Opportunities Ontario: Applying as an International Student (Pilot International Masters Graduate Stream)

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If you are a graduate or will soon be graduating from a Masters program from one of Ontario’s publicly funded universities, you may be able to apply to Opportunities Ontario for nomination as a permanent resident, under the International Student Category’s Masters Graduate Stream.
Ontario’s Masters Graduate students do not require a job offer.
Here is some information that will help you complete the application process:

Who can apply as an international Masters graduate in Ontario?

In order to apply to Opportunities Ontario as an international Masters graduate in Ontario, students must:

• Intend to live and work in Ontario.
• Have graduated from an existing Masters program at an eligible publicly funded university in Ontario.
• Have completed a minimum of one academic year degree program, while studying on a full-time basis.
• Apply within two years of the date on which their Masters degree was granted, or in the alternative, during the last semester of completing their degree.
• Currently be residing in Ontario.
• Have legal status in Canada (i.e. study permit, work permit, temporary resident visa)
• Demonstrate high official language proficiency (For English language proficiency – IELTS – General test with a minimum score of 7 or higher) (For French language proficiency – TEF – with a minimum score of 5 or higher).
• Demonstrate a minimum level of savings/income to support themselves and their dependants.
• Demonstrate at least one year of residence in Ontario in the past two years.

You will need to submit the following documents to demonstrate that you meet Opportunities Ontario eligibility criteria and to confirm your identity, family situation and education:

• A copy of your birth certificate.
• A copy of all the pages of your passport. All prospective nominees should ensure that their passports will be valid for at least two years from the time that they submit their nominee application.
• A copy of your work permit, study permit, temporary resident visa, and/or any other Canadian immigration document or entry stamp you have received. If these documents are inside your copied passport, you do not need to make additional copies.
• Copy of each dependant’s passport page which shows his/her photo and personal information.
• A certified true copy of relevant university degree(s) if the degree has been granted. If the degree has not been granted, you will need to submit:
  
  • Official letter (on institution letterhead) from the university which will be granting the Masters degree confirming:
    1. all degree requirements have been successfully completed;
    2. there are no outstanding fees to be paid; and
    3. the scheduled date when your degree will be granted.
  • Official transcripts in sealed envelope sent directly from the academic institution which will be granting the degree.
• If you are in your last semester of Masters studies, you will need to submit:
  
  • Official letter (on institution letterhead) from the academic institution which will be granting the degree confirming full-time registration and the current academic standing of the applicant
  • Official transcripts in a sealed envelope sent directly from the academic institution which will be granting the degree
• A copy of your current resumé.
• The original score of your IELTS – General test with a minimum score of 7 or higher or TEF – with a minimum score of 5 or higher (obtained within the last year).
• Personal bank account monthly statements for the past 6 months, or (if overseas) an original letter and monthly statements from a recognized financial institution indicating personal account standing/balance in accordance with the following schedule:
• 
  

• Number of family members	Funds required
  1	$11,086
  2	$13,801
  3	$16,967
  4	$20,599
  5	$23,364
  6	$26,350
  7 or more	$29,337

• A copy of ONE of the following to show proof of 1 year of residency in Ontario:
  
  • Monthly credit card statement, phone, hydro or energy bill in any accumulative 12 months in the past 2 years showing your full name and Ontario address
  • Leasing document or rent receipts demonstrating residence in any accumulative 12 months in the past 2 years showing your full name and Ontario address
  
  
  

  How quickly will my application be processed?

  Complete nominee application packages will be processed within 90 days, on a first-come-first-served basis.
  Opportunities Ontario will target 1,000 nominations for 2010. Priority assessment will be given to those applicants who can demonstrate the strongest potential to settle successfully and permanently in Ontario.
  

  What are the fees?

  Opportunities Ontario will charge a non-refundable nominee application processing fee of $1,500 for all international students.
  

  What happens after I am approved?

  A Provincial Nomination Certificate will be issued for all successful nominees. Successful nominees must then apply to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) for permanent residence. A successful provincial nomination replaces the selection component under other immigration classes (such as the Federal Skilled Worker Class, and the Family Class). Provincial nominees will receive priority processing from CIC.

