U.S. asks Canada to reimpose visa requirements for Mexico to stem surge of crossings at northern border

2023/05/01 Leave a comment

Request was bound to happen:

The Biden administration has been asking Ottawa to consider reimposing visa requirements for Mexican nationals visiting Canada, CBC News has learned.

At issue is the sharp increase in illegal crossings from Canada into the United States: Mexicans don’t need a visa to travel to Canada, while the U.S. requires a visa for Mexicans to enter. American border officials say some Mexican nationals are using Canada’s visa-free rule to fly into the country and then cross south illegally into America.

The Conservative government under Stephen Harper created a visa requirement in 2009 for Mexicans to stem the flow of asylum claims from Mexico. The Trudeau government relaxed it in 2016.

Source: U.S. asks Canada to reimpose visa requirements for Mexico to stem surge of crossings at northern border

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Australia: Uncapping work hours forged ‘Ponzi scheme’ in student visas

2023/05/01 Leave a comment

Uncapping student work hours, as the Canadian government recently did, will likely generate further abuse by education agents and immigration consultants:

The Morrison government’s allowing people on student visas to work unlimited hours created a ‘Ponzi scheme’ that was exploited ruthlessly by some education agents, an international education conference was told on 19 April, writes Julie Hare for AFR .

The move also heaped pressure on the Department of Home Affairs, which is trying to process a backlog of one million visas, with the more complicated ones linked to questionable applications being shunted to the back of the queue, said Labor backbencher Julian Hill. Speaking at an international education conference, Hill said it was clear the Morrison government’s decision to uncap work hours was irresponsible because it “distorted student choice and corrupted the market”.

Phil Honeywood, chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia, described the uncapping of work hours as creating a ‘Ponzi scheme’ in student visas. Before the removal of caps, international students were restricted to working 40 hours a fortnight.

Source: Uncapping work hours forged ‘Ponzi scheme’ in student visas

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Is Canada taking the wrong approach to the labour shortage?

2023/04/29 Leave a comment

Good discussion of high vs low wage market needs. However, a discussion of productivity and per capita GDP missing, and the current immigration policies are working against increasing productivity as Skuterud and others have argued:

Does Canada need more immigrants with less education to do low-paying work, when many of their highly educated peers are already toiling in such jobs?

As employers struggle to find workers, a new report is calling into question Canada’s efforts to use immigration to deal with labour shortages.

“The labour shortages we’re seeing are mostly concentrated on the lower-skilled jobs, but we know that there’s already a very large proportion of immigrants with university education working in these jobs,” Statistics Canada researcher Feng Hou, co-author of the joint StatsCan and immigration department report, told the Star.

“It’s important for policymakers and the public to decide if we want to continue to select highly educated new immigrants to work in lower-skilled occupations or increase (the number of) immigrants with lower education levels.

“It’s a choice we have to make.”

The stakes are high and could have a lasting impact on the Canadian labour market — changing the calibre of the future workforce, suppressing wages or discouraging employers from investing in innovation and improving work conditions.

There could also be unexpected societal consequences.

“A significant move away from highly educated immigrants would weaken the tendency for the children of immigrants to attain high education levels, a major success for Canada compared to other countries,” cautions the report.

“In many countries the population generally has a more positive attitude toward highly-skilled immigrants than the lower-skilled. Any change that negatively affects Canadians’ perception of immigration could put a damper on its success.”

Canada raises immigration intake

As of March, Canada’s unemployment rate was at five per cent. Meanwhile, job vacancies have trended down 731,570 across all sectors since last June, despite a slight increase earlier this year.

The growth in unfilled jobs was in transportation and warehousing (+14,500) as well as health care and social assistance (+12,400), while the numbers dropped for professional, scientific and technical services (-6,200; -10.9 per cent), manufacturing (-4,200; -6.0 per cent) and educational services (-3,800; -14.1 per cent).

