Canadian mission seeks bright young Asian students

BY MATTHEW FISHER, POSTMEDIA NEWS APRIL 21, 2012 11:20 AM

 

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Emi Kawamitsu and Akii Tanaka, who attended high school in British Columbia, show a map of Canada to prospective high school students from Japan.

Photograph by: Matthew Fisher , Postmedia News

TOKYO — A typhoon-force wind was blowing and rain was pelting down like bullets. But neither the wind nor the rain prevented a school fair from being held at Canada's embassy in Tokyo earlier this month.

More than 1,000 prospective students and parents packed the embassy during the storm to seek information about Canadian schools. There to answer their questions were representatives of 56 Canadian school boards, private schools, community colleges and universities.

"What Canada stresses is safety, affordability and the quality of education," said Jeff Davis, manager, international programs, for the Greater Victoria School Board, which has 600 teenagers from abroad at its seven high schools and some of its middle schools.

"This a huge economic generator for us. It means teaching jobs for Canadians. Another benefit is that it keeps our school district vibrant."

Much has been made of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent pivot to Asia from traditional markets in Europe and the U.S. But the government's main focus has been on getting in on the Asian boom by increasing Canada's exports of natural resources. Much less has been said yet about how Canada's human and intellectual capital is already producing an economic bonanza that is likely to grow.

Without any environmental hearings or other political controversies, educating foreign kids has become a very big business in Canada. International students currently spend more than $6.5 billion a year in Canada and have created 83,000 jobs, according to a study commissioned by the federal government.

Ontario and British Columbia lead the way with 65,000 and 50,000 students each, according to the report by Roslyn Kunun and Associates, Inc. Students who chose to go to B.C. spend about $1.6 billion a year. That translates into about 21,000 jobs, according to the provincial Education Ministry's web site.

That lots of foreign students attend Canadian universities has been known for some time. However, the fact that scores of Canadian high schools are also big players is almost a secret. When the two parts of the business are added together, educating young foreigners in Canada is more important in dollar terms than revenues from Canada's lumber and coal exports.

Just as with almost every business today, there is a keen global competition for young Asians hearts and minds and their parents' money. Canada's chief rivals are Australia and Britain. Both competitors tend to have more lavish promotional campaigns. Canada tries to counter their bigger budgets by what the Japanese call "kuchi komi," or word of mouth.

"What I liked about Canada was that it was multicultural and much safer than the U.S.," said Emi Kawamitsu who attended Victoria's Oak Bay High School for four years and was invited to the embassy fair to talk with prospective students about her experiences. "What I tell everyone is that Canada is a wonderful place and that I like it a lot."

Airi Tanaka, who spent two years at Burnaby Secondary School, near Vancouver, tells those she meets at such fairs about such natural marvels as the west coast's annual salmon run. But what has her wanting to return to Canada for university is the quality of education she got as a high school student.

"I liked that they had provincial exams that you really had to study your ass off to pass," Tanaka said in perfect Canadian high school girl English. "The education was so different than in Japan, where we just listen. They make you participate in class in Canada."

To harvest this cash crop, educators from Canada travel every spring and fall on a circuit that also includes Korea, China, Vietnam and Thailand.

"Filling in the gaps," is how Davis, who lived and worked in Japan for five years, describes the pitch he makes for Victoria, where he started his own Canadian teaching career.

"They don't come here window shopping. They have done their homework beforehand and come with lots of focused questions."

At a time of serious pressure on education budgets across Canada, foreign students in Victoria bring in about $7 million or five per cent of the school district's annual revenues. Most of the students are typically "home stays" who live for between one and four years with host families. More than half of Victoria's foreign students are from Asia, with China sending the most, followed by Korea and Japan.

"Each of these students is wonderful in his or her own way," Davis said. "Many of them are highly motivated. Some are really brilliant. They make our schools better while helping us economically."

There are intangible benefits, too. Funds from overseas students help school boards to keep some optional classes and after-school programs going. Another value-added is that many foreigners who come to study in Canadian high schools end up returning for university or as immigrants who can settle relatively easily because they already have an understanding of what makes the country tick.