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U.S. job seekers should move to Canada

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A popular U.S. website has a unique suggestion for Americans desperately seeking work.
The advice? Move to Canada.
There's a fluttering Maple Leaf on the homepage today of the Huffington Post, a site popular for its news and celebrity blogs.
The accompanying headline says: Need A Job? Try Canada, Where Hiring Is Booming And Home Prices Are Rising.
That article comes amid news that Canada's economy added a whopping 93,200 new jobs last month; the U.S., meanwhile, continues to struggle with unemployment woes.
The bottom of the HuffPost article carries a poll, asking people whether they would be willing to move to Canada for work.
The early results of that poll – which is by no means scientific: Fifty-five per cent said they'd move to Canada if that's where the jobs are, while 19 per cent said they'd stay in the States.
The article tells readers: “Stubbornly high unemployment rates got you down? Not sold on the economic recovery? Look no further than America's polite neighbor to the north, where jobs numbers are surging and home prices have been rising steadily for nearly a year.
“Last month, Canada, a nation with roughly one tenth of our population, created about 10,000 more new jobs than America.”

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Private sector fuels surge in jobs in Canada

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Jeremy Torobin

Ottawa — From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Jul. 09, 2010 7:06AM EDT Last updated on Monday, Jul. 12, 2010 10:37AM EDT

After weathering a brutal downturn that knocked hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of the work force, Central Canada’s job machine is back and revving into high gear.
The country’s remarkable rebound from recession gained momentum in June, as surging job growth in Ontario and Quebec underpinned an increase of 93,000 jobs and unemployment fell below 8 per cent for the first time since early 2009, Statistics Canada reported.
Ontario produced 60,000 jobs in June, and Quebec added 30,000, as employment soared in the services sector, including gains in retail, health care, trade and building services.
Importantly, the June jobs report showed the private sector continues to pick up the baton from the public sector, which has long supported the economy with a massive stimulus spending package on the order of $62-billion.
The private sector has accounted for more than 246,000 new jobs over four months, a welcome trend for Canadian policy makers who have long urged companies to take the lead on economic growth as government stimulus spending tapers off in the second half of this year.
The stunning employment gain was close to the highest on record, second only to an increase of about 109,000 jobs two months earlier. The June hiring brought the combined total of new positions created since last July to 403,000, restoring most of the jobs lost during the recession. The jobless rate dropped to 7.9 per cent from 8.1 per cent.


“The jobs picture clearly shows that the Canadian recovery hasn’t stalled yet,” said Benjamin Reitzes, an economist with BMO Capital Markets. “The handoff from public to private spending looks to be going smoothly.”
The jobs report, far stronger than expected, also lays the groundwork for another interest-rate hike later this month, following a quarter-point increase by the Bank of Canada in early June, economists said. The quickly improving jobs picture, along with rising interest rates, stands in sharp contrast with the still-sluggish economy south of the border. Only a fraction of the more than eight million jobs lost in the United States between late 2007 and late 2009 have been restored, while the U.S. Federal Reserve shows no sign of raising its near-zero interest rates any time soon.
The Canadian dollar soared by nearly a full cent against the U.S. dollar Friday, as investors bet that Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney will raise the benchmark interest rate by another 25 basis points on July 20 to 0.75 per cent.
But economists caution that Canada’s economy and job creation are not guaranteed to continue at the current clip.
Since June 1, when Mr. Carney became the first central banker in the Group of Seven to lift borrowing costs, the European debt crisis has produced a march toward austerity in the world’s rich economies, a cure which some analysts warn could prove painful. Also, the recovery in the United States, Canada’s top export market, looks increasingly fragile, as housing and the labour market sputter. And there are fears that measures to keep emerging-market economies such as China’s from overheating could cool a vital source of global demand.
For export-heavy Canada, where the housing market is already slowing down, that means it’s highly unlikely that the current pace of job creation, let alone the first quarter’s 6.1-per-cent economic growth rate, are sustainable.
“Any realistic look at what’s happening in the U.S., Europe, China, suggests that the second half of this year will be much, much weaker than the first half,” Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC World Markets, said. “This recovery is going to be the most nonlinear recovery in ages. The story will not be as pretty three months from now.”
Mr. Carney later this month will release his latest forecasts for Canada and for key countries and regions around the world. Most economists, including Mr. Tal, say things are good enough in Canada for now that the central bank will probably keep raising interest rates in 25-basis-point increments until the benchmark rate is at 1 or 1.25 per cent, but then policy makers will pause to assess how much global headwinds are affecting the domestic economy.
Michael Gregory, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto, on Friday predicted “a pattern of oscillating rate hikes and pauses” as Mr. Carney takes a cautious approach.
Another concern is the type of jobs being created. Retail and other service-sector jobs tend to be more temporary, based on flexible hours, and are often lower-paying, economists said. The goods-producing industries that make many of Canada’s exported products saw a net job loss in June.
Still, Canada’s job gains are far brighter than in the United States, where the jobless rate is still 9.5 per cent and in recent months has dropped only because discouraged job-seekers have stopped looking and thus aren’t counted as part of the labour force.
Mr. Carney started warning in April that Canada's rebound from the crisis would slow considerably starting in the second quarter because of a slowdown in housing, the impact of the loonie near parity with the U.S. dollar and the inevitable end of government support.
Pointing to those factors, plus “uneven” global growth and sovereign-debt worries, Mr. Carney has said several times that a return to more normal interest rates is not “preordained.’’
On Monday, he will release a closely watched survey of executives from across the country, which will give a sense of how worried businesses are about Canada becoming a victim of economic problems from outside its borders.
“I have doubts about whether the economy is going to be able to keep up the head of steam that it has right now,’’ said Carl Weinberg, chief economist with High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y. “The U.S. economy is questionable, Europe is in trouble, Japan is in trouble, all the major trading partners are hurting and the loonie is quite strong,” he said. “So it’s hard to look at the months ahead and draw a strong line on the chart for where GDP is headed.”