To tame the tight labour market, the federal government has raised the annual intake of new immigrants, with a goal of bringing in 500,000 a year by 2025, relaxed the rules to usher in foreign workers and passed a new law to prioritize potential immigrants in targeted sectors, including those in lower-skilled jobs previously ineligible for permanent residence.

A one-time program was also launched to grant permanent residence to 90,000 international students and foreign workers in essential jobs in Canada — many in the low-skilled spectrum of the caregiving and food production and distribution sectors — to ease the crunch.

Concerns have been raised regarding the extent to which immigration should be geared toward filling higher or lower-skilled jobs, and whether the country is on the right track.

How are newcomers to Canada faring?

Based on census and the government’s immigration database, the new study examined how newcomers who came under different programs fared and if they were employed in jobs at par with their education and skill levels. Although the analysis was based on 2016 data, Hou believes the findings would be similar today.

Among all immigrants aged 20 to 64, 60 per cent were in higher-skilled jobs and 40 per cent in lower-skilled positions, comparable to the ratio among their Canadian-born peers, at 64 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively.

(Higher-skilled jobs are defined as requiring a minimum of two years of post-secondary education and above; lower-skilled jobs only require some high school education and on-the-job training.)

Although immigrants played a key role in the labour market at all skill levels, accounting for 24 per cent of all employment, they also are more likely than their Canadian-born peers to be at the bottom of the ladder. 

According to the 47-page report, 34 per cent of immigrants selected via the economic category (including principal applicants, spouses and dependants, and in Canada since 1980) were employed in lower-skilled jobs.

Even among longer-term economic immigrants who have been in Canada for more than a decade, 31 per cent were in lower-skilled positions. 

This group of immigrants, selected for their higher education and skills, is a major provider of lower-skilled labour. It accounted for 53 per cent of all adult immigrants, and almost half (46 per cent) of the immigrant labour force in lower-skilled jobs.

Economic immigrants who were chosen under the Provincial Nomination Program, which allows provinces to select their own permanent residents, had the largest share in lower-skilled jobs, at 40 per cent. That compared to 28 per cent among those in the federal skilled worker program and 15 per cent in the Canadian Experience Class.

“Traditionally, economic immigrants in particular have been selected based on a ‘human capital model,’ which orients immigration towards higher educated individuals,” said the report. “However, not all economic immigrants occupy higher-skilled jobs.”

Cyclical factors are driving labour market conditions

The study referred to the many factors contributing to the pandemic-induced labour market conditions: worker fatigue; concerns among workers about COVID-19 infection; strong government financial support to individuals; the decline in immigration levels; and a possible desire to change jobs.

Given most of these drivers were cyclical, it recommended the temporary foreign workers program may be a more reasonable solution to the labour crisis amid current economic uncertainty.

However, critics say the solution is not about bringing in fewer low-skilled immigrants but focusing more on credential recognition in order to make the best use of all immigrants’ skills.

“The business cycle has not led to fewer temporary foreign workers. The use of temporary foreign workers through different immigration streams continues to go up,” said Naomi Alboim, who served senior federal and provincial government roles in immigration and labour.

“They say they hope it will resolve itself when the pandemic abates. But the pandemic is still with us. It’s not necessarily good for our economy just to continue to bring in temporary foreign workers, nor is it good for the temporary foreign workers.”

The report cited the boom and bust of the higher-skilled tech and oil sectors as examples of the temporariness of cyclical labour market, but Alboim said it failed to recognize the “ongoing needs” for lower-skilled workers in areas such as skilled trades and health care that can’t be easily replaced by automation and technology. 

“Even if the high interest rates result in a reduction of economic growth and perhaps less people being required, we know that there are sectors at the lower end where we are going to continue to need people,” said Alboim.

“I’m not saying the majority of people coming into the country should be selected on the basis of lower skills. We should just have a little bit more of a balance so we don’t have a bifurcated immigration system that says, ‘Higher-skilled. Permanent. Lower-skilled. Temporary.’”

