Immigration Canada

Good news for Intra-company Transfers to Canada

January 2012

We are pleased to announce that there has been a positive change to Canadian immigration policies to benefit employees holding Intra-company Transfer work permits who travel frequently outside Canada.

Limit to the duration of Intra-company Transfer (ICT) work permits

The rule previously was the following: After ICTs have reached their maximum work permit duration (five years for specialized workers, seven years for senior management), they would have to complete one year of full-time employment with the company outside Canada if they wished to re-apply as an ICT. If they were unable to complete one year outside Canada, then the foreign worker would have to obtain a work permit under the Labour Market Opinion category, a very long and cumbersome process.

New rule

Recaptured Time — Normally, the duration of the work permit is used to calculate the maximum time limit that an ICT is allowed to work in Canada. However, time spent outside Canada during the duration of the work permit can now be “recaptured.” For example, if an ICT worker has a work permit for one year and spends two months over the course of the 12 months working in the US, then only 10 months would count against his or her five- or seven-year limit as an ICT. In summary, documented time spent outside Canada can be recaptured to allow the ICT full years of physical presence in Canada.

This is great news for cross-border employees. For your employees to benefit from this change, we recommend that a travel chart of entry/exit dates be maintained. We also recommend that employees retain copies of travel itineraries/ airline tickets, hotel stays, etc., showing precise lengths of stay in Canada each year. With such information, your employees will be able to recapture the time spent outside Canada when extending their work permits.

Ottawa moves to tighten provincial immigration program

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 8:16PM EST

Last updated Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 8:23PM EST

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is setting out more stringent standards for the way provinces pick immigrants, even as he lauds the strategy as a success and economic boon.

The Provincial Nominee Program, which allows provinces to select their own quota of immigrants based on local economic needs, has received plaudits for turning Prairie provinces into migrant magnets.

But its record is far spottier out east: Incarnations of the program in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have been beset by allegations of corruption, scathing auditors-general reports and multimillion-dollar settlements paid to immigrants claiming they’d been bamboozled by misleading claims. Concerns around investor streams of the program spread to Manitoba, where the Auditor-General is conducting her own review pre-emptively.

The program has expanded significantly and is changing the face of immigration in Canada, sending newcomers to regions in need of tradespeople rather than urban hubs where highly skilled immigrants often can’t get a job.

An evaluation of the nominee program, to be released Thursday, indicates Ottawa wants to have a more direct hand in ensuring the initiative works the way it wants it to.

Provinces will need to provide evidence they need the workers they pick and they’ll have to more closely monitor visa offices abroad, “including [for] fraud detection,” according to a summary provided to The Globe by a government source.

The summary also states that nominated immigrants will need to meet minimum language standards before immigrating. It recommends putting a “monitoring and reporting framework” in place to ensure provinces meet “agreed-upon performance indicators.” The suggestion is that failure to do so would have consequences on those provinces’ programs.

Mr. Kenney hinted at this leash-tightening in an interview with The Globe late last year. The program is a success, he said, but “we do have some concerns.”

“We want to make sure the provinces are managing the program with proper due diligence and proper integrity. We need to continue working with the provinces in that respect,” he said, making special reference to immigration consultants in Maritime provinces’ investor streams as a cause for concern.

“They’re approaching people overseas who have no intention of settling in Atlantic Canada,” he said. “That’s the kind of thing that we need to be mindful of and that’s one of the reasons we are not going to continue with the rate of growth in the program over the past few years until we’re able to sit down with the provinces and make sure our concerns are addressed.”

International students at Ottawa

The Canadian capital is enjoying an economic boost thanks to the almost 500 international students currently attending Ottawa high schools.

The number of foreign students at Ottawa high schools has been rising rapidly since 2000, as increasing numbers of high school students from all over the world discover the advantages of pursuing a high school diploma in Canada.

Canada is an attractive destination for foreign students because of its high quality of education at affordable rates. In addition, many international students who have studied in Canada find that some Canadian immigration options become open to them once they complete their program of study.

It is estimated that the international students at Ottawa high schools bring an average of $30,000 dollars per person into the Ottawa economy. This money can be used to improve the schools even further, by hiring more teachers and enhancing the programs.