Although impossible to measure, potentially the greatest spinoff of this little known billiondollar industry is that a cadre of young Asians is being educated who will be imbued with Canadian values such as fair play. There is every reason to hope that they will be kindly disposed towards Canadians and trade with Canada when they eventually take on leadership positions in their own countries.

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Rich immigrants ditching Quebec

Quebec City, Canada (Photo credit: Michael McDonough)

By: Peggy Curran

Posted: 1:00 AM | Comments: 5 (including replies)

 April 21, 2012 

MONTREAL -- Nine out of 10 wealthy immigrants accepted into Quebec's investor immigrant program never come to Quebec, federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Friday.

"I do think it is peculiar that the province that was given power to select immigrants primarily to reinforce the French fact in Quebec is in fact flipping Asian people into Vancouver," Kenney said during a meeting with the Montreal Gazette editorial board.

"In principle, the Quebec immigration program should be about immigration to Quebec."

Kenney defended the investor program.

"There are millions of millionaires. There is absolutely no shortage of demand for this kind of program. We have a huge surplus of applications."

But the immigration minister said he would like to see both the national and Quebec programs revamped to better reflect the demand from rich people while making the programs more valuable to Canada.

Under existing criteria, the national and Quebec versions of the program accept applications from investors with a net worth of at least $1.6 million, provided they make an $800,000 loan to the state, which is repayable without interest in five years.

Kenney said the "vast majority" of the roughly 4,500 people Quebec accepts under the investor scheme settle elsewhere.

He said in most cases, the family sets up a household in Vancouver while the breadwinner "goes back to Asia or wherever to run the business, where they are not paying Canadian taxes."

While that is also true of people accepted under the federal investor immigration program, Kenney said at least those people generally settle where they said they would.

"Here's what often happens. Quebec will get the $800,000 for five years. B.C. will get the social-services costs for health care and everything else for the dependants who have been brought to Vancouver.

"People in Vancouver are always asking me, 'Why are we facilitating this, because it is leading to inflation of real estate prices?' Which is great if you are well-established and you have paid down your mortgage. But if you are a young family starting out, good luck being able to afford a house in Vancouver. A lot of people who aren't rooted in Vancouver are inflating the costs."

Kenney said the federal government hasn't decided how to revamp the program, which it would do in consultation with Quebec.

"We have decided that we have to raise the price point. There is a huge surplus of people applying for these programs beyond our ability to admit them and we just aren't getting enough bang for the buck."

Meanwhile, Kenney said the federal government is in the process of revoking the citizenship of 2,300 people, with at least 6,000 more cases under investigation.

"Thousands of people were using crooked immigration consultants to create fake proof of residency in Canada. When we find several thousand people who have broken the law, it is pretty widespread."

In a luncheon speech to the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations, where Kenney was heckled for the Conservatives' recent crackdown on refugee claimants, the minister spoke about changes to citizenship criteria that would require applicants to provide proof of their skills in one of Canada's two official languages.

"We had begun... to devalue citizenship in the sense that we were not consistently applying the statutory requirements to obtain citizenship," he said.

-- Postmedia News

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition

Research finds immigrant entrepreneurs lacking in guidance, but not enthusiasm

By Lisa Grace Marr

Fadhumo Abdul Malik Raza arrived in Hamilton in 2001, a refugee from Somalia with a handful of English words, her 8-year-old daughter and a dream to build her own daycare business.

“I was told that Canada was responsive to women and children ... there was this confidence that was instilled in me that this would be a good place.”

Workforce Planning Hamilton (formerly the Hamilton Training and Advisory Board) has completed a study exploring what kind of place this is to make a living as an immigrant entrepreneur.

Wise5 is the name of the year-long research project headed by Sarah Wayland in concert with similar agencies in the regions of Niagara, Waterloo-Wellington-Dufferin, Windsor/Essex and Elgin Middlesex Oxford.