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U.S. might pick up tips from Canada’s economic rebound

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Washington — Whatever else they’ve thought about their neighbor to the north, Americans have almost never looked to Canada as a role model.
Indeed, during the long, bitter push to revamp the U.S. health care system, opponents repeatedly warned that if we weren’t careful, we could end up with a medical system like Canada’s.


But on health care, and such crucial issues as the deficit, unemployment, immigration and prospering in the global economy, Canada seems to be outperforming the United States. And in doing so, it is offering examples of successful strategies that Americans might consider.
While the United States, Japan and much of Europe are struggling with massive fiscal deficits, Canada’s financial house is tidy and secure. Most economists say it will take years for the United States to make up the 8 million-plus jobs lost during the recession, but Canada — despite its historic role as a major supplier for the still-troubled U.S. auto industry — already has recovered essentially all of the jobs it lost.
Meanwhile, as Americans continue their grueling battle over immigration, Canadians have united behind a policy that emphasizes opening the door to tens of thousands of skilled professionals, entrepreneurs and other productive workers who have played an important role in strengthening the Canadian economy.
Granted, Canada’s problem with illegal immigration is smaller, and its economy does not match the scale and dynamic productivity of the world’s largest. But on the most troubling issues of the day, the U.S. is locked in near-paralyzing political and ideological debates, while those issues are hardly raising eyebrows in Canada.
“We did a lot of things right going into the financial crisis,” said Glen Hodgson, senior vice president at the Conference Board of Canada, a business-membership and research group in Ottawa.
One of the most important, he said: Back in the 1990s, Canada cleaned up the fiscal mess that most every developed nation is now facing.
Earlier that decade, Canada too was straining from years of excessive government spending that bloated the nation’s total debts, to 70 percent of annual economic output — a figure the U.S. is projected to approach in two years.
As with Greece, Portugal and Spain this year, Canada’s credit rating was downgraded in the early 1990s, sharply raising its borrowing costs. With its economy suffering and pressure mounting from international investors — Wall Street bankers in particular — Canadian officials slashed spending for social programs and shifted more of the cost burden to provincial governments, which almost everyone in Canada felt.
With the economic downturn, Canada pumped up public spending to stimulate growth, as other nations did. Still, its fiscal shortfall this year is projected at $33 billion, comfortably below the 3 percent-of-GDP threshold that economists consider a manageable level of debt.
Washington’s deficit this fiscal year is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at $1.35 trillion — or 9.2 percent of projected GDP.
The United States’ larger size — its population and economy are roughly 10 times those of Canada — makes direct comparisons difficult. And many Canadians readily acknowledge that American entrepreneurship and productivity are enviably stronger.
“U.S. businesses are certainly looking at lessons learned from Canada,” said Bart van Ark, chief economist at the Conference Board in New York. “In a nutshell, Canada has been very pragmatic in dealing with the economy.”
Canada’s approach to immigration is one example. With one of the highest immigration rates in the world, Canada has been receiving about 250,000 permanent residents annually. About one-fourth of the new arrivals gain entry through family relations, but more than 60 percent are admitted as “economic immigrants” — that is, skilled workers, entrepreneurs and investors.
In the U.S., it’s basically the reverse: Most of the 1 million-plus permanent residents received annually have been family-sponsored; only about 1 in 7 are admitted based on employment preferences. That is, Washington emphasizes bringing in family members of immigrants already in the U.S. Ottawa puts the emphasis on admitting those who can contribute to the economy.

