#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 24 November Update

2021/11/25 Leave a comment

The latest charts, compiled 24 November. Canadians fully vaccinated 76.9 percent, compared to Japan 76.6 percent, UK 69.1 percent and USA 59.7 percent.

Vaccinations: Minor shifts: UK ahead of Atlantic Canada, Italy ahead of Japan, Prairies ahead of New York. China fully vaccinated 77 percent, India 30.1 percent, Philippines 40 percent.

Trendline Charts:

Infections: Recent trends of increased infections in Europe more apparent. Canadian provincial trends showing minimal change from last week, with some levelling off in West.

Deaths: G7 less Canada (driven mainly by USA) continue to increase, West still increasing but at relatively stable rate.

Vaccinations: Ongoing convergence among provinces and G7 less Canada and narrowing gap with immigration source countries given China, India and Philippines.

Weekly

Infections: No relative change.

Deaths: No relative change

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À quoi peut-on s’attendre au chemin Roxham? 

2021/11/24 Leave a comment

Quebec advocate perspective. Will be interesting to see how fast and how far numbers climb:

Entre 2017 et 2019, 95 % des personnes ayant présenté une demande d’asile à la frontière terrestre canadienne l’ont fait au Québec, et pratiquement toutes au chemin Roxham, où l’on ne trouve aucun poste frontalier officiel. Près de 18 mois après l’avoir interdit en raison de la pandémie, le gouvernement fédéral permet, depuis dimanche dernier, aux personnes qui traversent la frontière entre les postes frontaliers de déposer une demande d’asile. À quoi peut-on s’attendre à la suite de cette réouverture ?

Pour répondre à cette question, il faut retourner aux années prépandémie. La transformation du chemin Roxham en point névralgique de cette frontière n’est pas une coïncidence : elle découle de plusieurs décennies de politiques migratoires qui visent à empêcher l’arrivée spontanée de demandeurs d’asile. Répondant à une anxiété liée au fonctionnement du système fédéral d’asile dans les années 1990, ces politiques ont pris une tournure antiterroriste à la suite des attentats du 11 septembre 2001. Cette année-là, le Canada et les États-Unis se sont mis d’accord sur la Déclaration pour une frontière intelligente, dont fait partie l’Entente sur les tiers pays sûrs (ETPS). Mise en place en 2004, l’ETPS permet de renvoyer la majorité des demandeurs d’asile qui se présentent à la frontière canado-américaine vers les États-Unis.

Cette entente est à l’origine de ce que l’on a appelé la « crise migratoire » du chemin Roxham. En effet, parmi les exceptions qu’elle prévoit, l’ETPS ne s’applique pas aux personnes qui traversent la frontière à un endroit autre qu’un point d’entrée. En raison de sa situation géographique et à la faveur de la conjoncture politique, le chemin Roxham s’est imposé en tant que principal point d’entrée non officiel au Canada. Si les premières arrivées se sont déroulées de manière chaotique, les autorités ont par la suite mis en place certains dispositifs permettant d’accueillir ces personnes de façon ordonnée. Néanmoins, cet arrangement temporaire a permis aux autorités canadiennes d’exercer une surveillance sur les arrivées irrégulières, de garder un certain contrôle sur ces personnes et, ultimement, d’examiner leurs demandes de façon à respecter les droits des demandeurs d’asile ainsi que la législation canadienne.

Durant les premières semaines de la pandémie, le Canada a presque entièrement fermé sa frontière terrestre aux demandeurs d’asile. Alors que le gouvernement a par la suite rétabli les quelques exceptions à l’ETPS, les personnes se présentant entre les points d’entrée officiels ne pouvaient toujours pas déposer leur demande, étant renvoyées aux États-Unis dans l’attente du moment où les autorités leur permettraient de venir le faire. Bien que l’Agence des services frontaliers du Canada ait commencé à contacter ces personnes en août dernier, cette fermeture fait en sorte que de nouveaux chemins plus reculés sont maintenant empruntés. Du côté américain, des organismes d’aide aux réfugiés déplorent les conditions difficiles dans lesquelles se retrouvent les personnes qui attendent de pouvoir déposer leur demande.

La levée de cette exception annoncée dimanche aura des conséquences au chemin Roxham et ailleurs le long de la frontière terrestre. Il s’agit d’un bon moment pour considérer l’abrogation de l’ETPS et ainsi permettre aux demandeurs d’asile de se présenter directement aux postes frontaliers. Sinon, les images de 2017 risquent de revenir à la une de nos journaux : des familles entières qui se présentent de façon irrégulière au chemin Roxham, leurs valises à la main, puisque cela constitue leur unique option pour demander le statut de réfugié au Canada. Ou, pire encore, des demandeurs d’asile qui, comme ce fut le cas en 2017, périssent dans les régions rurales enneigées des Prairies à la recherche d’un passage entre deux postes frontaliers. Ce jeu du chat et de la souris entre les autorités et les demandeurs d’asile ne sert finalement personne.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/649125/demandeurs-d-asile-a-quoi-peut-on-s-attendre-au-chemin-roxham?utm_source=infolettre-2021-11-23&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

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Skilled immigrant women already faced obstacles finding employment. The pandemic made it worse

2021/11/24 Leave a comment

Of note. Law may be one of the harder regulated professions for internationally-trained professionals, both men and women:

Tolu Adeyemi had been working as a corporate and commercial lawyer in her hometown of Lagos, Nigeria for four years when she immigrated to Calgary in late 2019.