About 65 entrepreneurs were interviewed for the study, 80 per cent of whom had lived in Canada for less than 10 years.

The aim of the report was to create recommendations for communities to support immigrant businesses and identify best practices which each region can adopt as needed.

Abdul Malik Raza ended up in Hamilton by accident — she thought she’d settle in Toronto but there was no space, so she was moved into a hostel for a short period in Hamilton.

By 2009, she had graduated with an early childhood education diploma from Mohawk College with her sights firm on a goal of having a daycare.

Eventually she received her licence through Today’s Family but also was surprised by offers of contract employment from Mohawk College and others to do field supervision work for others studying early childhood education. She continues to do this as well as running her own business as a way to keep working on her knowledge of the industry.

All of her success though came after a dedication to mastering English, earning some money and doing some research into what is necessary to start a proper daycare — a concept which was as foreign to her as snow and everything else Canadian.

“Back at home, it really was a village raising a child — if a mother had to go out, she just left her children and the rest of the people would watch.”

Wayland said there are, in fact, few services for entrepreneurs, let alone immigrant entrepreneurs in the five regions — a bit of a surprise to her.

Wayland and her team conducted interviews with those who immigrated to Canada in the past 10 years to get a sense of the initial challenges of setting up a business here.

She said the majority of the entrepreneurs she interviewed (seven out of 10) said they came to Canada to be self-employed, but some started their own business because their professional designations aren’t recognized here, or to increase the potential for success.

“You can work really long hours if you’re self-employed. Lots of studies have found that people who are willing to move to another country are not risk-averse anyway. They might be just hungry ... sometimes literally ... to find work and they’ll create a job for themselves to do it.

“I felt that most people were optimistic and enthusiastic. They really embrace opportunities.”

Wise5 recommendations include:

1. Service providers and funders improve accessibility by a variety of prospective entrepreneurs, for three key aspects: affordability, eligibility and language supports

3. Service providers promote their services — including any available interpretation supports or services in languages other than English — through the “ethnic” media

4. Employment service providers become educated about the benefits and viability of self-employment as an option for clients

5. Governments and other stakeholders work with financial institutions to improve financing for new businesses and existing micro loan programs

6. Service providers and other relevant stakeholders explore the creation of mentorship opportunities possibly through the chamber of commerce

7. Chambers of commerce form a task force to examine how their own organizations might better incorporate immigrants

Highlights of Wise5

Immigrants identified these “key ingredients to success” for starting a business in Canada: networking (especially connections outside their own ethnic communities); hard work/motivation; relevant business knowledge and skills;

Successful immigrants interviewed had these characteristics: voluntarily self-employed; highly educated; spoke excellent English; had prior business experience in their country of origin in the same industry.

Key barriers included: language, lack of familiarity with Canadian business culture and practices; lack of a Canadian credit history; and lack of social and professional networks.

Of the entrepreneurs interviewed, 27 per cent provided professional, scientific and technical services; 25 per cent were involved in retail trade.

Almost three-quarters of entrepreneurs had no employees.

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• Canada considers immigrant stream for entrepreneurs

EI recipients may face bigger push into seasonal jobs

Jason Kenney (Photo credit: mostlyconservative)

People collecting employment insurance may be pushed to fill seasonal jobs often done by temporary foreign workers if the federal government's proposed changes to the system go through.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney made the case for the changes while addressing the Halifax Chamber of Commerce Thursday.

The Conservative's plan is to link those receiving EI cheques to employers who are hiring.

In Nova Scotia, temporary workers are frequently brought in from the Caribbean to help harvest crops.

"We should not be bringing temp foreign workers from around the globe to take jobs in Canada in communities with chronic high unemployment," Kenney said.

The proposed changes were first announced in the federal budget.

But Kenney was vague on some of the details.

The minister had no clear answer when asked by reporters whether those receiving EI would lose their benefits if they don't apply for jobs as farm labourers.

He referred that question to Human Resources Development Canada.

Premier concerned about changes

Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter expressed concerns over the plan.

He predicted changes to the qualifying conditions for EI in rural areas could hurt the province.

