Want to immigrate to Canada? Learn French

2026/01/10 Leave a comment

Political objectives over economic, with little evidence shared:

At a time when Canada is clamping down on immigration, there is now a clear strategy for settling permanently in the country: Learn some French.

In 2025, the federal government invited 48,000 people to apply for permanent residency through the Express Entry program for skilled workers because of their French-language abilities. This was substantially higher than invites sent to people with recent work experience in Canada (35,850) or those in health care (14,500) or the trades (1,250).

Over all, the government sent just shy of 114,000 invitations through the Express Entry system for skilled immigration, which ranks candidates by a score. A candidate’s points are based on such factors as age, education, work experience – and crucially, English or French.

…Labour economists have generally taken a dim view of those changes, because it means that stronger candidates can be passed over in favour of those with lower scores.

For example, on Dec. 16, the government invited 5,000 people with recent Canadian work experience to apply for permanent resident status. The cut-off score to get an invite was 515 points.

A day later, 6,000 people were invited to apply in the French category, and the cut-off score was 399 points.

Someone with a lower score may be older, have less education or work experience, weaker language skills – or some combination thereof.

Source: Want to immigrate to Canada? Learn French

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

55 ans d’attente pour une résidence permanente

2026/01/10 Leave a comment

Not tenable:

Les immigrants qui ont demandé la résidence permanente via certains programmes humanitaires pourraient ne jamais l’obtenir de leur vivant. Devant la baisse des cibles d’admission d’Ottawa, les délais d’attente ont explosé, allant jusqu’à dépasser les 50 ans dans certains cas, a constaté Le Devoir.

De tous les programmes, c’est celui visant les Ukrainiens qui présente la pire attente : en juillet dernier, le délai de traitement des dossiers était de plus de 55 ans. Pour les ressortissants de Hong Kong, pour lesquels le Canada a mis en place une mesure humanitaire extraordinaire visant à faciliter l’obtention de la résidence permanente, il est de 50 ans. Et dans d’autres programmes humanitaires, l’attente varie entre quelques mois et… plusieurs décennies….

Demandes nombreuses, cibles faibles

L’avocat en immigration Steven Meurrens, à l’origine de multiples analyses de données d’Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC), n’est pas étonné de voir les délais exploser. « Je ne suis pas tellement surpris par les délais de traitement élevés », a-t-il souligné au Devoir.

En plus des données qu’il a récoltées au moyen de ses demandes d’accès à l’information, Me Meurrens pointe les données du cahier de transition de la ministre canadienne de l’Immigration, Lena Metlege Diab, publiées sur le site d’IRCC en mai dernier. Le temps d’attente pour les nouveaux demandeurs de la catégorie « motifs humanitaires et politiques d’intérêt public » varie de 12 à 600 mois (de 1 à 50 ans). « Les délais de traitement de nombreuses politiques d’intérêt public et demandes fondées sur des motifs d’ordre humanitaire au Canada augmentent en raison de la forte demande, des contrôles d’admission limités et des objectifs d’admission peu élevés », lit-on sur le site….

Source: 55 ans d’attente pour une résidence permanente

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Geoff Russ: Immigration made affordability worse. Liberals gaslighted us all

2026/01/09 Leave a comment

I lean more to incompetence and overly political objectives. But the debate is here, largely focussed on the practicalities of housing, healthcare and infrastructure, which are shared between immigrants and Canadian-born but with some increase of concern over values, with some of the excesses of pro-palestinian demonstrations and activities, likely contributing to those concerns:

…So what happened to Miller and Trudeau’s demands that Canadians ignore the changes wrought by millions of newcomers who arrived under their government?

There are two unflattering possibilities.

First, they may have been dishonest. Swelling the number of people living in Canada superficially boosts GDP and allows the Liberals to brag about growth while ignoring worsening GDP per capita. Many skeptics correctly termed this trick “human quantitative easing.”

The second possibility is simple incompetence. Perhaps they believed that demand for housing and supply would magically align if enough potential construction workers entered the country, and municipalities would build at a scale unseen since the Second World War.

In either case, the people who noticed that both were nonsense received scolding and spin in return.

In 2023, Maclean’s published a piece defiantly declaring that “limiting immigration isn’t the solution,” and suggested that blaming the surge of newcomers was to shoot at an “easy target,” while also noting that the population had grown by over a million people in 2022 due to temporary and permanent immigration.

