Timmins opens new Immigration multicultural centre

Image via Wikipedia

By Len Gillis / lgillis@timminstimes.com

Updated 17 hours ago

There is a new welcome mat out in Timmins for immigrants who are seeking jobs and a new life in Canada.

The new Timmins and District Multicultural Centre was officially opened this week with an office and a resource person, Andrée Fortin, located in the Timmins Economic Development Corporation building at 12 Elm Street North.

The purpose of the office is to recognize the growing numbers of immigrants to Northern Ontario, to attract more of them to Timmins and to do whatever it takes to help new people and their families adjust to life here.

Christy Marinig, the CEO of the TEDC, welcomed guests to the office Tuesday saying the new centre comes about after roughly five years of effort on the immigration file.

"This is a very important day for the Timmins Economic Development Corporation and the city of Timmins," she said.

"It has been about five years that Cathy Ellis and Brenda Camirand really took the immigration initiative and started to develop it because we recognized there was a need for employers to bring new skill-sets into the community and that required newcomers," said Marinig.

"And there's also a lot of people interested in Northern Ontario, moving to Northern Ontario. Certainly not the numbers we're seeing in Toronto, but we are seeing people moving here and they do need the support services to be able to stay here, find employment and raise their families and enjoy everything that Northern Ontario and Timmins has to offer," said Marinig.

She added that she is pleased the new centre in Timmins has developed a partnership with the North Bay and District Multicultural Centre which has already been in operation for several years.

"Their leadership and expertise came in very handy and we saw it as a win-win situation to partner with them, because we believe it is important to work together," she added.

The North Bay office is headed up by executive director Don Currie who explained that his office will help the Timmins office through its growth period of providing immigrant settlement services.

"We opened in January 2008. So we've got about three and a half year's experience that Timmins doesn't have in this," said Currie, adding that immigration is now a pan-Northern effort.

"Actually all the five major cities in Northern Ontario are working together on attracting immigrants and Timmins has actually taken the lead on the marketing front. There is now actually a marketing campaign going on for immigrants to come to Northern Ontario," said Currie.

Currie explained that new immigrants will require help on a variety of concerns that many of us take for granted and that's why it's important to have a local office.

"It can be help finding a school for your kids. They won't know there are four different school boards in Timmins. They may need English or French language training. They may need help understanding the banking system, or how to get a Health Card, all the obvious things that we take for granted. So if you come to a new country, you don't know that," said Currie.

"Another big part of it is matching them with somebody who have lived here for awhile. So somebody with similar interests, similar age hopefully, can show them the best places to shop, where to find a provincial park and that kind of stuff," he said.

Currie said there will soon be a public effort to attract volunteers. There are already a few who have come forward in Timmins. He said North Bay has nearly 40 such volunteers.

Timmins mayor Tom Laughren said he was pleased to see the new centre opening.

"This is a very, very important endeavour for our community," said Laughren adding that many employers in Timmins face challenges of finding skilled workers, especially at a time when so many in the "baby boomer" generation are retiring.

Laughren added that Timmins has a history of acceptance of immigrants going back 100 years when the community was founded and then again in the post WW2 years.

Vancouver: From 'European' to 'Eurasian'

By DOUGLAS TODD

Source: The Vancouver Sun

Vancouver was once considered a "European" city. Now it's more accurate to call it "Eurasian."

In less than two generations, Vancouver has transformed from a city dominated by people of British, German and Italian origin to one in which people of Asian heritage make up the majority.

The demographic changes in this city of more than half a million people are most readily seen in the hundreds of restaurants serving Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Japanese, Arabic, Afghan, Malaysian and Korean food. But the changes go much deeper.

Since the early 1970s -after Canadian immigration laws made the country more open to Asians and multicultural policies were instituted - the city has developed a whole new personality, one that's attempting, in fits and starts, to fuse Atlantic and Pacific cultures.

"The makeup of the city has fundamentally changed" in the past few decades, says Baldwin Wong, a social planner with the City of Vancouver who specializes in ethnic diversity issues and helps develop programs for new immigrants.

Wong's own story illustrates the immigration trends of the past 40 years, since he was part of the first wave of Hong Kong residents who flew into the city to begin a new life in the early 1970s.

Statistics compiled by Vancouver city hall tell the story of the new Asian wave.