"It essentially means less money coming in to the province: that affects our GDP and it affects the ability of people to be able to live in the province."

Ottawa has given no timeline for when proposed changes to immigration or employment benefits may be made.

Canada can’t afford new immigration plan

Map of Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Colin R. Singer

Statistics confirm that Canada’s current net labour market growth is predominantly dependent on immigration. It appears almost certain that by 2030 Canada will be entirely reliant on immigration for population growth.

However, the latest policy pronouncements of Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, suggests new obstacles blocking Canada’s future economic successes are in the works. Despite some notable improvements in the system under Mr. Kenney, the most recent initiatives are guaranteed to permanently harm our country’s international reputation. Here is why.

First, he claims to be repairing the current dysfunctional immigration system, including clearing up the most controversial problem, namely the existing backlog of 300,000 applicants under the Federal Skilled Worker Program. The Minister’s stated goal is to implement a new system that, by 2018, would feature a “made in Canada” international database of pre-screened, employment credentialled candidates suitable to apply for admission to Canada. Since 2008, the department’s policy objective has been to shift from admitting applicants to Canada without a sponsoring employer and toward an employer-driven immigration program. The direction was right. But now the government is backpedalling on its promises. The plan, announced in the recent federal budget, is to vaporize the existing backlog of skilled worker applicants by refusing the majority of applications filed prior to February 2008.

Forcing applicants to wait close to 10 years and then implementing retroactive legislation refusing the pending backlog of applicants is the greatest sham in the history of Canadian immigration policy. Close to 300,000 applicants who were all promised that their credentials would be evaluated under previous criteria will now be refused. It will occur even though the Federal Court blocked a similar attempt in 2003, when department officials were found to be misleading the standing committee on citizenship and immigration in its attempt to pass legislation that would retroactively wipe out a much smaller inventory.

This initiative severely contrasts with the image of an immigration department that vigorously pursues efforts to warn the public against dealing with crooked immigration consultants. Canadians should be demanding answers to the following questions: Who is regulating the Harper government? How could the Immigration department claim with credibility that it can build a new skilled worker program with promises to attract the best and brightest to fuel our labour market growth? The government’s history is to blatantly repudiate similar promises.

Another issue is the government’s plan for a new system modelled on the programs of Australia and New Zealand, two countries which are not comparable to Canada. New Zealand has a population equal to British Columbia and Australia has a constitutional framework and demographics that are inapplicable to Canada.Australia has immigration levels on par with Canada and a similar points-based immigration system. It also imposes a restrictive English-language requirement and a pre-screening of employment credentials. The new skilled-worker program in Canada will likely feature both these elements. But a study by University of Waterloo professor Mikal Skuterud and his Australian co-author, Andrew Clarke, concludes that immigrants to Australia enjoy higher earnings than Canada because there has been a clear shift in source country distribution in Australia toward English-speaking countries.

Australia has a national credential recognition program. But in Canada professional credential recognition is an exclusive provincial jurisdiction. In New Zealand, the government implemented a national job bank of potential foreign workers where employers can cherry pick the best pre-screened candidates. Embracing an international recruitment model used by a marginal low-population player such as New Zealand makes no sense for Canada‹unless Mr. Kenney intends to become the world’s largest international recruiter of human capital.

Since Confederation, immigration in Canada has been a matter of joint responsibility between the federal government and the provinces. Every province and the Yukon Territory has implemented its own immigration programs, in order to promote immigration policies best suited to a province’s particular needs. Mr. Kenney would be well advised to direct department policies toward Canada’s short-term immigration programs and delegate the bulk of its long-term immigration intake and employment credential-related pre-screening programs entirely to the provinces. They, in turn, can implement binding contractual promises and a myriad of financial incentives to ensure settlement. There is ample precedent that such measures succeed in this area.

As Canada enters a period of economic expansion, Canadian employers are now dependent, more than ever, on the influx of foreign workers in many industries to develop a knowledge-based economy and to maintain their international competitive edge. Immigration is essential in most OECD countries, but especially in Canada, in part to offset demographic developments, including low fertility rates, an aging population, a growing elderly dependency ratio, a shrinking labour force and high out-migration rates.