On the hard left, arguments that there was too much immigration were slandered as a moral panic, with critics instead blaming the evils of capitalism, and castigating those asking questions for apparently scapegoating foreigners.

Trying to ignore the relationship between the numbers of immigrants, government policy, and negative economic pressure is akin to ignoring the connection between peanuts, people with allergies, and anaphylactic shock.

Do you notice the sleight of hand? It is perfectly acceptable to believe that bad housing policies are to blame, and that zoning, fees, and the lack of purpose-built rentals all matter.

But if you so much as imply that historically outsized immigration levels worsened the lot of everyday Canadians, you are suspect, and those suspicions were endorsed by the Liberals.

This is why the pivot matters. The Liberals were eventually forced to half-admit their mistakes, or malpractice, with Trudeau confessing his government “didn’t get the balance right” on immigration after the pandemic, as if it were a mediocre martini with too much vermouth. They spent years denying that population growth was a central pressure on rising housing prices, and now want to congratulate themselves for changing course when most young Canadians are deeply pessimistic about their future.

Advocates for mass immigration have lost the economic argument, and most Canadians want a reduction in the annual numbers. After years of Ottawa and its ideological allies minimizing the material effects of immigration, Canadians should insist on an honest second conversation about the social and cultural consequences of rapid change.

Surveys show Canadians want sterner expectations regarding assimilation and mainstream national norms, and they deserve that debate without being smeared for noticing the changes around them.

The supposed Canadian exceptionalism when it comes to the pitfalls of immigration and multiculturalism is winding down. For those who want a truly responsible approach to both subjects, now is the time to keep pushing the boundaries of debate and discourse.

Source: Geoff Russ: Immigration made affordability worse. Liberals gaslighted us all

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

Older, 70% white, plunging fertility and lost faith: Who Canada is now

2026/01/09 Leave a comment

Good detailed overview of Census 2021 (albeit years late). Possibly preparing for debates and discussions regarding the 2026 Census:

Numbers can tell a story. Canada is home to 41.58 million people, according to the latest population estimates, and the average age was 41.7. At the time of the last census, just over half were women and girls, and just under half were men and boys. Of the nearly 30.5 million people 15 and older, 100,815 (0.33 per cent) were transgender or nonbinary. The average household size was 2.4 people. Five per cent of the population — 1.8 million people — self-identified as Indigenous. Almost one-quarter, or 8.4 million people, were immigrants, many hailing from the three leading places of birth: India, the Philippines and China. Of the 450-plus ethnic or cultural origins reported, “Canadian” was tops at 5.7 million people.

The last census conducted by Statistics Canada in 2021, and released in stages throughout 2022, revealed the ways Canada stands out among the G7, including fastest population growth (mostly due to people moving here from elsewhere), most educated workforce (again, thanks in large part to immigrants), highest proportion of common-law couples and, at almost one-quarter, the highest proportion of foreign-born people who are now citizens.

In December, it was revealed that Canada’s population decreased for the first time in about five years — thanks again to immigration or, rather, a drop in its numbers. Driven by caps on international students and temporary foreign workers, the country’s population as of Oct. 1, 2025, declined by roughly 76,068 people, or 0.2 per cent, from July 1, when the population was estimated to be 41.65 million….

Source: Older, 70% white, plunging fertility and lost faith: Who Canada is now

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with

These international students in Canada didn’t submit test scores because they weren’t asked to. Now, their work permits are refused

2026/01/07 1 Comment

Significant oversight in the online app. Lack of user testing or feedback? Students have a case for reconsideration:

…Over the last few months, immigration experts are seeing a growing number of international graduates like Xu being refused postgraduation work permits for failing to upload language test results, losing their legal status in Canada. They have to stop working immediately and face possible removal.

While many have asked officials for reconsideration, others have reapplied with the faint hope that they would get a second chance. 

“It may sound stupid, but I trusted the system, because I’ve been doing my own study permit and visa applications many times over the years,” said Xu. The Chinese student came here in 2016, first to improve her English before pursuing her master’s degree and PhD.

“There’s no reminder or alert in the system to tell you where to upload the language scores. It should not allow applicants to submit an application when a required document is missing.”

Only now did the 34-year-old woman learn, after the refusal, that the instruction on how to upload the test result had been buried on the Immigration Department website on a separate page that few would have spotted.

Students urge Minister Diab to intervene

An online petition has been launched to urge Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab to reinstate students’ refused applications.

