Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation: Welcome to Canada!

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OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - July 28, 2011) - You've made Canada your new home and are probably in the process of searching for a place of your own. Looking for a home can be a very exciting experience that can be both rewarding and challenging.
As Canada's national housing agency, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has been providing Canadians – including new Canadians like you – with information and tools to help you make informed homeownership decisions.
Canada's population growth is becoming increasingly reliant upon immigration. In the 2006 Census, close to six million Canadians identified themselves as immigrants, representing about 20 per cent of the entire Canadian population.
To help new Canadians make informed housing-related decisions and find safe, affordable homes for their families, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has developed a multi-language one-stop online source for housing-related information. Visit CMHC at www.cmhc.ca/newcomers.
CMHC wants to provide newcomers to Canada with relevant and culturally appropriate housing-related information. A wealth of information is available for newcomers in both official languages – English and French – as well as in Mandarin/Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Punjabi, Spanish, Tagalog and Urdu.
This housing-related information is divided into three areas to make things simpler: Renting an apartment - for most newcomers, your first home will likely be a rented house or apartment. Renting a home should provide you with a safe place where you can begin to adjust to your new life in Canada. It can also give you the time to look for a home to buy without feeling pressured into making a quick decision; Buying a home - CMHC has created a series of guides and tools that take you through the home buying process; and Looking after your home – which will help guide you on how to take care of your home and prevent problems before they happen. Don't forget to also check out the videos on buying, renting and renovating a home.
For more information or for FREE information on other aspects of renting, buying and renovating a home in Canada, visit www.cmhc.ca/newcomers. For 65 years, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has been Canada's national housing agency and a source of objective, reliable housing expertise.

Contact Information

For story ideas or to access CMHC experts or expertise
CMHC Media Relations - National Office
(613) 748-2799
media@cmhc-schl.gc.ca


 

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40,000 immigrants to be admitted in Canada

By Marieton Pacheco, ABS-CBN North America News Bureau

Posted at 07/28/2011 5:20 PM | Updated as of 07/28/2011 5:20 PM

VANCOUVER - The Federal Government recently announced that it is increasing the number of immigrants to be admitted under the Provincial Nominee Program.

Forty thousand immigrants under the Provincial Nominee category will be admitted in Canada this year, higher than the 36,000 provincial nominees welcomed in 2010.

 

In a statement, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney made the announcement following the rapid growth in the Provincial Nominee program in the last few years.

 

"Faster yung processing time. They delegate the assessment of the qualifications in a provincial level,” said immigration consultant, Aggie Roldan.

 

Provincial Nominees are nominated by the respective provincial governments for permanent resident status in Canada. They are usually temporary workers or foreign students who meet the province's economic needs.

 

While Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have attracted a large share of immigrants coming to this country, Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan are the top provinces for the nominee programs.

 

The Provincial Nominee Program is also an effective way to get workers quickly as applications are processed within a year.

Immigrants need cash in hand and have to be prepared for tradeoffs, sacrifices

By: LuAnn LaSalle, The Canadian Press
 

MONTREAL - Newcomers to Canada, get ready: being mentally prepared to make sacrifices or tradeoffs when you arrive on these shores is very important, immigrants who have already made the jump told a recent Royal Bank poll.
The survey found that 58 per cent of Chinese and South Asian immigrants who responded named emotional preparedness as the key for newcomers adjusting to life in Canada.
A big part of that mental preparation is also the key for meeting financial challenges that can await immigrants, according to one recent arrival.
"When anybody comes here, I think the requirement is that they must have $15,000 for immediate expenses," said Ash Ghose, who came from India in 2004 and works in insurance at RBC (TSX:RY) in Toronto.
"The first two or three months are fine, but if you do not have any source of income coming in after four or five months then the panic sets in."
Ghose, who trained as a mechanical engineer but notes that "all my life I have been a salesperson," said he sold off everything he owned in India and came over with two suitcases and some paintings.
"I built everything from scratch here, but that is something one has to be mentally prepared for."
The RBC poll also found that 47 per cent of immigrants surveyed conducted online research to understand more about life in Canada.
Judy Sillito of the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers said any research that can be done before arriving is helpful, but added that immigrants need an "openness to the unknown." She also said immigrants aren't always prepared for the sticker shock of living in Canada.
"They get here and find out it's not so easy to make a lot of money and have enough to live on, much less send a lot home," said Sillito.
"There's absolutely no way to explain that to someone who hasn't been in Canada."
She said another surprise for immigrants is finding out how much time new Canadians can spend at work.
"When you come to a new country and you have to work and day job and a night job and do weekend work, it really takes a toll on the family," said Sillito, whose organization serves 10,000 immigrants a year.
Mikal Skuterud of the University of Waterloo said immigrants tend to be older and much more educated than Canadian-born workers, but they often have to take jobs that pay less than their education would imply they should earn.
"Their unemployment rates are not that different from Canadian-born workers," said Skuterud, assistant professor in the university's department of economics.
"They do get jobs and they get jobs quite quickly but they're not very good jobs. They're what immigrants refer to as 'survival jobs.' They appear to get stuck in these jobs. They have a very low propensity to move out of these jobs and get into the track or career they were trained for."
Statistics Canada's 2006 census found that a recent male immigrant with a university degree earned $30,332 yearly, versus $44,545 for a Canadian-born man with a degree.
Nick Noorani, a motivational speaker and consultant who helps immigrants integrate, said it's essential to have the proper language skills, especially on the job. If you're an immigrant and a sales manager, you need to have the same language skills as a Canadian-born sales manager, he said.
Immigrants need to consider what other skills they have to find work, he said, adding his background was in advertising but he turned to publishing when he came to Canada.
"You need to have a Plan B," said Noorani, chief executive of Destination Canada Information Inc.
"When we come here as immigrants we are so focused on, 'This is what I used to do and I want to continue doing only that.' That leads to a problem."