Her sister and brother already lived in Canada and she knew there would be a transition period to get her law qualifications recognized in Alberta. While waiting for her transcript to be sent from Nigeria and for the National Committee on Accreditation (NCA) to evaluate her qualifications, Ms. Adeyemi found work in sales at a beauty supply store to tide her over. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She was laid off in June 2020 and picked up work as a delivery driver with Amazon and SkipTheDishes.

At the beginning of 2021, Ms. Adeyemi caught COVID-19 and reached a low point.

“It sort of made me reevaluate,” she says. “My father was like, ‘This is not what you came to Canada to do, to work different survival jobs.’”

By this point, the NCA determined that Ms. Adeyemi would need to complete five examinations and a year of articling to qualify to become a lawyer in Alberta. She has written three of the five exams and plans to finish the last two by the end of 2021. Meanwhile, she has been applying to legal assistant jobs, over a hundred by her estimate, to no avail.

“People usually say it’s because I don’t have Canadian experience, or they would say something about [not] being the right fit,” Ms. Adeyemi says.

She also participated in a three-month career services program for foreign-trained professionals at the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association (CIWA) to learn digital skills, cross-cultural communication and career counselling, followed by a three-month practicum at an employment and business law firm in Calgary.

“We had IT professionals, HR professionals, accountants from different countries,” says Ms. Adeyemi of her fellow program participants. “Even if they had 10 years of experience, they had serious trouble breaking into the job market.”

‘Gendered effect’ of the pandemic

Despite halting immigration last year due to COVID-19, the Liberal government is on track to meet its goal of bringing in 401,000 new permanent residents in 2021. But skilled immigrant women continue to face increased barriers in finding employment, and the pandemic has only made it more difficult.

Luciara Nardon, a professor of international business at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business in Ottawa, published a paper in June 2021 showing how skilled immigrant women had their career trajectories delayed, interrupted or reversed during the pandemic. These roadblocks were due to layoffs, fewer job opportunities and increased domestic burden during lockdowns.

“The pandemic was particularly difficult for women in general because kids [were] at home,” Dr. Nardon says. “It’s a very gendered effect that way.”

Jenny Krabbe, manager of the employment services department at CIWA, has seen married immigrant women having to set aside their own goals to prioritize their spouse’s career, even prior to the pandemic.

“In many cases, the male [in the relationship] has the better education in the country they came from and the reason they could get into Canada under our point system was that he qualified,” Ms. Krabbe says. “She may be a professional in her own right, but now she has to figure out her way forward.”

Confidence is another factor that Ms. Krabbe says hinders skilled immigrant women in their career progression in Canada. Training in career services programs, like the one that Ms. Adeyemi participated in at CIWA, can help build that confidence, she says.

Networking helps build confidence too, and is what leads most skilled immigrant women to find meaningful work in their fields, notes Dr. Nardon. But the pandemic has limited these opportunities.

“If you already know somebody, you can meet on Zoom instead of meeting in person,” she says. “But if you don’t know them, that becomes very difficult.”

A necessary culture change

Support programs like those at CIWA provide a great opportunity for immigrant women to network, says Dr. Nardon, but she hopes to see more government initiatives to support the employment journeys of skilled immigrant women. In particular, she highlights the need for programs with longer, more flexible eligibility terms.

“Sometimes women take a longer time to integrate because the men’s career will have priority and the women stay home taking care of the kids,” she says. “By the time the woman is ready to enter the workforce, then services are no longer available because they lost eligibility.” Childcare support can also help relieve some of the domestic burdens that immigrant women face, allowing them to spend more time building their careers.

But the onus isn’t solely on the government. Dr. Nardon also calls for a “culture change” in societal attitudes towards immigrant women, especially from employers and hiring managers.

“There may be assumptions that [immigrant women] didn’t get the right experience or the right training, so they are not as capable as somebody else,” she says. As employers head into the “great resignation,” (Statistics Canada reported 731,900 job vacancies in the second quarter of 2021, which is nearly 26 per cent more vacancies than in the same quarter two years earlier), Dr. Nardon encourages companies to consider how skilled immigrant women can benefit their businesses, as opposed to searching for candidates to fulfil a particular set of needs.