‘We do need … a mix’

The success of the economic immigration program comes down to the match between newcomers’ skills and the jobs that need to be filled, said Rupa Banerjee, Canada Research Chair of economic inclusion, employment and entrepreneurship of Canada’s immigrants.

It’s an irony that low-skilled immigrants in many ways actually have employment appropriate to their education and skill levels while their highly educated and skilled peers struggle to get compatible jobs and become disillusioned with the decision to come to Canada.

“What’s really important is to look at this through a more nuanced viewpoint. It’s not as cut and dry or black and white as simply we don’t need as many low-skilled immigrants,” said Banerjee.

“We do need to have a mix of different skill levels coming into Canada, but we still have this problem of job skill mismatch and that continues to be a major challenge that we need to continue to work on.”

Source: Is Canada taking the wrong approach to the labour shortage?

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Australia Seeks to Fix ‘Broken’ Immigration Program After Review

2023/04/28 Leave a comment

Some aspects also broken in Canada but government loathe to admit:

Australia will change its immigration system after a review found the current model is not fit for purpose, Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil said.

The system was overly-complicated and open to exploitation, the review found, failing to target and retain skilled workers and international students vital to boosting the country’s economic productivity.

Australia’s immigration system was “broken,” O’Neil said in Canberra Thursday. “It is failing our businesses, it is failing migrants themselves and most importantly it is failing Australians,” she said.

Australia will increase the income threshold for temporary skilled migration in July 2023 from A$53,900 ($36,000) to A$70,000 ($46,000), to raise the bar on the types of jobs which justified importing labor. In addition, all temporary skilled migrants would be given a pathway to permanent residency from the end of 2023.

Despite the changes, O’Neil said Australia’s overall immigration levels would not increase as a result of the reforms.

The difficulty of attracting skilled migrants comes as Australia attempts to boost its economic growth and productivity in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. With unemployment hovering at 3.5%, there are skilled labor gaps in a range of industries including aged care, health and defense.

More changes are expected in the coming months, O’Neil said, with a full plan to improve the migration system due by the end of 2023. The investor visa class is expected to be reviewed, the minister said, with concerns it has been used in the past to buy a ticket into Australian residency.

Source: Australia Seeks to Fix ‘Broken’ Immigration Program After Review

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Canada developing new immigration policy to attract French-speaking people — especially teachers

2023/04/28 Leave a comment

Of note (last year they met the target for francophone immigration):

The Liberal government says it is developing a new policy on francophone immigration as a way to grow the French language in Canada.

Official Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor says it’s an advantage for Canada to have a bilingual workforce and population.

The policy is part of a five-year action plan for official languages the government released today.

Source: Canada developing new immigration policy to attract French …

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Des immigrants se disent injustement recalés en français par Québec

2023/04/28 Leave a comment

A noter:

Québec accuse de nombreux immigrants d’avoir menti sur leurs compétences linguistiques et les recale lors d’une entrevue orale, en dépit d’une preuve attestant qu’ils ont déjà réussi le niveau requis en français, a appris Le Devoir. Plusieurs d’entre eux peuvent même être « bannis pour cinq ans » du processus de sélection du Québec, dénoncent des avocats.

Ces derniers — et leurs clients — déplorent ce qu’ils qualifient d’acharnement de la part du ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration (MIFI). « Québec cherche des façons innovantes de torturer des gens, des gens qui ont le malheur d’être convoqués en entrevue pour qu’on évalue leur niveau de français », laisse tomber David Chalk, un avocat en droit de l’immigration, dont certains clients ont été recalés.

Le Devoir s’est entretenu en français, à l’oral et à l’écrit, avec plusieurs candidats à l’immigration n’ayant pas le français comme langue maternelle qui ont été convoqués à une entrevue. Il préserve leur anonymat pour ne pas nuire à leurs démarches.

D’origine chinoise, Chang déplore la façon dont il a été traité par le MIFI, qu’il qualifie d’« arrogant » et d’« irresponsable ».