Although the language requirement took effect in late 2024, Vancouver immigration lawyer Will Tao said the issue only emerged this fall due to excessive processing delays. It currently takes more than 210 days for work permit applications submitted inside Canada.

Despite what the Immigration Department called the “technical limitations” that prevent the application portal from installing a new direct upload field for language test proof, Tao is baffled as to why officials can’t just put a simple note there to inform applicants where to upload it.

“That appears only in a separate policy document that does require a lot of searching and digging to find,” he noted. “It’s all automated and now people are getting refused en masse for not uploading a document that you didn’t ask me to upload.”

(Soon after the Star’s inquiry to the Immigration Department about these refusals based on missing language proficiency proofs, Tao noted that officials had placed the upload information on three other webpages, but still not on the application portal.) 

Hundreds of permit applications refused

The department said it has received 162,000 postgraduation work permit applications since the inception of the mandatory language requirement; 815 had been refused up to September due to missing documents that may include the language proficiency proof…

Source: These international students in Canada didn’t submit test scores because they weren’t asked to. Now, their work permits are refused

Filed under Immigration, Language Tagged with , ,

Elkouri: Quand le populisme a la cote

2026/01/07 Leave a comment

More on the lack of grandfathering/grandmothering of those impacted by Quebec’s cancellation of the PEQ (equivalent of PGWP):

…On pourrait croire que de passer de 100 % à 50 % sur l’échelle du bouc émissaire, c’est une façon de mettre de l’eau dans son vin ou d’épargner un peu le bouc. Le fait est que cette cote revue à la baisse est à certains égards encore plus grossière. Car en répondant à la question de Jean-René Dufort, le premier ministre ne s’en est pas pris aux politiques d’immigration, mais bien aux immigrants eux-mêmes.

Dans le contexte de la suppression du PEQ, on parle d’étudiants et de travailleurs francophones ou francisés que le Québec a tenté de séduire à coups de campagnes publicitaires et de missions de recrutement à l’étranger avant de rompre inopinément ses engagements. Des gens qui contribuent déjà à la société québécoise, que ce soit dans le domaine de la recherche scientifique, où l’on compte une majorité d’étudiants étrangers, ou sur le marché du travail. Dans nos hôpitaux, nos CHSLD, nos écoles, nos garderies… Les inviter à déposer leurs rêves au Québec pour ensuite leur fermer la porte au nez en les accusant d’être responsables de 50 % des maux de la société, c’est pour le moins injuste.

Le gouvernement a évidemment le droit d’adopter de nouvelles règles d’immigration plus restrictives. Mais il a aussi le devoir de tenir parole. 

Dans ce cas, cela veut dire au minimum de prévoir des mesures transitoires pour les orphelins du PEQ déjà installés au Québec et plongés dans la détresse et l’incertitude.

« Je me sens jetable, je me sens trahie, et je me sens profondément blessée », confiait une orpheline du PEQ à ma collègue Suzanne Colpron2. De telles histoires crève-cœur se suivent et se ressemblent depuis novembre. Je croule moi-même sous les témoignages. Les dénonciations sont quasi unanimes.

Une pétition qui a récolté 26 000 signatures en un temps record a été déposée à l’Assemblée nationale. Du maire Bruno Marchand à la mairesse Soraya Martinez Ferrada en passant par le maire de Trois-Rivières, Jean-François Aubin, et l’ex-ministre péquiste Louise Harel, du député solidaire Guillaume Cliche-Rivard au député libéral André A. Morin, des chambres de commerce aux cégeps et aux universités, des experts aux citoyens solidaires, on ne compte plus le nombre de voix qui s’élèvent pour dénoncer cette injustice et réclamer une clause de droits acquis.

À ces voix indignées, il faut aussi ajouter celles de 25 retraités du ministère québécois de l’Immigration, libres de dire tout haut ce que leurs anciens collègues, tenus à un devoir de réserve, doivent penser tout bas. Dans une lettre ouverte publiée avant Noël, ils demandent au gouvernement de faire preuve de décence envers ceux qui étaient admissibles à ce programme avant son abolition3.

Jusqu’à présent, le gouvernement Legault a refusé de les entendre. Pour respecter ses nouveaux seuils d’immigration sans obtenir 0 sur 10 en matière de promesses tenues, des solutions sont pourtant possibles. Le premier ministre pourrait s’inspirer de ce que l’ex-ministre de l’Immigration Christine Fréchette préconisait elle-même en 2023 : placer les candidats au volet « diplômés » du PEQ hors seuils….