In 1971, three out of four of the city's 426,000 residents had English as their mother tongue.

Just six per cent of residents had Chinese as their mother tongue, while five per cent spoke German, three per cent grew up speaking Italian and three per cent were raised in French. In addition, people who were most familiar with a Scandinavian, South Asian, Greek or Spanish language accounted for about one per cent each of the population.

By 2006, the city's European atmosphere had been dramatically adjusted by new Asian immigrants fluent in everything from Mandarin to Korean, Hindi to Farsi.

Only 49 per cent of the growing city's 578,000 residents had English as a mother tongue, according to the 2006 census, which is the last year for which Statistics Canada census figures are available.

Meanwhile, 21 per cent reported that one of the various forms of Chinese was their first language. Another two per cent of Vancouverites said they had Punjabi as a mother tongue, while almost two per cent spoke Vietnamese at home, almost two per cent spoke Tagalog (Filipino) and roughly one per cent each were most familiar with Korean or Japanese.

Given the tens of thousands of immigrants from Asia who have moved into the city of Vancouver since 2006, the East Asian and South Asian percentages of the population only will have risen since the last census. One out of two Vancouverites is now foreign-born.

The latest data on the city's ethnic demographics may emerge from this year's major census. However, the full numerical picture may not come to light -despite the efforts of Statistics Canada's census workers.

A host of people and organizations have protested the federal Conservative government's announcement that filling out the 2011 long-form census will be "voluntary," rather than "mandatory," as in the past.

Specialists say that change will result in more unreliable data, since research shows there will inevitably be far fewer responses on the crucial longform census from immigrants, particularly those who struggle with English or French.

While the 2011 census data may not be as solid as in the past, Vancouver's schools are keeping good statistics reflecting the latest trend lines in immigration.

More than 4,000 new students have signed up for Vancouver schools in each of the past five years. Wong says those families come from 140 different countries.

More than half of the new kindergarten-to-Grade 12 students in Vancouver are from China.

More than one in 10 of the new students are from the Philippines, and another one in 10 are from South Korea, followed by those from Taiwan and the United States. About one in five are transferring from other parts of Canada.

How are Vancouver's eclectic European and Asian-rooted residents getting along in this city, which has grown by more than 100,000 since the 1970s?

"Canada has really opened up. I think the city is wonderful in its ethnic diversity. Young people in particular report that colour is just not an issue for them," says Wong.

Harmony, however, is not entirely supreme among Vancouverites of different ethnicities.

Wong and others acknowledge that, because of language barriers, elementary and highschool students often "seem more comfortable socializing with people like themselves" on playgrounds and after school.

Another challenge of high immigration into the city, acknowledges Wong, is the increasing lack of suitable jobs, particularly for the highly educated professionals crossing the Pacific in recent years from East Asia.

To get around the problem of under-employment for foreign-strained medical workers, engineers, botanists and other specialists, the City of Vancouver has initiated the Mentorship Pilot Project. It aims to link newcomers to the city's formal and informal employment networks.

The Mentorship Pilot Project should prove valuable, says Wong, because discrimination based on ethnicity can still be a problem in hiring in Vancouver.

So can language differences. Wong says would-be employers, whether Caucasian, East Asian or South American, tend to hire people with whom they can easily communicate through a common language.

To further assist immigrants gain access to social services, the City of Vancouver has set up help lines and websites available in five Asian languages. Indeed, the city's new 311 referral service aims, ultimately, to provide interpreters who can handle more than 100 languages.

City of Vancouver staff are "on the front lines" when it comes to dealing with a host of diversity issues, Wong says. Responding to the city's foreign newcomers requires a good deal of their energy.

If one had any doubt, consider that the non-English links on the City of Vancouver's official website now receive more hits than almost anything else.

 

Chinese professionals strive for career success in Canada

When Judy Wu moved to Canada in fall 2003 on a student visa, her objective was to join her then- boyfriend, now her husband, who was already studying here.

Almost eight years later, Judy works for one of Canada's largest banks, a position that makes her the envy of many of her Chinese acquaintances.

Judy, a native of Shandong province, attributes her career growth in Canada to the hard work she put in first improving her English language ability and then earning an MBA from a Canadian university, as well as a stroke of luck in job hunting.