Le jeune homme a fait une maîtrise dans une université anglophone d’ici et dit être « tombé en amour » avec le Québec. Le Programme de l’expérience québécoise (PEQ) lui permettait de réaliser son rêve d’immigrer, mais il devait apprendre le français et obtenir l’équivalent du fameux « niveau 7 » sur l’Échelle québécoise des niveaux de compétence en français.

Au printemps 2022, après avoir réussi tous les tests de français oraux et écrits agréés par le MIFI, il a demandé le Certificat de sélection du Québec (CSQ), le précieux sésame lui permettant de demander la résidence permanente au gouvernement fédéral. Or, son rêve s’est effondré lorsqu’il a été convoqué quelques mois plus tard à une entrevue de contrôle par le ministère de l’Immigration du Québec. Celui-ci lui a dit avoir des raisons de croire qu’il avait soumis des « documents faux ou trompeurs » pour attester de son niveau de français, ce que nie le principal intéressé.

Au terme de l’entretien, qui « s’est très mal passé », Chang s’est vu octroyer un niveau 4. Dans la lettre du MIFI, on l’informe aussi que sous prétexte qu’il a menti sur ses compétences en français, toute nouvelle demande qu’il voudrait soumettre pourrait ne pas être évaluée, et ce, pour les cinq prochaines années. « J’étais dévasté », a-t-il dit.

Le Devoir a pu consulter la lettre de refus, qui, ironiquement, contenait plusieurs coquilles. Elle détaille, au moyen d’exemples, certains problèmes de français du candidat, notamment en commentant sa prononciation. « On a ridiculisé mon accent », déplore Chang dans un français tout de même compréhensible pour Le Devoir.

Ce jeune homme s’indigne surtout du fait que le MIFI l’accuse d’avoir menti, de ne pas avoir « démontré la véracité de [sa] déclaration sur [sa] connaissance du français oral ». Selon lui, ayant déjà obtenu l’équivalent d’un niveau 7 à un examen de français reconnu par le MIFI, il était normal qu’il affirme détenir ce niveau. « En aucun cas, je n’ai eu l’intention de tromper qui que ce soit dans le processus ! »

Une pratique illégale ?

Pour Me David Chalk, le ministère veut « piéger » les gens. « Cette question n’a aucune raison d’être posée, sauf pour accuser quelqu’un de fausse déclaration. »

Ningsi Mei, une avocate qui dit avoir de plus en plus de clients refusés, estime que l’entretien, auquel participent un agent du MIFI et un enseignant, est subjectif. « C’est un jugement personnel. »

Après avoir été recalés à l’entrevue du MIFI, plusieurs de ses clients ont quitté le Québec, soit pour une autre province soit pour leur pays d’origine. « Ils me disent qu’ils ne se sentent pas les bienvenus ici. Ils croient que le [gouvernement] veut juste limiter le nombre d’immigrants et qu’il ne veut pas de ceux qui ne parlent pas parfaitement le français », a rapporté l’avocate.

Me David Chalk se dit surtout agacé par les présomptions de tromperie qui servent à justifier une convocation en entrevue. « Pourquoi alléguer d’emblée que le candidat est un fraudeur ? »

En 2016, des soupçons de fraude et de production de faux documents avaient mené l’Unité permanente anticorruption à ouvrir une enquête, ont révélé des documents de cour. C’est ce qui avait incité le ministère de l’Immigration du Québec à vérifier de manière plus proactive le niveau de français oral des candidats au PEQ en les convoquant en entrevue.

Or, cette pratique a été contestée devant les tribunaux en 2017. Les avocats avaient fait valoir que les preuves soumises par leurs clients pour attester leur niveau de français dans le cadre du PEQ étaient conformes à la loi, contrairement aux tests de français oral supplémentaires menés par le MIFI.