Developing nations that were once primarily sources of skilled labour for Canada are now experiencing a boom in their own right that is beginning to increase their attractiveness for highly educated migrants.

The current federal immigration system needs fixing. But refusing the current backlog of skilled-worker applicants, the largest in Canada’s history, reneging on the most basic previous contractual promises, and adopting policies largely based on a patchwork of measures from other much less relevant models, is ethically dubious, short sighted and will likely create a program that once again replicates the defects prevalent under previous ministers. Only this time, it will cement our reputation as an unreliable, untrustworthy player in the global migration industry, which neither Canadian employers, nor the provinces, can afford.

Financial Post
Colin R. Singer is immigration counsel for www.immigration.ca and managing partner of Global Recruiters of Montreal.

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Matt Gurney: Jason Kenney on the devaluing of basic work and the trades

On Wednesday, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney met with the National Post editorial board to discuss upcoming changes to the immigration system. The big announcement was that, in the months ahead, the government will unveil reforms to the Employment Insurance system to link benefits to the local demand for jobs. The Minister offered no details except to promise more would come, but was clear that, when enacted, these reforms would address the problem of having areas of the country with stubbornly high unemployment needing to import foreigners to plug local labour shortfalls.

“What we will be doing is making people aware there’s hiring going on and reminding them that they have an obligation to apply for available work and to take it if they’re going to qualify for EI,” Minister Kenney said. He acknowledged that Canadians can’t be compelled to uproot their entire lives and move across the country to fill a job opening, but it can be done on a regional or local level. “Perhaps we can encourage people to go down the street to get jobs,” he added. “I don’t regard working as upheaval.”

Good. Importing labour while Canadians collect unemployment has always been bizarre. But the Minister also addressed another loaded issue, one as urgently in need of addressing as reforms to EI. Why are there good jobs out there that aren’t being filled by young Canadians, despite high youth unemployment?

The best estimates for youth unemployment in Canada right now hover around 14%, double the national average. The real unemployment figure is undoubtedly higher. Meanwhile, the prairie provinces, according to Minister Kenney, consider the shortage of workers to be the biggest issue facing their economies. The market has partially tried to address this by ramping up the wages offered (a $25 an hour wage for agriculture workers in Saskatchewan, was the example Minister Kenney used). But there is a point at which the wages simply can’t go any higher, given the fundamental value of the commodity.

The work is hard, of course. And not glamorous. And obviously, the majority of the Canadian population does not live in the breadbasket regions of the West. But it’s good work, available, and if a Mexican or Romanian is willing to fly across a continent or ocean for a decent paying job, why can’t young Canadians skip over a province or two and make some money in their own country? Same language, same culture, same laws, same money. What’s the problem?

Self-image, says the Minister. “I think there’s been a couple of generations of young Canadians who’ve been given the idea that if they don’t work in an office with a computer, they’re somehow deficient.” Tens of thousands of these Canadians go into universities every year, taking courses that will leave them with loads of debt and no realistic prospects for a decent-paying job.

“One of the things that frustrates me is that it seems to me that culturally perhaps in our education system we have devalued basic work and trades,” Minister Kenney said. “And this is unfortunate. I’m not saying that young Canadians should lower or change their expectations, they need to realize what’s possible.”

He’s right. It’s not just agricultural workers that are in demand. Canada needs engineers, computer technicians, and thousands of skilled tradespeople. Increasingly, a student who uses borrowed money to get that four-year bachelor degree will find themselves needing to go back to college for training to get a job shortly thereafter. Why not skip ahead of the curve and make money while your peers are taking on debt in pursuit of a dead-end degree?

“It’s a free country,” Minister Kenney said. “People will make the choices they make.” Indeed. But parents and educators owe it to their children to make sure those choices are informed ones. A good place to start is pointing out that a farm in Saskatchewan is just as honourable a place to work as an office in Toronto.