Source: Quand le populisme a la cote

… One might think that going from 100% to 50% on the scapegoat scale is a way to put water in your wine or spare the goat a little. The fact is that this revised downward rating is in some respects even coarser. Because by answering Jean-René Dufort’s question, the Prime Minister did not go against immigration policies, but on immigrants themselves.

In the context of the abolition of the PEQ, we are talking about Francophone or French-speaking students and workers whom Quebec tried to seduce with advertising campaigns and recruitment missions abroad before breaking its commitments unexpectedly. People who already contribute to Quebec society, whether in the field of scientific research, where there is a majority of foreign students, or in the labor market. In our hospitals, our CHSLD, our schools, our daycare centers… Inviting them to drop off their dreams in Quebec and then close the door in their face by accusing them of being responsible for 50% of society’s ills, it is unfair to say the least.

The government obviously has the right to adopt new, more restrictive immigration rules. But he also has a duty to keep his word.

In this case, it means at least to provide for transitional measures for PEQ orphans already settled in Quebec and plunged into distress and uncertainty.

“I feel disposable, I feel betrayed, and I feel deeply hurt,” confided an orphan of the PEQ to my colleague Suzanne Colpron2. Such heartbreaking stories follow one after the other and have been similar since November. I myself collapse under the testimonies. The denunciations are almost unanimous.

A petition that collected 26,000 signatures in record time was filed with the National Assembly. From Mayor Bruno Marchand to Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada, through the Mayor of Trois-Rivières, Jean-François Aubin, and former Péquista Minister Louise Harel, from Solidarity MP Guillaume Cliche-Rivard to Liberal MP André A. Morin, from chambers of commerce to CEGEPs and universities, from experts to citizens of solidarity, we can no longer count the number of votes that rise to denounce this injustice and claim a clause of acquired rights.

To these indignant voices, we must also add those of 25 retirees of the Quebec Ministry of Immigration, free to say out loud what their former colleagues, bound by a duty of reserve, must think in a low voice. In an open letter published before Christmas, they call on the government to show decency to those who were eligible for this program before its abolition.3

So far, the Legault government has refused to hear them. To respect its new immigration thresholds without getting 0 out of 10 in terms of promises kept, solutions are nevertheless possible. The Prime Minister could be inspired by what former Minister of Immigration Christine Fréchette herself recommended in 2023: placing candidates for the “graduate” component of the PEQ outside the thresholds….

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

See attractions, get attracted: This is one way Canada is trying to help new immigrants decide to stay

2026/01/06 Leave a comment

More coverage for the latest “Leaky Bucket” report (catching up on the report issued last November, CBC only covered this week):

…Highly educated immigrants are leaving faster than those with lower education levels, while those with doctorates are more than twice as likely to leave as those with a secondary education or less, according to the report.

But ICC research shows the antidote to the skilled immigrant exodus is a sense of belonging and optimism about life in Canada, the factor most closely tied to whether newcomers stay long term.

While financial struggles and concerns push many to leave, the data found that the strongest driver of immigrant retention is optimism about the future, measured by immigrants’ confidence in their personal and family prospects, plans for long-term residence in Canada and belief that friends and family can succeed here. 

Even a one per cent increase in optimism boosts the likelihood of staying by 28 per cent, according to ICC data.

“Immigration is a long game. It isn’t just about inviting people to come to Canada as immigrants,” said Shamira Madhany, managing director for World Education Services Canada. “What really matters is how included people feel and how inclusive the system is.”

The Canoo app, which aims to support and promote an early sense of connection among newcomers, has had more than 420,000 members since it was created in 2010. …

Source: See attractions, get attracted: This is one way Canada is trying to help new immigrants decide to stay

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with , ,

A look at the workings of Canada’s immigration system — through the eyes of a longtime insider

2026/01/05 Leave a comment

Kudos to Cochrane for writing about his experiences and the impact of large numbers and paper processing:

…“When I worked there, you would give people your business card and you would meet with them face to face,” said Cochrane, who retired from public service in 2015.

“I realized today people don’t even know the name of the officer and they’ll surely never meet the officer,” the first-time published author told the Star.

