President Stephen Toope, argued that in addition to the direct economic contribution foreign students make to Canada through their spending on tuition, rent and other living expenses, they also benefit the country by creating economic and cultural links between it and other countries.

Toope wrote that those links would enable Canada to conduct more international trade and investment with rapidly growing economies in the future, particularly in Asia where many of the international students originate.

In a statement on Tuesday, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney extolled the trend of an increasing international student population in Canada: “Attracting and retaining the best and brightest immigrants from around the world is part of the government’s commitment to grow Canada’s economy and ensure long-term prosperity.

The steady growth in numbers confirms that Canada remains a destination of choice for international students because of the remarkable educational opportunities that exist in our world class institutions.”

CIC has attempted to make it easier for international students to transition into permanent residence in Canada with new immigration programs like the PhD stream of the Federal Skilled Worker Program, and the Canadian Experience Class, which allows those with one year of work experience in Canada to become permanent residents.

TD Bank Analysis Finds Even Wage Growth Among Canadian Occupation Groups, Skill Levels

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A large increase in construction jobs helped buoy the total employment share and the rate of wage growth of medium skilled jobs in Canada since 1999

A report released on Tuesday and put together by TD Bank’s deputy chief economist finds that wages for Canadian workers have grown at roughly the same pace in all major occupational groupings and skill levels, and the number of high skilled jobs has increased at the expense of low-skilled and medium-skilled jobs.

The findings suggest either that the skills mismatch that has resulted in a severe shortage of workers skilled in the trades has existed for longer than a decade, and has not gotten any worse in the intervening time, or that immigration is increasing the number of skilled tradespeople in Canada at the same pace as demand for trades labour is increasing, or a combination of these two factors.

Unlike in the U.S., wages for medium-skilled workers in Canada have grown at nearly the same rate as those of highly skilled workers, a result that the report attributes to expansion of the energy, mining and construction sectors, which increase demand for well-paid medium skilled jobs.

The report finds that high-skilled jobs increased their share of total employment from 33.4 percent in 1999 to 36.3 percent in 2010, while the employment share of medium and low skilled jobs has declined from 57.3 and 9.3 percent to 54.6 and 9.1 percent over the same period, respectively.

Report author Derek Burleton calls the findings a refutation of common wisdom that wages between high skilled and medium-skilled workers and between tradespeople and other workers are diverging, and proposes more research be done on Canadian labour trends to increase understanding and avoid misconceptions.

CanadianBusiness: Vancouver Could Be The Next Calgary

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The LNG plant planned in Kitimat, pictured above, is expected to increase natural gas industry revenues in British Columbia, which would benefit the province’s commercial centre, Vancouver

An article appearing in the online edition of last Tuesday’s Canadian Business magazine suggests that Vancouver stands to follow in Calgary’s footsteps and become an energy company magnet:

The management of Canada’s oil and gas industry has become, over the past few decades, ever more concentrated in Calgary. To many, Imperial Oil’s 2005 move from Toronto sealed the deal.

But that pattern is now showing some notable exceptions. Giants of the energy industry are suddenly setting up offices in Vancouver instead, and it looks like they’re here to stay.

Alberta in general and Calgary specifically have for years stood apart in Canada for having the highest per capita GDP, the lowest unemployment rates and the most rapid population growth among all provinces and cities, respectively, in the country.

The source of Alberta’s and by extension Calgary’s wealth has been its large petroleum industry, which has experienced growth in recent years as production in Northern Alberta’s oil sands has increased.

Canadian Business magazine says that newly discovered natural gas fields in northern Alberta and British Columbia, and the planned construction of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) conversion and export plants in Kitimat and Prince Rupert in B.C.’s northern coast, have attracted Vancouver the same type of attention from energy companies that Calgary has enjoyed for years:

Not only the terminals but most of the source wells and pipeline infrastructure will be located in B.C., making the provincial government the principal regulator. So it makes sense for companies to run their operations close to Victoria, and even closer to the contractors, suppliers and a potentially hostile public. “You could see B.C. double its natural gas production, and all of that would go toward LNG,” says Greg Kist, vice-president of marketing at Progress Energy. “It indicates that there is going to be significant pace of investment in Vancouver.” Kist expects his company’s West Coast office will in time have 200 employees.

It addition to natural gas production and transport, B.C.’s position in between Alberta and the Pacific Coast makes it an important pathway for oil pipelines, a fact that has spurred Calgary-based Enbridge, which operates the largest pipeline system in the world, to recently decide to open an office in Vancouver.

Immigrants already account for 40 percent of the Greater Vancouver Regional District’s population. If the city experiences an energy boom on the scale of what Calgary has undergone, that would make it all the more alluring to immigrants and Canadians from other regions of the country.

New Safeguards Drastically Reduce Canadian Asylum Claims from High-Fraud Regions

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New rules put into effect by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) in December have led to a significant reduction in asylum claims being made in Canada

Canada, which was facing one of the worst bogus refugee claims problems in the world, and seeing government expenditure on welfare for asylum claimants gradually increase as a result, has seen a drastic reduction of asylum claims from problem countries in the aftermath of instituting new laws on how asylum claims are processed.

Changes that came into effect on December 15th 2012 require claims to be processed quickly – within 30 to 45 days for individuals from countries considered democratic and observant of human rights – and prevent claimants from delaying a deportation through years of appeals.

The number of claims from Hungary, the country that led the world in producing Canadian asylum claimants, and from which the vast majority of claims are rejected by the Immigration and Refugee Board or abandoned by the claimant before their hearing, declined from 353 in the January 1st to February 19th period of 2012, to 7 in the same period of 2013.

Totally, asylum claims have declined by 70 percent, while claims from countries designated as safe have declined by 86 percent.

The primary reason for the drop in claims is likely that the new rules have eliminated the incentive to file a bogus asylum claim by making it impossible to take advantage of the years of welfare and other free social services it could previously provide.

The new rules are expected to save tax payers $400 million a year.