National Post
mgurney@nationalpost.com

Manitoba politicians spar over immigration changes

A war of words took place at the Manitoba legislature on Thursday afternoon between the NDP government, which is fighting to keep the provincial nominee program, and the Tories.

Some of the 100 to 150 people who came to the Manitoba legislature on Thursday afternoon to protest changes to the provincial nominee program. (Katie Nicholson/CBC)

Immigration Minister Christine Melnick stood in the legislature following question period and demanded that the federal government reverse its decision to cancel its shared settlement services agreement with the province.

Without funding from that agreement, Manitoba's Provincial Nominee Program is dead, according to the province.

The program is a national strategy meant to help skilled workers and entrepreneurs from other countries gain permanent resident status in Canada more quickly.

Until now, the program had been administered by Manitoba but funded by Ottawa.

Ottawa's decision to cancel its funding agreement was announced earlier this month, around the same time as a wave of federal budget cuts that included relocating the federal Citizenship and Immigration Department office in Winnipeg to Calgary.

The public chamber at the legislature was packed with supporters of the Provincial Nominee Program on Thursday afternoon.

Local support for immigrants

Another 150 people couldn't get into the gallery and are standing in the rotunda. Many of them say they have taken part in the provincial nominee program.

Among those who attended was Dorota Blumczynska, who is from Poland and is on maternity leave from her job with the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba.

Blumczynska said the provincial program works because it has local people who know how to help immigrants make Manitoba their home.

"The only way you can provide responsive support services is by knowing the community and being on the ground," she said.

"So how can you say that by just changing the administration, you won't change the programming? That's not possible."

Blumczynska added that her husband came to Canada from India through the nominee program five years ago.

"In a couple of years, he's going to be a citizen. And he pays his taxes, and he contributes, and he is the very reason this program exists," she said.

"And now, our family is here because he's here."

Tory MPs come to legislature

But in an unprecedented move, four Manitoba Conservative MPs — Shelly Glover, Joy Smith, James Bezan and Candice Hoeppner — also came to the legislature to to show their support for the federal government's decision.

"The MPs are coming in to straighten the story out," Smith said.

"The story has been totally misleading, it's scaring people, and we have to get that story straight."

Smith said the program will stay the same, but it will simply be managed by the federal government.

But Premier Greg Selinger said Manitoba's program has been a model for the rest of Canada and should not be tampered with.

The NDP government has the support of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which says thousands of its members came to Manitoba under the program.

'Three-ring circus'

A source told CBC News the debate over Melnick's demand would become a "three-ring circus."

CBC News obtained a copy of an email from Ben Rempel, the assistant deputy minister of the provincial immigration department, inviting people to show up at the legislative building.

A government spokesperson told CBC News the email was sent to settlement service providers in Manitoba.

Mavis Taillieu, the Opposition Progressive Conservative immigration critic, blasted the NDP when she learned about the email.

Conservative Tweets

"The MB NDP plan to fill the gallery with immigrants tomorrow ( scooped up all the passes ) and intend to skewer Cdn gov't."

— Manitoba MLA Myrna Driedger

"Actually, they had senior public servants (eg ADM) ask settlement staff to cut work to attend.Is that how things work in MB?"

— Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney

“It's totally inappropriate for a bureaucrat to be involved in any political activity which this is. It's just an abuse of power by the NDP,” she said.

Taillieu said the provincial government's motives aren't so much about protecting anything as they are about trying to score political points against the Conservatives.

“They've totally politicized the whole issue which is very very unfortunate. They really need to work with the federal government because at the end of the day, it's the immigrants that need the services,” she said.

Other Conservatives took to Twitter to express their anger with the NDP.

"The MB NDP plan to fill the gallery with immigrants tomorrow (scooped up all the passes) and intend to skewer Cdn gov't," Manitoba MLA Myrna Driedger tweeted to Jason Kenney, the federal immigration minister.

"Actually, they had senior public servants (eg ADM) ask settlement staff to cut work to attend.Is that how things work in MB?" Kenney tweeted back.