“Look at the talent that immigrants bring and have a more open mind instead of trying to fit them into boxes,” she says. “Some employers are thinking of different ways of recruiting. They’re not picking specific characteristics, but instead they’re saying, ‘We need talent.’ They’re creating jobs around the talent that is available.”

Dr. Nardon adds that all Canadians can play a part by making connections among skilled immigrants in their communities or industries.

“Professionals can give time for mentoring, for sharing knowledge and sharing networks,” Ms. Nardon explains. “This is not one person’s job. The whole society has to work together.”

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-skilled-immigrant-women-already-faced-obstacles-finding-employment-the/

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Quebec: Les francophones discriminés [international students]

2021/11/24 Leave a comment

More commentary.

Checked Quebec numbers: CEGEP international student enrolment up more than 5 times (de 2 899 en 2009-2010 à 16 505 en 2019-2020) compared to university enrolment that only doubled during the same period (de 24 504 en 2009-2010 à 48 406 en 2019-2020). http://www.education.gouv.qc.ca/colleges/enseignants-et-personnel-de-college/references/enseignement-superieur/portrait-statistique-des-etudiants-internationaux-a-lenseignement-superieur/

But the relative shift from French to English CEGEPs is notable, irrespective of any discrimination issues:

Le Québec bataille pour sa place d’État francophone fier depuis des lustres au sein d’un Canada qui n’en a généralement que faire, soupirant d’ennui entre deux réformettes de façade. À divers niveaux, tous les gouvernements du Québec se sont préoccupés des combats à livrer pour résister aux assauts bien vigoureux de l’anglais, entre autres dans le champ de l’éducation. Le gouvernement de François Legaultveut d’ailleurs donner plus de mordant à la loi 101, car la fronde anglophone n’a jamais été aussi vive.

Pendant que sur le front politique le discours est à la défense du fait français, le terrain regorge d’incohérences qui ne commandent que de l’indignation. Comment en effet concilier ces deux données ? L’explosion spectaculaire du nombre d’étudiants internationaux dans les collèges du Québec — en hausse de 369 % en dix ans — a surtout profité aux établissements d’enseignement de langue anglaise. Mais en moins de deux ans, Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC) a refusé 35 642 candidats originaires des principaux pays francophones du Maghreb et de l’Afrique de l’Ouest qui voulaient venir étudier au Québec.

Une première analyse brute des données dévoilées la semaine dernière par la journaliste du DevoirSarah R. Champagne donne à penser que le « système », dans son gigantisme et son indolence bureaucratique, effectue de la discrimination à l’entrée. Ouvrir les vannes à des étudiants anglophones venus de l’Inde et les accueillir à pleines portes dans des établissements privés non subventionnés de Montréal ? Que oui ! Mais accepter des candidats inscrits à des études supérieures en provenance du Maghreb et de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, deux zones francophones ? Que nenni !

Les taux de refus pour ces deux bassins de locuteurs pourtant très francophones « frôlent les 100 % », dénoncent des avocats en immigration, qui ne s’expliquent pas le quasi-automatisme dans le rejet de candidatures pourtant bien défendues — dossier financier très solide, entre autres critères observés par les ministères de l’Immigration. Un nouveau système de tri automatique des candidatures en vigueur depuis 2018 serait-il en partie la cause de ces refus en bloc ? Personne ne peut le certifier, mais cela pourrait par exemple expliquer que, sur la base de revenus moyens par habitant très peu élevés dans certains pays d’Afrique, des dossiers de grande qualité présentés par des individus soient écartés avant même d’être analysés. Cette question mérite d’être creusée.

Plus on cherche à comprendre cette grande absurdité, plus on s’enfonce dans les contradictions. Celle-ci par exemple : un couple congolais au dossier financier plus que bien ficelé a reçu sa réponse de refus en l’espace d’une semaine en provenance des autorités canadiennes — déjà de quoi faire sourciller quand on sait que la question des délais interminables dans le traitement des dossiers d’immigration constitue le principal problème dénoncé par Québec. L’argument qu’on leur a donné ? L’agent d’immigration n’a pas été convaincu qu’ils quitteraient le Canada après leurs études. Quitteraient, oui. Pourtant, les politiques officielles et l’énergie déployée tant par le gouvernement du Québec que par celui du Canada vont dans le sens complètement contraire : celui de travailler au maintien des étudiants étrangers en sol québécois après la fin de leurs études. Que comprendre de ce cirque ?

Pour les mêmes pays d’origine, le Québec voit ses taux de refus plus élevés qu’ailleurs au Canada, ce qui s’expliquerait en partie par une méconnaissance des agents d’immigration du système collégial québécois, certains dossiers étant refusés sur la base d’une mauvaise liaison entre la demande d’étude et le cheminement scolaire du candidat. C’est à n’y rien comprendre : les cégeps existent depuis 1967 au Québec.