Un jugement de la Cour supérieure rendu en décembre 2018, confirmé par la Cour d’appel, leur avait donné raison et avait forcé le MIFI à annuler ses décisions de refus de CSQ pour une cinquantaine d’immigrants, surtout originaires de l’Asie.

En août 2018, le Règlement sur l’immigration a été changé, et le ministre peut désormais exiger qu’« une personne démontre une connaissance du français oral au niveau 7 », a affirmé Émilie Vézina, porte-parole du ministère. Quant aux présomptions de fraude qui servent à la convocation des gens en entrevue, on se contente d’expliquer que c’est « en fonction des faits propres à chaque demande ».

D’après les données du MIFI, plus de 2000 personnes se sont soumises à cette entrevue depuis l’automne 2016. Les convocations ont connu une augmentation et sont en voie de rattraper le niveau prépandémique. Quant au taux d’échec, il varie beaucoup, allant de 16 % à 84 % selon les années.

Convoqués même après avoir obtenu un CSQ

Le Devoir a échangé avec plusieurs immigrants qui se sont fait convoquer en entrevue même après avoir obtenu leur Certificat de sélection du Québec.

C’est le cas d’Emily Zhao, une enseignante et danseuse d’origine chinoise qui est arrivée au Canada il y a huit ans. Elle a obtenu son CSQ en juillet 2018 et attend depuis la résidence permanente pour elle et sa famille. Or, en janvier dernier, elle a, à sa grande surprise, reçu une lettre du MIFI la convoquant en entrevue et l’informant de ses intentions d’annuler son CSQ.

 « C’est comme si vous aviez obtenu votre permis de conduire et que, cinq ans plus tard, on vous appelle pour repasser l’examen et annuler votre permis », a dit cette mère de famille, qui a accepté de témoigner à visage découvert.

Citant la décision des tribunaux, Emily Zhao a refusé de se présenter en entrevue, prétendant qu’il n’était pas légal de vérifier à nouveau son niveau de français. La semaine dernière, elle a finalement reçu une lettre de rétractation du MIFI : son CSQ demeurera valide.

Mme Zhao craint d’avoir été placée sur une « liste noire » de personnes ayant obtenu leur CSQ alors que des soupçons de corruption pesaient sur le programme. Elle craint aussi que la remise en question de son certificat ait suspendu le traitement de sa demande de résidence permanente au fédéral, ce qui expliquerait la longue attente.

Selon le MIFI, depuis septembre 2021, 70 personnes ayant déjà obtenu un CSQ ont été convoquées à une entrevue visant à vérifier leur français oral, et près de 60 % ont échoué.

Après s’être vu refuser son CSQ, Chang est rentré en Chine la semaine dernière. Pour lui, c’était comme « tout jeter et partir ». Il croit que son expérience a découragé certains de ses amis. « Ils ont peur d’essayer. Parce qu’ils savent à quel point j’ai essayé d’apprendre le français. »

Source: Des immigrants se disent injustement recalés en français par Québec

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Porter: It’s OK to ask whether immigration is intensifying our housing crisis

2023/04/27 Leave a comment

Reasonable question as many have increasingly been asking. Of course, housing availability and affordability affect everyone, Canadian-born and immigrants:

According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s population grew by 1,050,110 people in 2022. International migration accounted for 95.9 per cent of this growth.

Some have questioned whether Canada’s immigration policy is at odds with its efforts to address the housing crisis. Paul Kershaw of UBC has pointed out that newcomers, through no fault of their own, will amplify demand for housing and drive up home prices. CIBC CEO Victor Dodig recently expressed concern that increasing immigration levels without first increasing housing supply risks triggering Canada’s “largest social crisis” over the next decade.

Others argue that it is too simplistic, even xenophobic, to ask whether high levels of international migration could be intensifying our housing crisis. They argue that the blame for the housing crisis lies with government, which has failed for decades to build sufficient housing to accommodate predictable population growth, and that individual migrants are no more responsible for our housing crisis than they are responsible for overcrowding on public transit.