These students are part of the 90,000 international students that arrive in Canada each year to pursue educational programs at various levels of study.

Source: http://www.canadianimmigration.net/news/

Aging Boomers, Immigration To Boost Demand For Housing In Canada

by Jim Adair

Canada's rate of homeownership is expected to increase and the future for condominiums looks bright according to an updated analysis of future Canadian housing demand.

By 2036, there will be more one-person households in Canada than any other category, due to the aging of the baby boomer generation. But the country is counting on immigration to be the main driver of household growth in the next 20 years, says a recent report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC).

The report is part of this year's 184-page Canadian Housing Observer, an annual report on the state of Canada's housing by the federal government's housing agency.

The report says the growth of housing stock in Canada is driven by household formation, which is linked to changes in the size and composition of the population. It grew faster in 2008, 2009 and 2010 than at any other time since the early 1990s. In 2010, 271,000 immigrants landed here – the highest total in 40 years.

International migration now accounts for about two-thirds of the population growth in Canada, compared to about 40 per cent in the early 1990s.

"During the 1990s, natural increase (the difference between births and deaths) shrank considerably as baby boomers aged," says CMHC. "Although births rose from 2001 to 2010, the number of births per woman (1.66 in 2007) is still well below replacement level (2.1)."

Most immigrants to Canada settle in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, which is why population growth differs across the country. But the report says immigration is increasing in smaller Canadian urban centres. From 2008 to 2010, Saskatoon had the fastest rate of population growth in the country, followed by Vancouver, Calgary, Regina and Edmonton.

Recent immigrants (in Canada less than five years) are about half as likely as non-immigrants to own a home, but as time goes on and their incomes improve, they are more likely to become homeowners.

"Immigrants' propensities to rent or own housing differ by place of origin," says the report. For example, 42 per cent of recent immigrants from Eastern Asia, the region that includes the People's Republic of China and Japan, owned their homes in 2006, compared to 11 per cent of recent immigrant households from Northern Africa.

"With immigration now the principal driver of population growth in Canada, immigrants are bound to be an important influence on housing demand, especially in cities that attract a disproportionately large share of new immigrants," says CMHC.

In Canada, the number of seniors (age 65 and older) will more than double by 2036, growing eight times faster than the number of people under 65. Seniors currently represent about 14 per cent of the population, but that share will be almost 24 per cent by 2036.

The city with the highest proportion of seniors in 2010 was Peterborough, Ont., where 19.4 per cent of the population was over 65. The lowest percentage was Calgary at 9.5 per cent. A recent bank survey asked which city in Canada people would most like to retire in, and the winner was Victoria. It currently ranks fourth for highest proportion of seniors, after Peterborough, Trois-Rivieres, Que. and Kelowna, B.C.

The leading edge of boomers started turning 65 in 2011, but the largest number of boomers won't reach 65 until 2024, and the youngest will turn 65 in 2030. The impact of the boomers will be felt on the housing market for many years, the report says.

"Aging households will support continued growth in condominium markets," it says. "Seniors have higher rates of condominium ownership than any other age group, and those rates have been rising. We can also expect to see growing demand for home adaptations and support services aimed at allowing aging residents to remain living comfortably in their homes."

Seniors are less likely to move than younger people. About 20 per cent of seniors moved between 2001 and 2006, compared to 44 per cent of non-senior households.

"The relatively low mobility rates of seniors are evidence of a preference on the part of many for staying in their current homes for as long as possible. Though behaviour could change in the future, mobility rates have historically been very stable," says the report.

The average age of the head of the household is rising – those aged 55 and older will make up half of all households by 2036. With the aging boomers will come a rise in one-person households, particularly women. MHC says one-person households will become the biggest single category of households by about 2021.

Alberta and B.C. are expected to see the fastest pace of household growth, while Newfoundland and Labrador will see the lowest.