Le Québec, qui perd ici pied et contrôle sur une immigration potentielle de qualité en son propre sein, aurait raison de vociférer et de revendiquer la pleine maîtrise sur les flux d’entrée en ses frontières. Mais il devra aussi pratiquer un sérieux auto-examen. S’il n’a rien à voir avec le refus de candidatures francophones en provenance de pays du Maghreb et de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, c’est quand même dans sa propre cour que s’est jouée l’augmentation faramineuse d’étudiants étrangers anglophones — parfois même inscrits dans des cégeps francophones.

Dans une étude publiée par l’Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine, Éric N. Duhaime brosse un portrait statistique sans équivoque : alors que le recrutement d’étudiants étrangers au collégial s’était toujours historiquement tourné vers des bassins francophones, la tendance s’est inversée depuis 2017 environ. En 2019, « plus de la moitié des étudiants internationaux du réseau collégial provenaient de l’Inde (7687), dépassant les effectifs de la France (4072) ». Marché lucratif, détournement de mission pour le réseau de l’éducation et… impact significatif sur la langue d’usage dans les rues de Montréal, qu’on le veuille ou non.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/editoriaux/649134/etudiants-etrangers-les-francophones-discrimines?utm_source=infolettre-2021-11-23&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

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Chilean Election Unlikely to Halt New Barriers to Immigration

2021/11/22 Leave a comment

Of note, given the surge from Haiti and Venezuela:

Chile’s last presidential election in 2017 appeared to be an endorsement for more of the same with the Presidency alternating between former centre-left coalition leader, Michelle Bachelet, and right-wing incumbent Sebastian Piñera for the second time since 2006. But with only 46% of Chileans voting in the first round, there was a clear disinterest in the political process which has since transformed into discontent.

In October 2019 public anger reached its pinnacle when mass protests broke out in Santiago, sparked by increases to public transport costs, and spread countrywide in a challenge to Chile’s long-standing inequality. After 29 deaths and an estimated U$D 3.5 billion worth of damage to infrastructure, reforms were made, and a fresh focus was placed on replacing the 1980 constitution introduced under Pinochet’s military dictatorship.

Even against the backdrop of heightened anti-government protests and the Covid-19 pandemic, immigration has remained a key issue in the run up to the election.

Migration in Chile

Historically Chile’s migrant population has been more European and smaller than that of its South American neighbours. However, numbers of people entering Chile from elsewhere in Latin America have grown swiftly in the last decade, tripling in the last three years to 1.5 million, with arrivals stemming from humanitarian crises in Haiti (ca. 180,000) and Venezuela (ca 460,000).

Whilst under Bachelet (2014-2018), the now UN Human Rights Commissioner, immigration laws required no visa and only a formal employment contract to obtain temporary residency, under Piñera restrictions have tightened markedly.

In 2018 Piñera introduced the Humanitarian Returns policy whereby migrants could be returned free of charge to their country of origin on the proviso that they would not return for another nine years. 1,800 people were deported in 2020 with some deportation flights staged for media consumption.

New Law

A new Migration Law will also come into effect in mid-2022 requiring migrants to provide additional documentation to qualify for a one-year consular visa. These visas are often expensive, hard to acquire and in some cases expire after three months. They will also only be available to those who arrived in Chile before 18 March 2020, when the government closed the country’s land borders during the pandemic. The Law will make consular visas compulsory, prohibit adjustments from a tourist permit to temporary residence, and make it harder to move from temporary to permanent status once in the country. Furthermore, only those who have resided in Chile for at least 24 months will be able to receive state-funded social security.

Whilst limited, the government does have a programme that commits it to supporting work done by individual municipalities in the areas of migrant integration and intercultural exchange. At a national level, the Escuela Somos Todos, supports students into school regardless of their migration status. The Compromiso Migrante has also been created to incentivise private companies and unions to take a non-discriminatory and inclusive approach to hiring and management, by connecting awardees with support from agencies like the International Labour Office (ILO) and International Organisation for Migration (IOM). However, this initiative is somewhat undermined by employers needing to pay for employees and family members’ return travel once a contract has ended. This has resulted in migrants working informally, often on lower wages that undercut those of local people already struggling with the cost of living, stirring xenophobic sentiment in the process.

Polarising candidates

Jose Antonio Kast, a staunch defender of the Pinochet constitution, has capitalised on recent anti-migrant protests along Chile’s northern borders to become the presidential frontrunner. In the town of Iquique, thousands of locals gathered to protest against the presence of migrants after a year-old Venezuelan settler camp was cleared by police. Protests culminated with the burning of the settlers’ belongings on a bonfire. Kast has since proposed Chile’s withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council, digging ditches at the borders with its northern neighbours and the creation of a body within the investigative police force to “actively seek out [and deport] illegal migrants”.

By contrast, his 35-year-old opponent, the left-wing Frente Amplio party leader, Gabriel Boric, who up until recently led the polls, had spoken of no expulsions, and access to visas and housing for migrants. However, following Kast’s rise he has rowed back on commitments to provide access to housing noting an over 500,000 shortfall in national housing provision, and has highlighted the need to work on a regional basis to establish a quota system to share the burden. Chile is the third biggest recipient of the over 5 million person exodus from Venezuela, after Colombia and Peru.

 So what next?

With the government having given the army a border enforcement role, in the short-term they have maintained that they will continue with “evictions of all public spaces” as well as “the expulsion plan” of undocumented migrants.

No matter who wins the election, the stringent provisions under the new Migration Law will likely contribute to an increase in the number of migrants living in irregular status.

Boric remains the favourite to win in the event of a second round of voting, but in the face of growing anti-migrant sentiment he appears to be ceding ground on his open border policy.

Even if he does maintain his commitment, the process of making Chile both ready and welcoming to immigrants (with an average of 200 arriving a day) will not be straightforward. The Piñera administration struggled to govern without a majority in both houses and the polarised nature of Chilean politics means that Boric would likely struggle to implement his liberal agenda without one.

In the last year there has been an 80% increase in Haitian migrants leaving the country, such has been the cold welcome many have received. Whilst an inclusive new constitution may be approved next year it will be the policies and investment that follow that determine whether Chile can make full use of the potential of immigrants and work with regional partners to reach a sustainable solution.

If Kast wins, in spite of the same governability challenges, it seems likely he would seek to build on the ew law–and in so doing–deprioritising regional collaboration, minimising integration support and introducing physical borders, forcing migrants into more difficult journeys in the process. Since January 2021, at least six immigrants have died after crossing the Andes and entering the Atacama Desert.

The new Migration Law requires the government to revise its national immigration policy at least every four years. This could lead to politically motivated changes creating instability for current and future immigrants, as well as for Chilean society as a whole.

Source: Chilean Election Unlikely to Halt New Barriers to Immigration

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Soaring backlogs, disgruntled applicants — Canada’s immigration system has been upended by COVID-19. This is the man in charge of fixing it

2021/11/20 Leave a comment

Some initial messaging from the new minister of immigration. No major change from his predecessor, as expected:

Sean Fraser says he knew what he was getting into when he was tapped to be Canada’s next immigration minister.

“Things are at such a strained point as a result of COVID-19 that I see an opportunity to make an extraordinary difference coming from this particular starting point,” the Nova Scotia MP says.

“There are no shortage of challenges ahead of me.”

Few other federal services have seen so much disruption as the immigration system during the pandemic, with the operation grinding to a halt and staff working remotely with antiquated infrastructure and travel restricted for newcomers abroad due to border closures.

It’s laid bare the many existing problems with immigration operations, from out-of-date technologies that still relied on paper applications and processing, to administrative red tape built up over the years and a lack of resources to meet the insatiable demand for immigration to this country.

In his first major media interview since inheriting the job on Oct. 26. from Marco Mendicino, now the public safety minister, Fraser, a rising star within the Trudeau government, highlighted some of the priorities that call for his immediate attention.

As countries worldwide are all trying to reopen their economies at the same time and competing for the same pool of workers, he said Canada must stay competitive in the global search of talent.

Streamlining the system and digitalizing the application process will be crucial to boosting the processing capacity of the immigration system and improving user experience, he added.

“We have to make a decision of whether we’re going to increase the overall levels to accommodate the intense demand that we’re seeing from people who want to come to Canada,” Fraser said.

“If there’s going to be 400,000 people that are able to come to Canada in a given year and we have 700,000 applicants, it doesn’t take a PhD in mathematics to understand that that’s going to lead to a further buildup of the backlog. So we do have to take strategic decisions about how many people our communities can accommodate successfully.”

As of July 31, according to the immigration department, more than 561,700 people were in the queue for permanent residence and 748,381 had a pending temporary residence application as students, workers or visitors while the backlog for citizenship stood at 376,458 people.

Fraser says he doesn’t have a target timeline for how long it will take to eliminate the backlog, but there are numerous initiatives already in place toward that goal — and other changes will also be made.

“I don’t want to communicate to you today that in a short period of time, all of these problems will be fixed. They weren’t made overnight and they won’t be fixed overnight,” he said.

“I want to accelerate the work that’s going to help clear some of these backlogs. It’s going to make the process less painful for families that are trying to pursue a new life or reunite with their loved ones or find a job to contribute to our economy.”

Fraser said the digitalization of citizenship applications has already taken place and in the months ahead, there will be “serious reforms” on applications for spousal reunification.

There could also be legislative changes in order to remove what Fraser calls the system’s “choke points” as new policies are being developed.

For example, he said it just doesn’t make sense to deny entry of a foreign national with a pending family reunification application to be with their spouse or children in Canada because of their intent to stay in the country permanently. The provision in the law has set many families apart while their applications are in process, sometimes for years.

“It’s easy to get bogged down in a conversation about the number of cases and the inventory. But in my role, you will not succeed if you don’t realize that every one of these cases or numbers in the inventory represents a human being,” Fraser said.

“This will take longer than most people would like, longer than I would like. But if you want to change a system as large as Canada’s immigration regime, to do it right and to succeed, you have to put the time in.”

Born in Antigonish and raised in Merigomish, a small community in Nova’s Scotia’s Pictou County, Fraser is one of the rare immigration ministers from rural Canada.

Like many young people from small remote communities, he — and his five sisters — had to leave for larger urban centres for education and job opportunities. With an undergraduate degree in science from St. Francis Xavier University, the 37-year-old went on to study law at Dalhousie University and at Leiden University in the Netherlands before working at a large law firm in Calgary.

Many communities have struggled with an aging population and out-migration of young people, and immigration is a crucial part of the solution, he said.

“When you have more people around the world coming up, coming into your community, opening businesses, opening restaurants, creating a more dynamic place to live, you see more Canadians flocking to those communities to have that kind of dynamic culture and life experience as well,” said Fraser.

Fraser said the bulk of most of his days since his appointment as the immigration minister has evolved around the Afghan refugee resettlement. The Liberal government has made a commitment to bring in 40,000 Afghan newcomers and so far only 3,500 have made it to Canada.

“Canadians are right to be frustrated about what’s going on in Afghanistan,” he said. “The reality on the ground right now is that we don’t have access the way we did in Syria, and that’s the equation that a lot of Canadians I think are trying to make.”

The government’s strategy is to work with partners in Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States — all struggling to resettle the Afghan refugees — to bring the Afghans to a permanent home. “Our commitment does not waver,” he said.

Although he was honoured by Maclean’s magazine as the “Best Orator” and a finalist for “Rising Star” in the last government, Fraser said he’s just a guy who cares deeply about people.

“I very much want to ensure that Canada treats people with a sense of dignity, respect and fairness.”

Source: Soaring backlogs, disgruntled applicants — Canada’s immigration system has been upended by COVID-19. This is the man in charge of fixing it

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Ottawa refuse de plus en plus de francophones, surtout venus d’Afrique

2021/11/20 Leave a comment

Similar perceptions and data as seen elsewhere in Canada.

While the disparities in rejection rates raise legitimate questions, disparities themselves do not necessarily mean non-objectivity or bias, just the need to take a closer look to assess or re-assess criteria:

Alors que le nombre d’étudiants étrangers anglophones augmente au Québec, les taux de refus pour des pays africains ne cessent de grimper, et certains dossiers « impeccables » sont refusés. Des candidats répondant pourtant aux critères sont ainsi empêchés de poursuivre leurs études ici, déplorent-ils.

Leurs avocats en immigration dénoncent ces taux « qui frôlent le 100 % » pour certains pays du Maghreb et de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, deux bassins de locuteurs du français. « Il arrive fréquemment qu’un candidat aux études démontre une capacité financière de 100 000 $ pour la durée de son programme, qu’il a son acceptation de l’université, mais il est quand même refusé », note l’avocate québécoise Krishna Gagné.

Le taux de refus global est aussi beaucoup plus élevé au Québec que dans le reste du pays, selon les données fournies au Devoir par Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC). La différence est attribuable entre autres aux principaux bassins de recrutement pour la province, par rapport au reste du Canada.

En moins de deux ans, entre janvier 2020 et septembre 2021, Ottawa a ainsi refusé 35 642 candidats des principaux pays francophones du Maghreb et de l’Afrique de l’Ouest qui voulaient venir au Québec. Pendant ce temps, le nombre d’étudiants en provenance de l’Inde — qui se destinent majoritairement à des cours en anglais — a atteint des sommets, notamment dans le réseau collégial québécois.

Parmi les témoignages recueillis, figure celui du couple Dorothée et Mboungou, originaire de République du Congo. Ils racontent avoir présenté des preuves de leur argent disponible dans des comptes en euros et en monnaie locale. Appartements en location qu’ils possèdent, maison, voiture, entreprise, parcelles de terre ; ils ont également fait évaluer tous leurs biens, en plus de devoir voyager trois fois dans le pays voisin pour faire prendre leurs empreintes digitales par un centre autorisé par le Canada.

« Nous ne sommes pas des nécessiteux au Congo, il ne faut pas croire que tous les Africains sont d’une pauvreté extrême », résume la mère de famille qui travaille pour la multinationale Total depuis 14 ans. Ils ont demandé d’utiliser uniquement leur prénom, de crainte de nuire à une future demande de permis d’études.

« À partir du moment où on a déposé tous les papiers, il s’est passé à peine une semaine avant le refus, comme si la réponse était déjà toute faite », note Dorothée. « Est-ce que c’est une discrimination ? On s’attendait à une étude objective de notre dossier », ajoute-t-elle.

Des raisons contradictoires

Leur dossier était pourtant « impeccable », insiste leur avocate québécoise, Krishna Gagné, mais Ottawa les a refusés. Le principal motif invoqué ? L’agent d’immigration n’était pas convaincu qu’ils quitteraient le Canada à la fin de la période d’études, comme le veut le règlement sur l’immigration.

Ce motif semble « entièrement contradictoire » pour Me Gagné. En effet, les politiques d’immigration tant provinciales que fédérales encouragent de plus en plus les étudiants étrangers à rechercher un statut permanent après l’obtention de leur diplôme.

Ottawa a ouvert cette année de nouvelles voies d’accès à la résidence permanente pour les étudiants étrangers diplômés d’une institution d’enseignement canadienne, soit 40 000 places attitrées. Lors de l’annonce en avril, le ministre de l’Immigration d’alors, Marco Mendicino, disait vouloir permettre « à ceux qui ont un statut temporaire de planifier leur avenir au Canada ». « Nous voulons que vous restiez », avait-il déclaré.

Québec est aussi très actif en matière d’opération de séduction à l’étranger. Seulement en 2021, le gouvernement a conclu des ententes de près de six millions de dollars avec diverses organisations pour « l’attraction et la rétention » d’étudiants étrangers.

« Il existe nombre d’incitatifs pour que les gens restent après leurs études, donc cette raison [évoquée par les agents d’IRCC] contrevient au discours politique et à ces efforts. On dénonce cet aspect », souligne aussi Francis Brown, directeur des affaires internationales de la Fédération des cégeps.

Le couple congolais n’avait pour sa part pas l’intention de rester. Le père de famille espérait qu’un diplôme canadien donne un élan international à sa carrière et à son entreprise : « Il voulait tout simplement sortir un peu du cadre national, même si sa boîte fonctionne très bien », a confié au Devoir son épouse.

« Seulement avec l’argent qu’on a dépensé pour les démarches, on aurait pu payer toute une scolarité en France », soupire la femme. Mboungou a d’ailleurs déjà décroché une maîtrise en France en 2020 à l’Université Lumière Lyon avec des démarches de permis d’études « beaucoup plus simples ».

Le Québec pénalisé ?

« On ne fait pas le poids face à d’autres systèmes d’immigration », fait valoir M. Brown. Il rappelle notamment que les récents délais de traitement des permis d’études se sont encore allongés cette année, ce qui a été déploré par le gouvernement de François Legault dans une lettre transmise au fédéral.

Le Québec est pénalisé par rapport au reste du Canada en raison de ses bassins de recrutement francophones en Afrique. L’Algérie, le Sénégal et le Cameroun figurent par exemple parmi les six premiers pays d’origine des étudiants étrangers au Québec et ont connu des taux de refus de plus de 80 % en 2020 et en 2021. Le Maroc figure au 4e rang en importance sur le plan du nombre d’étudiants, mais son taux de refus est moins élevé en moyenne que ceux des autres pays africains.

D’autres ressortissants à destination du Québec se font rejeter par Ottawa à hauteur de 80 à 90 %, comme ceux de la Guinée, du Bénin, du Togo et de la République démocratique du Congo.

Dans les autres provinces, l’Inde représente une grande partie du bassin d’étudiants étrangers, mais son taux de refus est beaucoup moins élevé que pour ces pays africains francophones. Il n’a été que de 30 % pour les neuf premiers mois de 2021, soit nettement sous celui des pays d’origine pour le Québec.

Qui plus est, le taux de refus des candidats d’un même pays d’origine est parfois plus élevé au Québec que dans le reste du Canada. En 2020, les demandes de la Côte d’Ivoire ont par exemple été refusées à 75 % au Québec et à 68 % dans le reste du Canada.

Ce fossé s’explique en partie par une « méconnaissance de la place du réseau collégial dans le système d’enseignement supérieur » par IRCC, selon la Fédération des cégeps. Plusieurs étudiants se font ainsi refuser un permis d’études dans un cégep « parce que l’agent considère que la demande ne concorde pas avec le parcours, sur la base du cheminement scolaire », dit Francis Brown.

Une personne avec l’équivalent d’un baccalauréat universitaire par exemple serait considérée comme trop « avancée » par un agent d’immigration pour faire une technique dans un cégep. Les étudiants africains s’inscrivent pourtant dans des programmes « avec un taux de placement très élevé », insiste Nathalie Houde, conseillère en recrutement à l’international pour le Cégep de Jonquière. C’est le cas dans des filières industrielles, par exemple, où les demandes d’admission de la part des Québécois sont en baisse, mais qui connaissent pourtant de graves pénuries de main-d’œuvre.

En août dernier, cinq étudiants acceptés par ce cégep avec des bourses d’excellence se sont vu refuser l’accès au Canada, relate-t-elle. « C’était une situation absurde et excessivement difficile », poursuit-elle. La bourse, octroyée par Québec, couvrait les frais de scolarité plus élevés pour les étrangers ainsi que des frais de subsistance. Quatre d’entre eux ont finalement pu arriver à temps pour la session d’automne.