During her last year in the MBA program, a manager from her future employer's commercial banking unit gave a lecture to the MBA students, and Judy so impressed the manager that she was invited for a job interview right away. After several rounds of interviews at the bank, Judy was offered a job in the commercial banking unit and started working in 2007, a few months after her graduation that summer.

"Unlike many others, my job search was quite smooth," she reminisced.

Securing a job in banking, a highly respected professional field, is notoriously competitive. Getting into the banking field was a big achievement for a Chinese immigrant looking for her first job in Canada.

Among the more than 100 workers in Judy's unit, she is the only person originally from China's mainland. In contrast, many new immigrants have to either switch careers or take entry-level jobs in a field in which they already have had years of experience in their native countries.

No statistics is available, but anecdotes suggest that upon arriving in Canada, a large number of Chinese professionals have gone back to school to acquire skills more in demand in Canada, thus abandoning their previous career path; or take lower-level positions in their professional field. Many, particularly those who cannot overcome the language barrier, end up working for businesses specifically targeting the ethnic Chinese population.

Many who immigrate to Canada under the skilled worker program initially face the language hurdle. They may have a good grasp of English in the context of their professions, yet the language barrier remains in daily interactions with English-speakers in their work and social environments.

Immediately upon landing in Canada, Judy focused on improving her English by enrolling in intensive language training programs. Improved language ability paved the path for her eventually joining the almost 500,000 professionals working in Canada's banking industry.

"Most Chinese are very good at studying. But without English ability, one cannot achieve career growth in Canada," Judy said.

Colin Chu, who works in the IT department of a leading service provider for banks and insurance companies, agrees with Judy's observation. Having honed his English skills while a PH.D. candidate in computer science at a university in Singapore, Colin focused his efforts on first understanding the local job market upon moving to Canada in 2008. After two to three months of attending various training programs and connecting with head hunters and other agencies, Colin gained understanding of what local employers expect of their recruits and secured his current job after applying to a handful of employers.

"Many rush into sending out resumes immediately upon arriving here, which may not be effective,"said Colin. "A more effective way is to first research the local job market and become well- prepared before launching the search."

Come prepared, Colin was able to project a confidence in his professional achievement, his potentials for growth, and an easy going personality that boded well for team work, in no small measure thanks to his ability to communicate effectively in English, in the several rounds of interviews.

He was among the minority who secured their first job with a large Canadian company. A far more common career path for new immigrants is to work for smaller companies in the beginning and then moving to larger businesses as one's experience grows.

However, language ability is only the first step. A much bigger challenge for Chinese immigrants, or immigrants from many other countries, is reconcile cultural differences and build a network of professional and social contacts to aid career growth.

Despite their good launches from the start line, both Judy and Colin voice the sense that they seem to be hitting a glass ceiling at their respective workplaces due to cultural differences and lack of a professional network.

Both agree that a precondition for promotions and other growth opportunities is developing relationships with one's supervisor and other senior managers, not just in work-related matters but also on a personal level. This requires not just language ability but also cultural affinity, which could be challenging for those who grew up in an entirely different cultural environment.

If these new immigrants are looking for guidance and advice from a mentor, few fits the bill better than Tao Thomas Qu, who was among the first Chinese students venturing overseas in the 1980's and is today the Strategic Improvement Manager at Ontario Power Generation Nuclear.

In addition to language ability, Tao cites the following key factors in immigrants' successfully adjusting to their new country.

Immigrants must not restrict their social circles to within the Chinese community, Tao maintained. "One must establish a network of contacts and friends with native Canadians in the community."

Leadership skill development is integral to career advancement, Tao noted, citing his own experience in taking advantage of leadership training programs at ONG as well as developing leadership skills and experience through involvement in community services, which are highly regarded in Canada.

"Everyone acknowledges the glass ceiling (for foreign professionals) exists, including Canadians," Tao noted. "It is nothing to hide."

However, the outlook is "positive."

Glass ceiling or not, both Colin and Judy already have their eyes set on the next stage of their respective careers.

Colin aims to join a global company to gain more international experience, while Judy thinks her next big opportunity lies in the growing affluent Chinese community in Canada and the expanding global reach of China-based companies. She wants to join the Asian Banking unit of one of the big global banks.

"We must take advantage of our Chinese heritage to compete successfully," she said. 

Source:Xinhua