While this argument has superficial appeal, it suffers from three fallacies.

First, it conflates immigrants — individuals who, by definition, have just moved to Canada, and therefore can’t possibly be responsible for our long-standing housing crisis (indeed, they’re probably victims of it) — with immigration policy, which is set by government and is a proper subject of political debate. Individual immigrants are clearly blameless, but it is legitimate to ask whether our government could be exacerbating the housing crisis through its immigration policy.

Second, it confuses the ultimate cause of our housing crisis with its proximate causes. A multi-decade failure by government to build enough housing for our growing population may be the ultimate cause of the crisis. But that doesn’t mean that high levels of international migration to Canada in 2022 were not a proximate cause of the market conditions that tenants experienced last year, including low vacancy rates and an 18 per cent annual increase in average rent for a vacant unit.

Third, it implies that by asking whether our immigration policy is intensifying the housing crisis, we are effectively blaming immigrant families for the crisis. This is an in terrorem argument that uses fear — fear of making immigrants feel unwelcome, or fear of being labelled xenophobic — to discourage us from honestly examining the effects of our immigration policy and openly debating whether the benefits are worth the costs.

Canada’s population grew by over a million people last year, in the midst of a housing crisis that sees more than 235,000 Canadians experience homelessness annually. It is reasonable to ask whether maintaining such high levels of international migration will lead to mass evictions, displacement, and homelessness for tenants; and, if so, how many tenants we are willing to sacrifice to achieve the benefits of population growth. 

Refusing to ask and answer these questions does a disservice to ourselves and to the migrants who will someday call Canada home.

Source: It’s OK to ask whether immigration is intensifying our housing crisis

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These refugees are coming to Canada as health-care workers. Trouble is, they’ve been waiting for years

2023/04/27 Leave a comment

Innovative initiative with implementation issues:

For nine years, Patricia Kamssor has been working in a clinic in a refugee camp in Kenya doing everything from cleaning and dressing wounds to giving injections, treating infections caused by eating infected goats and cows, and helping one child who had a piece of corn stuck in their nose.

Established in 1992, Kakuma is one of the world’s largest refugee camps, home to 260,570 people who have fled violence in nearby African countries. It is hot, dusty and congested, with rows and rows of what is meant to be temporary housing made from clay and thin sheets of metal in Kenya’s northwestern corner.

It’s also Kamssor’s home. She’s a refugee herself, and she’s been invited to come to Canada to work in a nursing home on Nova Scotia’s south shore.

Source: These refugees are coming to Canada as health-care workers. Trouble is, they’ve been waiting for years

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Claudia Hepburn: What newcomers say about Canadian immigration and how to improve it

2023/04/27 Leave a comment

More anecdotal and general than specific with some exceptions:

When Dr. Binal Patel immigrated, she got a job assembling sandwiches in a fast-food restaurant to provide for her baby daughter. A dentist trained in India, Dr. Patel wondered how she was ever going to afford the fees for the Canadian dental exams and, if she did not, how she would ever regain her self-respect and provide adequately for her children in Canada.

Canada’s immigration numbers are rising year after year. During the 2021 census nearly one-in-four people identified as immigrants, the largest proportion of Canadian immigrants ever, and highest among G7 countries. A considerable portion of them, like Dr. Patel, are well-educated and highly skilled when they arrive.

According to a recent Bloomberg-Nanos poll, most Canadians agree, immigration is good for the Canadian economy. Many also acknowledge that, more than ever before, we need the talents and skills immigrants bring, especially in sectors like health care and IT.

There is less consensus on how well our immigration system is working or what needs to be done to improve it so that immigrants, like Dr. Patel, can integrate efficiently.

In the process of developing a new podcast, we asked 20 experts for their views on Canadian immigration, and for their ideas and initiatives to empower newcomers to integrate faster. Podcast contributors ranged from Canada’s minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to business leaders concerned with productivity and labour supply, to immigrant sector CEOs working daily to support newcomer integration, and social entrepreneurs working to fix what they sometimes described as a broken system. We also captured the insights of skilled newcomers, including Dr. Patel.