Published: January 17, 2012

Senior Immigration Canada manager pleads not guilty in bribery scheme

Case alleges accused received money for fast-tracking residency applications
BY ANDREW SEYMOUR, OTTAWA CITIZEN JANUARY 24, 2012

Secretly recorded telephone calls and undercover police surveillance will paint a portrait of a senior Citizenship and Immigration Canada manager taking cash in exchange for preferential treatment on permanent residency applications, a prosecutor said Monday on the first day of a trial into an alleged bribes-for-status scheme.

Assistant Crown attorney Mike Boyce said Diane Serre teamed up with Issam Dakik to take thousands of dollars from mostly Arab immigrants in exchange for fast-tracking their applications. Dakik would meet with the applicants and collect the money before contacting Serre who would use her influence as a manager and supervisor in Citizenship and Immigration Canada's Catherine Street office, said Boyce.

Serre, 41, pleaded not guilty to 28 charges Monday, including multiple allegations of fraud against the government and breach of trust of a public official. She is also charged with one count of bribery.

Dakik portrayed himself as someone who had inside information, Boyce added.

Dakik, who has pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme, along with credit card fraud, was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison in 2006. At the time, Dakik admitted he paid Serre a portion of the proceeds of the scheme.

The scheme allegedly began in January 2003 and continued until December 2004, when Serre and Dakik were arrested by RCMP in an operation dubbed "Project Argon."

Nine applicants made the illegal cash payments, which the RC-MP said at the time of Serre's arrest ranged from between $4,000 and $25,000.

In an opening address, Boyce outlined Crown evidence that will be presented over the six-week trial, including wiretap evidence that the prosecutor said proved that Serre was Dakik's "insider" at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Police surveillance observed visits to Dakik's home by Serre that corresponded with wiretapped telephone calls to some of the applicants - calls where Dakik would often either put the applicants on hold or could be heard consulting with someone else in the room.

Boyce alleged when an undercover police agent approached Dakik, he was told the first $300 he paid would go to "the lawyer." Bills with the same serial numbers were recovered two weeks later from Serre's bedroom, said the prosecution.

Among the allegations is that Serre also handed over sensitive Citizenship and Immigration Canada documents to Dakik and made phone calls to outside government agencies, including CSIS, to see if some of the steps of the application process could be expedited.

Not all of Serre's actions would be improper when viewed in isolation, said Boyce, but when viewed in the context of Serre's relationship with Dakik, they equated to a breach of trust.

"She accepted or agreed to accept a benefit for her assistance in processing these claims," Boyce told Ontario Superior Court Justice Catherine Aitken.

Boyce said the Crown intends to prove Serre not only committed a breach of trust by taking money, but by the very fact she agreed to give preferential treatment to the claimants at all.

"Just through acts of giving preferential treatment to those files would be a breach of trust by Ms. Serre," he said.

The nine applicants who paid Dakik are expected to be called as witnesses this week and next. Their evidence will include tape-recorded conversations and agreements they made with Dakik. Dakik is expected to take the witness stand in about two weeks, where prosecutors expect to confront him with the wiretaps and other surveillance.

The Crown will also introduce evidence that will show when Serre or others searched for the applicants' electronic files. Occasionally Serre would search the files within a day of discussing them with Dakik, Boyce alleged.

The prosecution spent much of the first day introducing many of the exhibits seized from searches of Citizenship and Immigration Canada office and Serre and Dakik's homes.

The trial continues Tuesday.

aseymour@ottawacitizen.com

Hot Jobs in Canada for 2012

We Are Headed For Growth Despite Some Headwinds From Abroad

By Mark Swartz

Monster Senior Contributing Writer

What will the economy bring for Canada in 2012? Positive news overall, as energy prices and demand for our exports remain reasonably high.

Did you know, for example, that Canada is the largest single exporter of oil to the United States? Or that over 20% of the world’s entire supply of potash – a chemical used in various fertilizers – is produced right here?

While our natural resources are abundant, so are Canada’s manufacturing facilities, services sectors, and other job-generating areas across the country. Our banks are sound and our workforce is engaged. That’s what has made us so resilient despite headwinds from other parts of the globe.

Overall Growth Prospects For 2012

According to the Conference Board of Canada’s “Economic Insights” report from Autumn 2011, nearly 370,000 additional jobs are forecast to be added here for 2012. This amounts to a 2.1% increase over the previous year’s total. Not bad at a time when Europe and the U.S. are experiencing challenges of their own.

Where will all these new Canadian jobs come from? They’ll be created across a variety of sectors in provinces from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia. We take a look below at some highlights of the places where job growth in Canada is expected to be strongest.

The Atlantic Provinces

Newfoundland and Labrador is having an unprecedented energy and resources boom. With about $43-billion worth of projects in process, a shortage of skilled workers is foreseen.

View construction and mining related jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador

Over in Nova Scotia, one of the Halifax area’s largest employers won the contract to build $25-billion worth of combat ships for the federal government over the next 30 years. Initial production could start by late 2012.

View marine-related and manufacturing jobs in Halifax

Quebec

In the province of Quebec, Montreal is poised for jobs growth in aerospace - at such companies as Bombardier and Pratt and Whitney – as well as in video gaming.

For Quebec City, in 2012, Non-Commercial services is forecast to grow as a category by more than 5,500 jobs. This is a bright note for teachers, other educators, healthcare workers and those in social services.

Ontario

Hamilton, Ontario is seeing a modest rebound in housing construction. As a result, Finance, Insurance, & Real Estate are poised to add additional jobs. Also this Canadian center for steel production will create more manufacturing positions.

View finance, insurance and real estate jobs in Hamilton

View manufacturing jobs in Hamilton

Ottawa, Ontario – the capital of Canada – is normally known for its large number of government jobs. However in 2012 it is Construction that will expand. So will Non-Commercial services.

Toronto, Ontario should see a solid rise in banking and finance jobs, given that the city is an international finance hub. The Personal Services sector will show healthy growth as well.

Western Canada

In the province of Manitoba, it is projected that Winnipeg will produce more jobs in two particular Service sectors. One is Transportation. The other is Business Services.

Saskatchewan is primed for expansion due to an explosion in demand for natural resources such as potash, oil, and gas. You can see this in Saskatoon, where the Goods sector – which includes Manufacturing, Natural Resources, Utilities And Construction – is expected to produce 9.3% more jobs.

View construction trades, helpers and labourer jobs in Saskatoon

View transportation jobs in Saskatoon

Meanwhile in Regina, Saskatchewan, Construction is on the verge of creating 1,100 new jobs. Better yet is Wholesale and Retail Trade, which will be up 1,800 jobs.

Alberta is also benefiting from worldwide demand for oil and gas. This is evident in Calgary, a diversified city, where jobs in petrochemicals and resources will be plentiful. As employers in this field expand, they need additional IT people as well.

The Edmonton, Alberta region too will experience jobs growth along with Alberta’s primary resource sector. Accordingly the city should see a boost in positions for Transportation and Warehousing. Another growth area there will be Finance, Insurance and Real Estate.

British Columbia will be home to some impressive jobs growth in 2012. Victoria is the province’s capital city. There we will see above average increases in Non-Commercial services, as well as in Wholesale and Retail Trade.

Scenic Vancouver, British Columbia, with its proximity to the Pacific Rim, has some bright spots for employment growth for 2012. One of its local employers, Seaspan Marine Corp., will begin an $8-billion deal to build non-combat ships for Canada’s navy and coast guard. Film and movie production is a year-round job producer as well.

Potential Drags On Growth

Decreased demand for our natural resources is a possibility if countries such as China and the U.S. experience an economic slowdown. There may also be a tightening of the fiscal belt by our government. Moreover the European financial situation could negatively impact Canada’s economy.

For More Information

Details about employment statistics are available at Statistics Canada.

The Canadian undocumented?

By Father Tom Joyce CMF

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January is the month of the refugee. The UN High Commission for Refugees estimates that in 2010 more than 30 million people sought asylum in other countries--264,000 in the United States and 165,000 in Canada--because of war or persecution. But that, doesn’t mean that they were welcomed to stay. After processing, some are denied and asked to leave.
Canada once had a reputation for being most accommodating. Not so anymore. The Conservative government has tightened its process of granting asylum and has reduced the number it accepts. This seems already to have created a new set of “illegals” or unauthorized immigrants according to the Los Angeles Times.
The phenomenon became more publically known couple of weeks ago, when the Los Angeles area experienced a series of arsons--mostly of parked autos. Harry Burkhardt, the suspect, was soon apprehended. He and his mother, Dorothee, were here on visitors’ visas and holding German passports. But they also entered the U.S. from Vancouver, after having been denied asylum.
Canada has revised its asylum process--ostensibly to quicken the pace of acceptance, but really to save money and to cut the number of asylums granted during hard economic times. Now asylum-seekers are to get a hearing in 90 days and, if rejected, are to be ushered back to their home country within 120 days. This is not enough time, immigrant advocates say, to gather the documentation to make the petitioner's claim of persecution-- before or after the hearing. Canada has 42,000 pending cases and 124,000 ready for deportation. The fear is that those rejected will travel as visitors on still valid passports, like the Burkardts. While the U.S. and Canada have an agreement to prevent asylum-jumping, as in case of the Burkhardts, once they're legally in the country, they have the right to present themselves to an asylum officer. If rejected, they won’t necessarily go home, but might just melt into the shadows among the other undocumented.
Many of those seeking asylum in Canada last year came from surprising places. The largest number is from Hungary. Now a member of the European Union, which insists on strong human rights policies, the former Communist country seems to be slipping back into one-party rule. The EU has charged Prime Minster Viktor Orban of extending his party’s control over the central bank, the judiciary, and the media. Critics speak oftransforming the county into a “Putin democracy” or a “Viktorarcy.”
It’s a shame that the plight of refugees should complicate the U.S.’s immigration problems further, or that Canada should temper its generous welcome to refugee. The number of refugees continues to be high. The UN High Commission estimates that every minute eight people flee their homes because of conflict or persecution. So there are millions more refugees than those that come to seek asylum. (Note that the Gospel of Matthew has the Holy Family seeking asylum in Egypt.)

Immigration trends — by the numbers

By SALIM MANSUR, QMI AGENCY

The headline on my column last week read, “Immigration isn’t just about numbers.”

But numbers indeed tell the story of how the trend line for immigrants arriving in Canada over the past 25 years slopes upward. In 2010, some 280,681 immigrants — or new arrivals as permanent residents, in the language of the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration Canada — entered the country. The figure for 1986 was 99,354.

The total number of immigrants arriving in this period (1986-2010) was more than 5.5 million, or an average of some 220,000 annually. During these years the total population grew from about 26 million in 1986 to 34 million in 2010.

To put the above numbers in perspective — all figures provided here come from government sources — Canada accepted some 4.4 million immigrants in the three decades between 1951 and 1981 at an average of about 146,000 annually. In 1951, Canada’s population was slightly above 14 million, and in 1981 the figure was close to 25 million.

The number for immigrants in 2010 was the highest for a single year during the past 60 years.

We might note in the period of 1986-2010 the spike in numbers occurred under the previous Conservative government of prime minister Brian Mulroney. In order to assure new Canadians or ethnic minorities that the Conservatives favoured increased immigration, the Mulroney government spiked the numbers upward, from less than 100,000 in 1986 to a record high of 256,641 in 1993.

This jump in immigration levels, while disregarding an economic downturn during the same period, was a transparent effort by the Mulroney Conservatives to woo ethnic votes. The irony is the effort failed as the Conservatives crashed to their worst electoral defeat in the 1993 election.

Immigration has contributed to population growth since Confederation. But during the past half-century, a dramatic shift took place in terms of the source-area composition of immigrants to Canada.

Until 1961 the origin of more than 90% of immigrants was from Europe, and non-European immigrants, primarily from Asia, barely registered at 3%. In the decades following the centennial year, these figures were significantly altered.

In the period of 1991-2001, immigrants of European origin entering Canada fell below 20%, and Asian immigrants soared to nearly 60% of the new arrivals. During the same period, immigrants from Africa accounted for nearly 8% of the total, while around 11% were those arriving from the Caribbean basin, Central and South America.

It is in this shift of source-area composition of immigrants that the demographic profile of Canada’s population as predominantly of European-origin has begun to change.

In 2010, for instance, the top three source countries for immigrants — their respective numbers are given in brackets — were Philippines (36,578), India (30,252) and China (30,197). Together these three countries provided nearly 35% of new arrivals in Canada.

The other noteworthy figure for 2010 is the total number of immigrants originating from Muslim majority countries, which amounted to 65,684 or approaching 25% of the new arrivals.

The cumulative effect of these numbers over time will be significant, and this is why immigration is the big issue politicians of all stripes want to avoid publicly discussing.

Diaspora bonds could help developing countries

BY MARC AND CRAIG KIELBURGER, TIMES COLONIST JANUARY 22, 2012

In 1988, Naser Kaid left his home in Jimma, Ethiopia, to seek opportunity in Canada. His widowed mother stayed behind. Today, Kaid is her only lifeline.

What Kaid can afford from his wages as a Toronto taxi driver, he sends home to his mother. It's usually $50 to $100 each month and the only income she has. In November 2011, she needed surgery. Kaid scraped together the money to cover the operation. He considers it his responsibility.

"Life is hard here," Kaid says. "But at the same time, you have to remember those elsewhere."

In 2010, immigrants to Canada sent more than $12 billion to support the families they left behind. That's $4 billion more than all the money Canadians gave to charity, and over $6 billion more than Canada spent on international aid that same year.

When the world population passed seven billion in October 2011, the UN Population Fund dedicated an entire chapter of its State of the World Population report to issues around migration. It noted the absolutely staggering amount of money immigrants around the world send back home.

The World Bank estimates that, by 2013, more than $404 billion will be travelling around the world every year from immigrants back to their families. That's almost three times more than all the developed countries in the world put together spent on international aid in 2010.

The Hudson Institute, an American think tank, reports that these remittances play a key role in fighting poverty in developing nations. Those who receive money from family abroad tend to have a better quality of life and are better able to survive shocks like natural disasters.

With tough economic times forcing many donor countries to scale back on international aid, is there a way to turn the hundreds of billions flowing from immigrant communities into an even more effective tool against poverty? Yes, through diaspora bonds.

Canadians should be familiar with Canada Savings Bonds. You buy them from the Government of Canada in amounts as little as $100. When you redeem them months or years later, you get your money back with interest. It's a great way to save money, and it creates revenue our government can use to provide the services we rely on, like health care.

Diaspora bonds work the same way, except they are sold by countries like Ethiopia to their immigrant communities living abroad.

Diaspora bonds are not new. Israel was the first to issue them in 1951. Some African countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nigeria have recently begun to issue bonds. Greek immigrants in Canada and other countries are now looking to diaspora bonds as a way to save their homeland from its massive debt crisis.

The World Bank offers one example of how diaspora bonds could be employed to aid development. There are more than 1.5 million Haitian immigrants living in Canada, the U.S. and France. If 200,000 of them each bought $1,000 in bonds, they would raise $200 million to support postearthquake reconstruction in Haiti.

It seems to us, Canada could support diaspora bonds as a cost-effective way to increase resources for fighting poverty. Here are few ideas that might be explored: Canada could act as an international guarantor for development-dedicated bonds. Our government could help promote these bonds to immigrant communities, or give tax credits to immigrants who purchase them.

There are risks in diaspora bonds. Because the money from bonds goes to governments in developing countries, there is potential for mismanagement or corruption. The Canadian Chapter of the World Council of Hellenes Abroad, for example, prefers that the European Central Bank or the International Monetary Fund control any funds from diaspora bonds. They believe the Government of Greece is in disarray and cannot responsibly manage the money.

Through partnerships, Canada could support bonds designated for specific approved projects. We can provide technical assistance to recipient countries, building their capacity to manage the bonds with accountability and transparency.

We see a creative opportunity with diaspora bonds to not only increase resources for development, but also empower our immigrant communities to help their families back home.

Naser Kaid thinks diaspora bonds are brilliant.

He's considering investing in the new bonds available from Ethiopia.

"It's one of the best ideas," he says. "Countries can use the money, it doesn't cost you much, and you get it back!"