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Canada's new lustre in the world

BY ADAM DAIFALLAH, THE GAZETTE JULY 28, 2011 5:33 AM

 

 

About 10 years ago, the American conservative magazine National Review ran an issue whose cover featured some Mounties with the word "WIMPS" printed across the page. The cover and the accompanying article by Jonah Goldberg, "Bomb Canada: The Case for War," was a semi-satirical attack piece, taking Canada to task for its perceived anti-Americanism and lack of contribution on the world stage.

Making fun of Canada has long been a U.S. national pastime. Recall the contest held by Michael Kinsley, then editor of the New Republic, to find the world's most boring headline. The winner? "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative." As recently as 2006, Goldberg, writing again about Canada, called us "arguably the most deluded" industrialized nation in the world" because "elite Canadians" think "being different than the U.S. and sucking up to the United Nations will buy them grace on the cheap."

Today, no one is laughing at the Great White North - especially Americans - and certainly no one would accuse the Harper government of kowtowing to the UN.

As economic confidence south of the border plunges to a 15-year low and the debt-ceiling fiasco edges toward catastrophe, many U.S. experts are praising Canada as an attractive low-tax environment and a beacon for sound fiscal policy and good governance. The opportunities before us are immense - and the last to take note, as usual, are Canadians themselves. This week, for example, Canadian business titan Peter Munk said that Canada now has the same opportunity to do with the mining sector what Britain did with the financial sector at the turn of the last century - that is, to become its global centre.

What's most surprising about all the plaudits is that much of them are coming from the heretofore most critical corners - particularly from U.S. conservatives.

Fred Barnes, editor of the Weekly Standard, recently took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to argue that the government of Jean Chrétien set the example on how to right an economically failing ship: cut government spending and do not raise taxes. As Barnes noted, between 1995 and 1998 Canada turned a $36.6-billion deficit into a $3-billion surplus.

(The Wall Street Journal was a fitting avenue for the article; in 1995 that newspaper ran an editorial suggesting that Canada was close to bankruptcy. Many credit the attention the editorial received for jolting Chrétien and then-finance minister Paul Martin into action.)

Meanwhile, a surprising new article in Maclean's notes that Canada is emerging as the go-to destination for the world's wealthy. Tax specialists apparently now refer to Canada as the "Great White tax haven" and the "Switzerland of the North." The inflow of high-net-worth individuals to our country (last year, 12,000 people moved here under a special immigration program for the wealthy) is giving Canada a net economic boost of roughly $2-billion a year - and the trend is likely to continue.

The U.S. conservative movement is also looking to the Harper Conservatives for ideas. A consensus has emerged in the U.S. that Canada handled the 2008-2010 economic crisis better than any other western country, and conservatives there have been particularly impressed with the Harper government's campaign strategies of microtargeting defined blocs of voters to broaden its support.

At the moment, everything from our immigration laws to the GST is being praised by Americans as examples of good public policy.

A quick pat on the back is more than deserved, and we should give credit to our successive national governments for the sound economic policies that have led us to this place. But we shouldn't get caught up in self-congratulation either.

It wasn't that long ago that we were battling the brain drain (which has now effectively reversed direction) and paying $1.45 to buy a U.S. dollar.

Canada seems to perform well when the global economy doesn't. Europe and the U.S. are in the gutter, but we are holding our own. When things are going well elsewhere, Canada is perceived as an overregulator, and to a great extent that perception is true.

Canada-enviers ought to tread carefully. They should look to Canada as a model in terms of outcome, not of process. In the past we have too often drifted into over-regulation of the economy. With the continuing emergence of the dynamic and risk-prone economies of the group known as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), this is not the time to take the safe route by turning to increased red tape, particularly in the U.S.

We obviously have many challenges ahead of us, but let this international admiration remind us that things in Canada are going extremely well - though we have to work hard to hold on to our status as an enviable economy. That status is, for lack of a better term, worth something.

Adam Daifallah is a partner at Hatley Strategies, a montreal public-affairs firm,and a lecturer at McGill University's Department of North American Studies

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Read more:http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Canada+lustre+world/5170300/story.html#ixzz1TOznvBZn

Ten-year multiple-entry visa: better use of government resources and easier travel to Canada

Toronto, July 20, 2011 — Improvements to make it easier to visit Canada are coming soon, announced the Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. A new ten-year multiple-entry visa will make applying more efficient for applicants and better use government resources.

“More applications and higher expectations mean that Citizenship and Immigration Canada needs a more responsive and flexible processing system,” said Minister Kenney.  “To achieve that, the Department is providing applicants and staff with the right tools to deliver on those expectations.”

Citizens of certain countries require a visa to come to Canada temporarily. Currently, the maximum validity period of a multiple-entry visa is five years. However, increasingly, countries are issuing passports which are valid for ten years. In light of this, CIC is changing its policy for visa issuance. Where applicants apply for multiple-entry visas, they may now be issued to the maximum validity according to the length of the passport validity (up to ten years, minus one month).

This practice, already recommended for parents and grandparents with sponsorships in process, may now be extended to other clientele, such as business visitors.

As Canada is becoming a preferred destination for visitors and business travellers alike,CIC continues to balance the need to facilitate this travel while responsibly managing our borders. We will increasingly focus attention on applications with the greatest potential for threat and vulnerability, while streamlining low risk cases. Further limitations on validity may apply on a case-by-case basis.

The ten-year visa will be an option available to more low-risk travellers who are citizens of visa-required countries. As of Monday, the technical changes needed to issue it were in place.