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JOHNSON: A nation of migrants

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By RICHARD JOHNSON Local Columnist

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — As far as we know, the only true natives living in America today are the Indians. Columbus gave them that name. He was wrong...this isn’t India. In Canada, they are called the “First Nations;” this better describes those who were here long before a single European set foot on the continent. So, unless you have “First Nations” blood flowing in your veins, you are an immigrant, or a descendent of immigrants.

Immigrants built this nation; from the earliest days, people have come here looking for a better life, and worked hard to find it. Many fled poverty, persecution, and despotism. They came to experience the freedom to worship as they chose, and to live in a country where inalienable human rights were recognized.

Every new wave of immigration in our history has been met with suspicion and hostility by the people already here. The First Nations certainly didn’t want their land taken away...but it was, with the exception of a few reservations that the French, the Spanish and the English didn’t want.

When the Irish began to arrive on our shores in the early 1800’s, they were stigmatized by those already here as a whiskey-loving people incapable of little more than getting drunk and brawling. To a predominantly Protestant population, the fact that most Irish immigrants were Roman Catholics made them especially undesirable as neighbors. It wasn’t all that long ago when signs that read “No Irish Need Apply” could be seen on the doors of prospective employers everywhere, but especially in Boston, New York and other great cities of the northeast.

About the same time the Irish were coming from the east, the Chinese began to come from the west. The attitude of those who felt threatened by these new immigrants was that as bad as the Irish were, at least they were white. Since their language, customs and culture seemed especially alien, the Chinese were hated, feared and treated with considerable brutality.

In spite of their uncertain welcome, the Irish and Chinese kept coming ... and thank God they did. These two peoples built much of this country’s infrastructure, especially our railroads, bridges, and canals. As some still say today, they took the jobs that no one else wanted ... and did them well.

Later immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe; the Italians, Poles, Slavs, Greeks and others. These in their turn were met with hostility and suspicion by the people already here ... including the Irish and Chinese.

In recent years, our nation has been enriched by the arrival of legal immigrants from every nation, including the Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians; Indians, Africans ... the list is too long to publish. Most arriving on our shores have suffered the same suspicion and rejection as their predecessors ... but have stayed, worked hard and become law-abiding, contributing citizens.

Then there are the immigrants that came here against their wills; Africans who were kidnapped and sold into slavery here in America. Of all the immigrants to reach these shores, their treatment by those already here has been the most brutal; and they have suffered discrimination for the longest period of time ... generations.

In spite of these circumstances, no other immigrant group has contributed as much as they have to the success and culture of our nation. Someday Martin Luther King’s dream will come true; we will no longer classify people by their color or ethnicity, but judge them by the content of their character.

Today, some are concerned about people of Latin descent coming from Mexico and Central/South America. It’s the same old story; just the name of the immigrant group has changed. Latinos have already contributed much to our nation, and will continue to do so, just as immigrants who came before them have done.

Today’s issue is not about immigration, as some would have us believe; it is about illegal immigration. We are a nation of immigrants ... but we are a nation of legal immigrants. We are also a nation of laws. It’s not good to start a new life in a new country by ignoring the law.

Arizona has it right; leaving our borders open and unprotected is dangerous ... and foolish. Illegal drugs are flowing into our country from Mexico almost unimpeded. If our Federal government is unwilling to enforce its own immigration laws, then the states will have to step in out of self-defense.

The Mexican drug cartels are well financed, well-armed, and well-organized; and they are taking full advantage of our government’s inaction. If nothing changes, we can expect a continued escalation of violence on both sides of the border. Crime loves a vacuum. Law enforcement needs more help.

Drug money is a major source of funding for many of the terrorist organizations that have declared war on our freedom. Whether it’s heroin from the poppy fields of Afghanistan, or cocaine from South America, some of that money is buying bombs to be used to blow up innocent people.

Let’s not forget the Canadian border, either. Just because we don’t hear much about it in the news, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be paying closer attention.

In the end, we are a nation of immigrants. Immigration has made us the freest and strongest nation in the world ... the envy of those who desire to live here, and the bane of those who hate our freedom and want to take it away. We are all best served, citizen and immigrant alike, if our borders are secured, and those who desire to live and work in our country come here legally.

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