During his time at the Immigration Department, between 1982 and 2005, the number of new permanent residents Canada welcomed each year almost tripled as public support for immigration grew, unlike what has been seen in the past couple of years.

Officials have moved from meeting clients and the public in person to interacting with applicants via mail-in documents — and now through online portals and webforms. Application processing has turned into factory-like production, boiling down to box-checking.

With the insatiable demand for migration to Canada and a push to digitalize operations, the “depersonalization” of the Immigration Department may be inevitable. But Cochrane said human connection plays a key role in immigration matters, given that any decision made could have far-reaching impacts on people’s lives and a country that’s built on immigration.

It’s through those face-to-face encounters that skilled officers can properly communicate with applicants, assess the genuineness of an application and guide it through the system, he added….

Source: A look at the workings of Canada’s immigration system — through the eyes of a longtime insider

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Immigration department halts skilled refugee jobs program, leaving employers in limbo

2026/01/05 Leave a comment

Another example of the impact of the changes, resulting from previous efforts to ramp up numbers:

…November’s immigration levels plan set out the number of permanent and temporary residents the government plans to accept over the next three years. The plan included specific targets for economic immigration pilots, including the EMPP and another for caregivers. 

The government aims to offer 8,175 permanent-residence places through such economic pilots in 2026, and 8,775 in each of the following two years.

Dana Wagner, co-founder of TalentLift, a non-profit international recruitment company that links displaced people with businesses, said being told about the imminent pausing of the program in a letter two days before Christmas was “very disappointing.” 

“The program has been working extremely well. But this is a signal that the EMPP is not being treated like a serious economic program or a vehicle for talent attraction. You shouldn’t leave employers such little runway to plan and pivot,” she said. 

“Sending a letter right before Christmas when the government signs off for the holiday is an awful way to communicate such a major change at the 11th hour.” 

Several employers that have already offered jobs to displaced people abroad were planning to submit their paperwork to IRCC in January, Ms. Wagner said.

She said those employers include an auto body collision repair company in British Columbia. It has offered a job to an experienced technician from Venezuela living as a refugee in Ecuador, to fill a local shortage.

IRCC delays in processing applications have been “ballooning” and now can take up to 17 months, Ms. Wagner said. Many employers are still waiting for skilled refugees they have hired to arrive in Canada. …

Source: Immigration department halts skilled refugee jobs program, leaving employers in limbo

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Polgreen: One of America’s Most Successful Experiments Is Coming to a Shuddering Halt [#immigration]

2026/01/05 Leave a comment

Good critique of Trump’s National Security Strategy view on immigration:

…Arguments in favor of migration tend to focus either on its economic benefits or its moral claim on the American psyche. But from the nation’s founding these two have been intertwined in ways both productive and confounding. Over the past year, as I’ve written about migration across the globe, I have often asked opponents of migration whether they would prefer to live in a country people flee from or flee toward. The answer, invariably, is the latter. The recent surge in support for immigration reflects, I suspect, that America’s status as the destination of choice for the world’s best minds is an intense source of pride.

It is also a source of strength. Trump clearly prefers the menacing snarl of hard power, but America’s openness to the world’s most ambitious people — and its unique ability to absorb and make use of human talent — has perhaps been its most potent form of soft power. Why try to defeat the world’s richest country when you might have the chance to join it and reap its ample rewards?

That is not the Trump administration’s way of thinking. For all the talk about abolishing D.E.I. in favor of merit, it seems to believe that for Americans to compete with the best of the world, merit must be redefined in nationalist terms, if not entirely set aside. Its National Security Strategy said so explicitly.

“Should merit be smothered, America’s historic advantages in science, technology, industry, defense and innovation will evaporate,” the document states. However, it continues, “we cannot allow meritocracy to be used as a justification to open America’s labor market to the world in the name of finding ‘global talent’ that undercuts American workers.” Trumpism seems to be seeking a form of talent autarky.

This is a radical change, and one that will surely leave the United States poorer, weaker and more isolated. I cannot help but detect in these nativist outbursts against Indian immigrants and their descendants a profound loss of confidence. The protesters repulsed by the towering Hanuman statue saw it as a threat to their culture, religion and traditions. But to me, that glittering hulk of alloyed metal symbolizes something else: the enduring magnetism of America’s promise, tarnished though it may be.

Source: One of America’s Most Successful Experiments Is Coming to a Shuddering Halt

Filed under Immigration, Trump administration Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →