Total complete applications received since July 1, 2011

On July 1, 2011, the eligibility criteria for Federal Skilled Worker applicants changed.

Between July 1, 2011, and June 30, 2012, a maximum of 10,000 complete Federal Skilled Worker applications will be considered for processing. Within the 10,000 cap, a maximum of 500 Federal Skilled Worker applications per eligible occupation will be considered for processing within this same time frame.

Starting November 5, 2011, CIC will accept a total of 1,000 applications from international students who have completed at least two years of study towards a PhD and or who graduated from a Canadian PhD program in the 12 months before the date their application is received byCIC. Find out more about eligibility for this category or see the number of applications received to date on this site.

These limits do not apply to applications with an offer of arranged employment (job offer).

Applications received toward the overall cap: 4,041 of 10,000 as of November 17, 2011

Applications received per eligible occupation:

Eligible Occupation (by National Occupational Classification [NOC] code)	Number of Complete Applications Received*
0631 – Restaurant and Food Service Managers	416
0811 – Primary Production Managers (Except Agriculture)	38
1122 – Professional Occupations in Business Services to Management	500 (Cap reached)**
1233 – Insurance Adjusters and Claims Examiners	95
2121 – Biologists and Related Scientists	280
2151 – Architects	152
3111 – Specialist Physicians	213
3112 – General Practitioners and Family Physicians	239
3113 – Dentists	275
3131 – Pharmacists	491
3142 – Physiotherapists	54
3152 – Registered Nurses	500 (Cap reached)**
3215 – Medical Radiation Technologists	22
3222 – Dental Hygienists and Dental Therapists	14
3233 – Licensed Practical Nurses	113
4151 – Psychologists	37
4152 – Social Workers	151
6241 – Chefs	36
6242 – Cooks	68
7215 – Contractors and Supervisors, Carpentry Trades	45
7216 – Contractors and Supervisors, Mechanic Trades	96
7241 – Electricians (Except Industrial and Power System)	50
7242 – Industrial Electricians	52
7251 – Plumbers	8
7265 – Welders and Related Machine Operators	20
7312 – Heavy-Duty Equipment Mechanics	22
7371 – Crane Operators	4
7372 – Drillers and Blasters – Surface Mining, Quarrying and Construction	4
8222 – Supervisors, Oil and Gas Drilling and Service	46

*The number of complete Federal Skilled Worker applications received as of November 17, 2011 is approximate.

**Once the cap has been reached, we can only accept applications for this occupation from people with an existing offer of arranged employment.

Note: Due to the high volume of applications we receive, the CIO cannot review each application for completeness on the same day it arrives at the office. The numbers on this page are updated at least once a week, but these figures are meant as a guide only. There is no guarantee that an application sent in now will fall within the cap by the time it reaches the CIO. We are looking into ways to minimize the effect of this on website updates.

Applications received from PhDapplicants:

Applications received toward the overall cap: 0 of 1,000as of November 17, 2011

Canada needs increased, not steady, immigration levels

By Robert Vineberg, Research Fellow     

On November 1, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney, tabled the 2011 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration. 

 In it, he announced that the target levels for immigration in 2012 will remain steady in a range of 240,000 to 265,000.

If a Canada with a much smaller population base could absorb 250,000 immigrants per year during the economic ups and downs of the 1990s, it is more than likely that the Canada of 2012 can easily welcome a significantly greater number of immigrants each year. The reality is that our labour market and our economy need more immigrants.

A government that purports to support immigration should stop talking about the obstacles to admitting the increasing number of immigrants that Canada needs and start talking about how to make the policy changes necessary to responsibly increase Canada’s annual immigration intake.

Since the early 1990s, immigration levels have remained remarkably steady in the 250,000 per year range. In 1993, Canada had a population of 28.7 million, so immigration of 250,000 amounted to 0.87% of Canada’s population. Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has continued to maintain immigration levels at about 250,000. Only in 2010, for a variety of reasons, did the number of immigrants exceed the target range and reach 280,000.

During this period, the most striking change in the composition of the immigrant categories has been the introduction and rapid growth of the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). As the 2011 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration states, “The Provincial Nominee Program provides participating provinces and territories with a mechanism to respond to their particular economic needs, by allowing them to nominate individuals who will meet specific local labour market demands.”

The program was introduced in 1998 and, by 2010, it accounted for over 36,000 immigrants. Most of these immigrants have been destined for areas outside of the three biggest cities, helping substantially to redress the regional imbalance of immigration within the country. For example, immigration to the three prairie provinces has grown from less than 20,000 to over 56,000 in this time, largely due to the PNP. However, because overall immigration levels have not increased, this growth has come at the expense of other immigration categories.

The growth of the PNP has forced the federal government to reduce its target for federally selected skilled workers and, while its agreements with the provinces allow the provinces to set their own levels for provincial nominees, Citizenship and Immigration Canada quietly informed the provinces that they would not process higher numbers of provincial nominees in future years.

The ostensible reason for this cap on the PNP is to ensure adequate room within the 2012 levels range of 240,000 to 265,000 for federally-selected immigrants and the family class consisting of sponsored relatives. Not surprisingly, many provinces have expressed dismay at this unilateral federal decision in contravention, in their view, of the agreements that the federal government signed with them.

This concern over “space” for federally selected immigrants is spurious. The problem lies in the fact that since 1993, the overall levels have remained the same. In 2011, with the same general immigration target as almost two decades ago and a Canadian population that has grown by almost 6 million to 34.5 million, annual immigration now only amounts to 0.72% of Canada’s population.

Ironically, the number of immigrants Canada is accepting as a proportion of its population is falling precisely when native-born population and labour force growth is stagnating.

It is time for the government and Parliament to consider increasing immigration levels.

Most provinces, and particularly the western provinces, want to grow their population and see increased immigration as a major way to do so. The way to expand the federal immigration streams is not to freeze growth in provincial programs, but to increase overall levels during the next several years. An increase in immigration levels by 50,000 to 300,000 per year would bring the ratio back to the 0.87% figure of two decades ago. An increase of 100,000 to 350,000 per year would see Canada finally achieve the one percent per year goal that all parties were advocating two decades ago.

Either scenario would provide lots of space for growth in provincial immigration programs as well as the admission of more federally-selected workers and sponsored parents and grandparents.

Robert Vineberg is a Research Fellow at the Canada West Foundation.

Canada calls out for thousands of Irish workers to fill job vacancies

By Allison Bray

Saturday November 19 2011

CANADA hopes to recruit tens of thousands of Irish workers over the next couple of years to fill a labour shortage in a wide range of occupations, the Canadian Ambassador to Ireland said yesterday.

A strong economy coupled with massive infrastructure projects and booming fisheries, mining, oil and natural gas industries has the country crying out for workers.

"I'm hearing numbers like between 30,000 and 40,000 in construction alone," Ambassador Loyola Hearn told the Irish Independent.

All 5,000 holiday work visas open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 35, were snapped up this year, prompting immigration officials to increase the quota to 5,350 for 2012.

There are no official statistics available but it's estimated that around 10,000 Irish have already relocated to Canada over the past two years.

And there are still untold opportunities for workers with wide-ranging levels of skill who can be accommodated under various work visa schemes.

The embassy held a jobs fair at Croke Park in Dublin last weekend focusing on job opportunities in the four Atlantic provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island.

There is also a huge demand for workers in a wide range of jobs in the western provinces, including British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Perks

There is a wide range of salaries and perks depending on the job and levels of experience.

Rents vary according to the location, with major cities likeToronto and Vancouver commanding rents starting at CA$1,000 (€720) a month for a small apartment.

And there will be more job fairs to come, Mr Hearn said. But already Canada was seeing a massive influx of Irish workers.

"We've surpassed the US now with emigration and are second behind Australia," he said. And such is the level of emigration and business between Canada and Ireland that the embassy is spearheading a campaign to establish regular direct flights between the two countries, he added.

The only direct flights operate on a seasonal basis to the major hubs of Toronto, Montrealand Vancouver. Fares start at around €300 one way including taxes and surcharges.

There are other international flights between Ireland and Canada but they require stop-overs in other countries.

Mr Hearn, who hails from Newfoundland -- a mere four hours' flight away -- said he was forced to fly to London, England, for a flight to Toronto and then backtrack on another three-hour flight east.

The embassy -- along with the Dublin Airport Authority, Failte Ireland, Dublin City Council and Irish-Canadian business and community organisations -- is developing a business plan it hopes will result in one of the major airlines opening up a direct link in the near future.

"It's going to be good for both countries," Mr Hearn said.

- Allison Bray

Irish Independent


If you are interested in Immigration to Canada, contact Nexus Canada for information and advice on which visa is best suited to you. You can also try our visa eligibility assessment to see if you are eligible to apply for a visa to Canada.

Targeting Canada’s ‘invisible’ Hispanic community

SIMON HOUPT — MARKETING REPORTER

From Friday's Globe and Mail

When there’s a gold rush on, smart people look for silver.

In the last few years, Canadian marketers have been retooling their organizations to target newcomers to the country. Ethnic media are bursting with ads targeting Chinese, Filipino and South Asian immigrants. (Or at least as bursting as media outlets are these days.) But there’s another group of newcomers, all but unknown and ignored, that some people believe present a sweet opportunity to savvy companies willing to learn another language: Hispanic-Canadians.

“Latin America is the fourth-largest source of immigration to Canada,” said Fabiola Sicard, the Toronto-based director of Latin markets for Bank of Nova Scotia, who is charged with convincing new Hispanic-Canadians to open accounts at her bank. On Wednesday evening, Ms. Sicard told a meeting of the Toronto Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that the number of immigrants from Latin American countries jumped by 121 per cent from the five-year periods of 1996-2000 to 2001-2006.

That much, at least, is known. But in sharp contrast to the U.S., where the Hispanic community is a 50 million-strong economic and political force that marketers study intently, their Canadian counterparts are practically invisible.

Chalk it up, said Ms. Sicard, to three obstacles: Hispanic-Canadians are a smaller market than other immigrant communities, they are geographically fragmented (stretching from the Venezuelan oil workers in Lethbridge, Alta., to IT professionals in Oakville, Ont., to dentists in Montreal), and there is almost no significant research that delves into their unique needs. Making matters worse, the eradication of Statistics Canada’s long-form census last year means the one half-decent source of information that marketers depended on is now gone.

But what little research exists suggests the Hispanic market – which numbers between 600,000 and 1.2 million, depending on the definition – is not just its own unique beast, but a valuable one.

Ms. Sicard presented Statscan data suggesting that, in contrast to the U.S. Hispanic community – which is stigmatized by its large proportion of illegal immigrants who have few English skills and a paucity of formal education – almost 50 per cent of Hispanic Canadians have at least a bachelor’s degree; another 12 per cent have a non-university diploma.

Which is why Scotiabank is making them a priority. While most Canadian banks provide special services to newcomers, from flexible accounts to Welcome Guides that provide basic information about citizenship, geography, customs and traditions, Ms. Sicard’s employer has identified Hispanic Canadians as an important growth market, especially for its StartRight bank accounts, which are tailored to the needs of newcomers.

But rather than using mainstream media to reach them, the bank is marketing at the grassroots, through professional associations, street festivals, and blogs aimed at people living in Latin American countries who are mulling a move north.

“We are targeting the Philippine and Hispanic community as well as the Chinese and South Asian communities,” Ms. Sicard said. “And guess what? We have more StartRight customers who speak Tagalog and Spanish than Mandarin or Punjabi. So the opportunity’s huge, because nobody’s targeting them, and everybody’s after the Chinese and South Asians.”

Still, there are reasons for caution.

“Chinese and South Asian are still the predominant groups,” said Bobby Sahni, the head of multicultural marketing for Rogers Communications Inc., who also addressed the THCC meeting. “So from a marketer’s perspective, obviously you’re going for scale, you’re trying to cover your big wins. That’s just the reality of any marketing – whether it’s multicultural, mass mainstream, or whatever – you want to get the biggest bang for your buck.”

But by focusing on the big fat targets, nimble marketers may be missing out on other opportunities. Ms. Sicard noted that, while Hispanics make up approximately 10 per cent of Canadian immigrants on an annual basis, they are overrepresented in Quebec, where they make up 20 per cent of immigrants.

“Within Montreal, it’s easier to target the Latin community,” Ms. Sicard said. “There, we offer a mortgage seminar in Spanish, 150 people show up. We don’t get that many attendees for our seminars in French or English. So that’s a big hit, just to provide it in Spanish.”

Best of all, she says, the Hispanic community is culturally cohesive, so marketers can avoid the pitfalls they encounter when trying to target other groups that may be riven by divisions. “You have a lot of people from Africa and the Middle East, but there are so many conflicts between them that it’s difficult to target and not offend another group. The advantage with Latinos in Montreal is that, just by marketing in Spanish, you cover them all and you don’t get in trouble.”

The Wednesday discussion included much breast-beating about the low profile of the Hispanic community in Canada. “We’re invisible,” complained Eduardo Uruena, founder and president of the local newspaper Diario El Popular. “It hurts.”

It may be that, before marketers pay attention to Hispanic-Canadians, the community is going to have to get better at marketing itself.

“When many of the Australian wines were starting to become popular in Canada, instead of Wolf Blass or Yellowtail or these different companies trying to take on the entire market and trying to build the profile and the brand of their wine alone, they actually unified and worked together to build the profile of Australian wines collectively,” Mr. Sahni noted.

“In the same case, whether it’s Hispanic media or Hispanic businesses – instead of trying to go at it on your own, I think there’s a lot of opportunity to work together.”

Until they do, they’ll be either invisible or mischaracterized. A few years ago, the mainstream Tex-Mex food brand Old El Paso aired an ad featuring Francesco Quinn (the Italian-born son of actor Anthony Quinn) laying on a thick Spanish accent while surrounded by chickens in a living room. It didn’t go over well among Hispanic-Canadians. “We are not that,” said Ms. Fabiola curtly. “There’s not a single Latin person I’ve asked about that ad who’s not mad about it.”

Toronto the continent’s condo king, Winnipeg a future real estate hotspot: study

Adrian Humphreys  Nov 8, 2011 – 6:43 AM ET | Last Updated: Nov 11, 2011 8:43 AM ET

Channel surfing on any given night, it’s easy to think home renovation and real estate flipping is an abiding national obsession. Turns out, it is. A new study of residential construction and renovation over the past decade shows a doubling in the value of a Canadian home. Across 16 major markets — from Toronto becoming the continent’s condo capital to Regina’s nation-leading price surge; from Hamilton’s industrial rejuvenation to Vancouver bungalows being flattened by large custom builds — Canada’s love of their homes is transforming the landscape, with rises highest in Western Canada, according to Housing Evolution, a report by RE/MAX real estate. Adrian Humphreys notes the trends and highlights:

BIG BUSINESS

From 2000 to 2010, the average value of a Canadian home doubled, rising to $339,030 from $163,951. The money involved is huge, with the value of residential building permits issued across Canada in the past decade pegged at $340-billion. But even that huge figure is eclipsed by the cash pushed into home renovations in the same time period — estimated to be $450-billion. The TV shows know a good market when they see it.

PRAIRIE GOLD

Regina topped the list of surging housing prices. The average price of a home rose 173%, climbing to more than $258,000 from $94,518 in 10 years. Much of the increase comes from new construction, with building permit values exceeding $1.6-billion, triple the amount in the preceding decade, according to the report. And it is not abating. The first half of this year saw $172-million in building permit value being issued. The rise has hit renters hard, with the city’s tenants shelling out rents approaching those in much bigger cities. Edmonton saw the second highest price appreciation (165%), followed by Saskatoon (163%) and Winnipeg (158%).

FUTURE HOT SPOT

Winnipeg is seen as having the biggest potential for future growth, as it leads the nation with having the largest stock of older homes. More than half of the city’s owned housing was built before 1970. The report points to increasing building permit values in recent years, the city’s 25-year strategic plan and the rejuvenation from the return of the NHL as boosting future new construction and renovation — and expected rising prices.

Jeff Wasserman/NationalPost

FILLING IN

In Vancouver, small bungalows on large lots have been snapped up only to be torn down. A trend to maximize a home’s footprint means large, custom-built homes are going up in their place, providing more square footage of living space but considerably less lawn and garden. The change, the report says, is transforming what were once working-class subdivisions into trendy enclaves of large, upper-end homes, the report says. At the same time, one in every two homes sold in Greater Vancouver are condos, with an average condo price of $457,887.

CONDO CAPITAL

Toronto’s skyline has been transformed by high-rise condo development in recent years, flooding the downtown with high density housing. There was a 212% increase in the number of units sold between 2000 and 2010. The condo craze ranges from modest pads for young, first-home buyers to the most expensive sale in the city, the $28-million penthouse of the Four Seasons Residences. “Toronto has become the largest condominium market in North America,” said Michael Polzler, executive vice-president of RE/MAX Ontario-Atlantic Canada. With so much condo development, it has increased demand for single-family detached homes in core neighbourhoods, led by Leaside, where house price rose by 111%.

RENEWAL

Hamilton is an “ongoing project in renewal,” says the report, making the area an “underestimated up-and-comer.” The total value of residential building permits nearly doubled in the decade, exceeding $6.5-billion. The attraction to Hamilton has been fuelled by plenty of large, solidly built detached homes that are increasingly unattainable in Toronto, less than an hour away. The city has also been pushing the redevelopment of its brownfields for residential and mixed use projects and condos have been enthusiastically embraced, representing 24% of housing sales.

National Post
ahumphreys@nationalpost.com

Five myths about Canada's immigration policies

Elie Mikhael Nasrallah

More by this author...

There are few things Canadians like to stay away from discussing and debating: religion, politics and changes to the game of hockey. Well, you could add another untouchable topic: immigration. Is Canada losing control of its culture, heritage and future? As immigration continues to be central to our future, it is worth, I believe, discarding some misconceptions and misinformation about Canada's immigration policies and rules.

1. Canada has an open door immigration policy.

Nothing is further from the truth. Slowly and steadily, Canada has been tightening its immigration laws since 2002. Under the present Federal Skilled Worker Class, which is based on the points system like--education, languages, occupation, age, etc--the government added the "Ministerial Instructions" scheme/list where it publishes every year a selection of occupations that it deems needed in Canada. Only the applications that fit that list are accepted and processed. In fact, the government introduced a cap on the numbers accepted in each occupation which is currently 500 per skill down from 1000 a year ago. In addition, in 2010 the total number of this category was capped at 20,000 in total. The new list of 2011 reduced the total applications accepted to 10,000 per year.

Furthermore, the investor program has been revamped and made harder and a maximum of 700 applicants are accepted each year, and the entrepreneur stream is also under revamping. (The 700 cap is already reached which started only July 01)

In total about 250,000 new Canadians are accepted each year in all categories. That is barely a replacement of the retirees, the sick and the deceased.

2. Canada can dispense of immigration by raising the retirement age and increasing fertility rate.

Around the world, as population rates growth slow and stop, countries are discovering that the proportion of working- age people in their population is shrinking, and the proportion of those who have retired and therefore depend on state and private pensions, medical and care funds is rising fast. Canada is no exception. According to the bond-rating Standard & Poor's, "By 2050, most Western countries--including Canada--will have to devote between 27 and 30 per cent of their GDP to spend on retirees and their needs. This will produce fiscal deficits in most advanced countries of almost 25 per cent of GDP, making the current crisis seem miniscule by comparison."

Canada will soon be fighting to attract and retain highly skilled and not too skilled, immigrants to get to work, and squeezing as much as we can from the remaining few. Affluence and cultural habits also limit the desired increase in fertility rates.

3. New immigrants don't contribute much these days and are different lot from previous waves of immigrants.

Consider these facts: Between 1995 and 2005, 25 per cent of every new high-tech company in America and Canada had an immigrant founder. Companies created by immigrants--or have immigrant roots--loom like icons of the information technology era: Intel, Google, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, YouTube, eBay, PayPal and LinkedIn. Moreover, while making up less than 20 per cent of the Canadian population, immigrants possess half of all new doctorate degrees in engineering; Forty-nine per cent of master's degrees in computer sciences and information technology.

The new waves of immigrants although different from the past, they are not less productive, desirable or lacking in ambition. Each era has its own dynamics and type of immigrants. Google alone generated billions of dollars to the North American economies and created thousands of jobs and economic spin-off to all sectors. That alone is an economic miracle.

4. Multiculturalism has failed and immigrants don't assimilate into the Canadian mainstream culture.

"We favour multiculturalism." That was Stephen Harper's declaration during the leader's debate in the last federal election. He continued saying:" And we show through multiculturalism our willingness to accommodate their differences, so they are more comfortable. That is why we are so successful integrating people as a country. I think we are probably the most successful country in the world in that regard."

Unlike Britain, Germany or France, Canada does not have ethnic ghettos and extreme alienation of ethnic youth trying to find themselves in an alien culture. In fact, assimilation is increasing and the participation of the ethnic voters in the last federal election is a striking example where the Conservatives made breakthroughs in Toronto and Vancouver at the expense of the Liberal party which had a monopoly on that score.  

5. Reduce immigration levels or stop it all together.

Wishful thinking at best. At a time when the business community, major bank institutions, many construction companies, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, most universities and colleges and specialists in the field are all advocating staying the course or even increasing the levels to about 300,000 per year, any drastic reduction could be damaging to the economy and to future growth in many sectors.

Regardless what the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform advocates, the fact remains that immigrants are a positive influence on Canada overall, the net economic benefits outweigh the costs and Canada is gaining an advantage over other counties preparing itself for a diverse, pluralistic and multicultural world ahead.

Elie Mikhael Nasrallah is a practicing Immigration Consultant (ICCRC) in Ottawa for the past 13 years.

An important spectacle

National Post · Nov. 16, 2011 | Last Updated: Nov. 16, 2011 4:08 AM ET

Among Canadian immigration opponents, there is a popular narrative that goes like this: Newcomers to this country want our generosity, but not our values. They arrive on our shores with their hands outstretched, refuse to learn English or French, go on welfare and reject Canadian liberal values in favour of retaining their old-world backwardness and bigotry.

As it turns out, for the vast majority of immigrants to Canada, none of this is true.

Earlier this year, Jacob L. Vigdor, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative American think-tank, published a study titled Comparing Immigrant Assimilation In North America And Europe. In it, he examined the most recent data on the rates of assimilation of immigrants to Austria, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. His conclusion: "Immigrants from Canada rank first in terms of overall assimilation."

(For the purposes of measuring assimilation, Mr. Vigdor examined economic, civic and cultural indicators - including educational attainment, earnings, occupational prestige, employment status, labor-force participation, citizenship attainment, military enlistment, language skills and the decision to marry a nativeborn spouse.)

Our status as number-one assimilator manifests itself for almost every single geographical category of immigrant - including Chinese, Southeast Asian, African and Eastern European. Mr. Vigdor also found that Muslim immigrants to Canada rank first in overall assimilation as compared to Muslim immigrants to other Western nations.

"Two facets of Canadian immigration policy may help explain the rapid integration of foreigners into Canadian society," he concluded. "First, the path to citizenship in Canada is short and easily travelled.... Second, Canadian immigration policy places a distinct emphasis on attracting skilled migrants. Thirty percent of foreign-born adults in Canada have college degrees, while the rate is 23% in the United States and 10% in Spain and Italy.... The link between immigrants' level of education and their degree of assimilation is strong."

A bar chart contained in Mr. Vigdor's report is especially telling: Canada is the only nation to score higher than 80 on his assimilation index. The United States - and every studied European nation except Portugal - scores below 60. More than 80% of Canadian immigrants naturalize within 10 years of coming to Canada. In the United States, the 80% level isn't realized, on average, till immigrants are stateside for four decades.

"Multiculturalism" may exist as a popular catchphrase in academic circles and some forms of government literature, but the reality of Canadian life, especially since the Tories came to power, is that newcomers to this country are expected to adapt to our values, not the other way around.

All this helps explain why Canadians react with so much revulsion and shock when some unassimilated immigrants do violate our norms - by shrouding women in burkas, imposing female genital mutilation on infants, sending teenage girls abroad for forced marriages, or, most tragically, killing their daughters in the name of "honour." These are the vile exceptions to an otherwise benign rule.

It is wrong to say, as some commentators suggest, that honour killings have become "common" in Canada. Nor is it true that they are exclusively associated with Islam: The scourge of honour killings originates in pastoral, tribal regions across the Middle East and South Asia, including Christian, Sikh and Hindu societies. In these areas, honour killings are motivated by the idea that women have no independent will or identity, and are merely an extension of a clan's status, expendable once they "fail" in that role.

This is the anti-Western mindset that infects Mohammad Shafia, the Afghan-born patriarch who allegedly organized the drowning of three of his children, along with his unloved first wife, in the Rideau Canal. To his thinking, his daughters' adoption of Western dress and dating customs was a form of "treason." After his daughters' deaths, he called them "filthy" "whores." In words that will echo long beyond his trial, he declared to his surviving family: "Nothing is more dear to me than my honour."

News reports of the Shafia trial are upsetting and awful - never more so than when the court heard that the father had asked "the devil" to "s--t on their graves." Yet there also is some edifying value in this spectacle for that minority of Canadian immigrants who approve of Mr. Shafia's repellent attitudes. Throughout the trial, Mr. Shafia, his son and his second wife are not shown to be "honourable" in any way. Rather, they are portrayed as figures of absolute contempt who, if convicted, will lose everything they have.

In some Third World countries, "honour killings" are treated lightly by courts. That is not the case in Canada. Just the opposite: Most of us see retrograde notions of "honour" as an especially horrible motive for murder. As tragic as the deaths of Mr. Shafia's wife and daughters were, the ensuing trial at least allows Canadian society to drive home a powerful message to those few immigrants who need to hear it.

Thompson: How much are your parents worth to Canada?

By Allan ThompsonSpecial to the Star

So just how much is Grandma worth anyway? And how about Dad?

That, in essence, is the question that Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has now asked Canadians to ponder in a national discussion about whether or not it makes sense to encourage the sponsorship of parents and grandparents as immigrants.

Kenney froze any new applications for parental sponsorship for two years pending a deliberation about what to do with the program.

To be fair, while the moratorium on new applications is in place, Kenney has ordered his officials to crank up the processing of parent and grandparent sponsorship applications to try and reduce the backlog of applicants.

He is also creating a new ten-year ‘super visa’ that would allow parents and grandparents of Canadian residents to come and go almost as they please on visits, so long as they have private health insurance.

In the meantime, Kenney says, the government will consult Canadians on how to redesign the parents and grandparents program to ensure that it is “sustainable” in the future.

The clear subtext from Kenney is that parents and grandparents who come to this country as immigrants cost us money, use social services and take up space in hospital emergency wards.

Kenney talks repeatedly about his desire to make the parent and grandparent stream of the family sponsorship program “sustainable” and “sensitive to financial constraints.”

In other words, how much is Grandma worth? And is she worth more than she costs?

That’s a fair enough question for discussion, as long as you don’t start off by telling us the preferred answer by stating again and again that this class of immigrants is a drain on Canadian society.

Just how did the minister reach that conclusion? Which research study has he been consulting? It is one thing to do the math and calculate the cost of the services that sponsored parents and grandparents consume, compared with the financial contribution they make through taxes.

But is that all there is to it? Just how do we measure the contribution that an immigrant parent or grandparent makes to our society or the value attached to a complete family unit? Surely this is not just a matter of dollars and cents.

If it was only about money, we wouldn’t take in any refugees either. Many refugees arrive on our shores with nothing — having fled their homelands for fear of persecution. We don’t select refugees for the economic contribution they will make to Canada, or for their language or job skills. Refugees are allowed to stay in this country based on evidence that they need Canada’s protection.

It seems to be clearly understood that offering protection to a significant number of the world’s refugees is just something that Canada does. And it is not an immigrant stream that is measured in dollars and cents.

As we embark on a national conversation about the logic of sponsoring parents and grandparents as immigrants, let’s not forget to measure the true contribution this class of immigrant makes to our society and then decide how to proceed.

In fairness to Kenney, he is not the first immigration minister to question the value of parents and grandparents as immigrants. Liberal immigration ministers before him also put in place measures to make it more difficult to sponsor parents and grandparents, essentially making them second-class applicants behind spouses and children in the family class category.

So on one score, Kenney is right: It is time for a national conversation about our immigration program and the value we attach to different classes of immigrants.

But please, let’s remember that not everything can be measured with dollar signs.

World Citizen appears every other week. Email: immigration@thestar.ca.