Le taux de refus a en outre augmenté depuis 2017, ce qui indique que la situation empire au lieu de s’améliorer, note Me Krishna Gagné et d’autres membres de l’Association québécoise des avocats et avocates en droit de l’immigration (AQAADI). Le fossé entre les refus au Québec et au Canada s’est aussi accru globalement, selon les données d’IRCC.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/education/648552/etudiants-etrangers-ottawa-refuse-de-plus-en-plus-de-francophones-surtout-venus-d-afrique?utm_source=infolettre-2021-11-19&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

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September immigration impact of #COVID19

2021/11/20 Leave a comment

Latest monthly update:

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Canada has a backlog of nearly 1.8 million immigration applications

2021/11/19 Leave a comment

Striking. One of the disadvantages of IRCC’s shift to monthly stats was the elimination of regular reports on backlogs, and in the case of citizenship, application data. So having this information fills a needed gap in understanding IRCC’s operational challenges.

For citizenship, highest previous backlog was 323,000 in 2012, impact of Discover Canada study guide and related knowledge test, along with cutbacks in citizenship processing capacity in a government-wide program review exercise:

IRCC’s backlog stands at almost 1.8 million immigration applications.

CIC News has received data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) showing the following number of applications in IRCC’s inventory as of October 27, 2021 (figures are rounded):

  • 548,000 permanent residence applications (economic, family, refugee, and humanitarian class applicants)
  • 776,000 temporary residence applications (applications for study permits, work permits, temporary resident visas, and visitor extensions)
  • 468,000 Canadian citizenship applications (as of October 26)
  • 1,792,000 total applications in inventory

IRCC’s figures indicate their backlog has grown by nearly 350,000 applications since July.

In August, a report by Nicholas Keung of the Toronto Star showed that the backlog as of July 6, 2021 stood at about:

  • 375,000 permanent residence applications 
  • 703,000 temporary residence applications 
  • 370,000 Canadian citizenship applications. The Star reported that this figure did not include Canadian citizenship applications sitting in IRCC’s mailrooms that have yet to be processed.
  • 1,448,000 total applications in inventory

In an email to CIC News, an IRCC spokesperson explained “Ongoing international travel restrictions, border restrictions, limited operational capacity overseas and the inability on the part of clients to obtain documentation due to the effects of COVID-19 have created barriers within the processing continuum. This hinders IRCC’s ability to finalize applications, creating delays that are outside IRCC’s control.”

At the same time, the spokesperson acknowledged the challenges that applicants are facing, noting “Despite our efforts, we know that some applicants have experienced considerable wait times with the processing of their applications, and we continue to work as hard as possible to reduce processing times. We thank them for their patience and understanding at this moment, and we look forward to welcoming them to Canada.”

IRCC also shared data on the number of applications it has processed during the pandemic:

  • 337,000 permanent residence applications processed between January and September 2021. It processed some 214,000 applications in 2020.
  • 1,500,000 temporary residence applications processed between January and September 2021. This compares to nearly 1,700,000 applications in 2020.
  • 134,000 Canadian citizenship applications processed between January and September 2021. This compares to about 80,000 applications processed in 2020.

Source: https://www.cicnews.com/2021/11/canada-has-a-backlog-of-nearly-1-8-million-immigration-applications-1119651.html#gs.gbfl8c

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Japan looking to allow more foreigners to stay indefinitely in a major immigration policy shift

2021/11/19 Leave a comment

Of note:

In a major shift for a country long closed to immigrants, Japan is looking to allow foreigners in certain blue-collar jobs to stay indefinitely starting as early as the 2022 fiscal year, a justice ministry official said on Thursday.

Under a law that took effect in 2019, a category of “specified skilled workers” in 14 sectors such as farming, construction and sanitation have been allowed to stay for up to five years, but without their family members.

The government had been looking to ease those restrictions, which had been cited by companies as among reasons that they were hesitant to hire such help.

If the revision takes effect, such workers — many from Vietnam and China — would be allowed to renew their visas indefinitely and bring their families with them, as the other category of more skilled foreigners are allowed to do now.

Immigration has long been taboo in Japan as many prize ethnic homogeneity, but pressure has mounted to open up its borders due to an acute labor shortage given its dwindling and ageing population.

“As the shrinking population becomes a more serious problem and if Japan wants to be seen as a good option for overseas workers, it needs to communicate that it has the proper structure in place to welcome them,” Toshihiro Menju, managing director of think tank Japan Center for International Exchange, told Reuters.

The 2019 law was meant to attract some 345,000 “specified skilled workers” over five years, but the intake has hovered at around 3,000 per month before the Covid-19 pandemic sealed the borders, according to government data.

As of late 2020, Japan housed 1.72 million foreign workers, out of a total population of 125.8 million and just 2.5% of its working population.

Source: Japan looking to allow more foreigners to stay indefinitely in a major immigration policy shift

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