We heard creative perspectives on how to strengthen immigration to make it more equitable for newcomers.

Arif Khimani, COO of Calgary-based IT staffing firm MobSquad, talked about his company’s approach. MobSquad identifies international tech professionals with the skills to match the needs of North America businesses. The company takes care of the immigration paperwork and finds the immigrants lucrative roles so that they hit the ground running on arrival in Canada. Employers, immigrants and the economy all benefit.

Shamira Madhany, deputy executive director and managing director for Canada of World Education Services (WES) reminded us that the speed of integration possible for IT talent needs to happen for health care professionals, too. Government, regulators and employers need to do a better job of ensuring that when internationally trained doctors, nurses and pharmacists choose Canada, we put them in a position to contribute their skills to our health care system as quickly as possible.

The perspectives shared with us were often inspiring but also, at times, dispiriting.

Dr. Nnamdi Ndubuka, a public health physician and professor from Saskatchewan, originally from Nigeria, shared his belief that Canada remains an incredible land of opportunity for newcomers. Meanwhile, immigration advocate and Immigrant Networks founder Nick Noorani, who arrived to Canada from India in 1998, lamented the notion that in Toronto, “the best place to have a heart attack” was the back of an Uber, because of the number of internationally-trained doctors driving them.

What resonated most for me from these conversations was the importance of creativity and cross-sector collaboration to address integration challenges for immigrants. Jennifer Freeman, CEO of Vancouver-based PeaceGeeks told us that newcomers should be given easy access to the information and resources they need to thrive, virtually, wherever they are in Canada. She highlighted that each immigrant comes to this country with a smartphone and there’s no reason, in 2023, their settlement experience can’t be streamlined and simplified through the use of technology. As more countries around the globe experience population aging and skills shortages, the imperative to innovate is growing.

If Canada is serious about welcoming more immigrants and refugees each year, the status quo is not acceptable.

The next Dr. Ndbuka and Dr. Patel may decide the costs — in time and money — of integrating professionally in Canada are too high and choose one of the other countries working to fast-track the integration process for skilled professionals. Solving the challenges to integration our immigrants face will be key to our national prosperity, our health care system and Canada’s future.

Claudia Hepburn is CEO of Windmill Microlending, a national charity that empowers skilled immigrants and refugees to achieve economic prosperity through affordable loans and supports.

Source: Claudia Hepburn: What newcomers say about Canadian immigration and how to improve it

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Canada to support Sudanese residents with new immigration measures

2023/04/26 Leave a comment

Appears to be fairly standard basket of measures:

Canada will introduce new immigration measures to support Sudanese temporary residents who are currently in Canada and may be unable to return home due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Sudan, the government said on Monday.

Fighting erupted between Sudan’s armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group on April 15 and has killed hundreds of people, knocked out hospitals and other services and turned residential areas into war zones.

Once Canada’s new measures announced by Canadian Immigration Minister Sean Fraser are in place, Sudanese nationals can apply to extend their status in Canada and move between temporary streams, allowing them to continue studying, working or visiting family free of charge, the Canadian government said in a statement.

To facilitate immigration applications for those still in Sudan so they can travel once it is safe to do so, the Canadian government said it will also prioritize processing completed temporary and permanent residence applications already in the system from people still in the country.

This includes visitor visa applications for eligible immediate family members of Canadian citizens and Canadian permanent residents, it added.

Canada said it will also waive passport and permanent resident travel document fees for citizens and permanent residents of Canada in Sudan who wish to leave.

The U.S. said on Monday that the warring factions in Sudan agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire while Western, Arab and Asian nations raced to extract their citizens.

Canada said on Sunday that it had temporarily suspended operations in Sudan and Canadian diplomats will temporarily work from a safe location outside the country.

Source: Canada to support Sudanese residents with new immigration …

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