While Canada, since the 1970’s, has progressively seen more of its immigration come from Asian countries, there has been at least some hard evidence that immigration from Europe is increasing as well.
Canada remains one of the few open immigrant-friendly countries. What’s more, in many respects it has suffered much less than most during the worldwide financial crisis that started in 2008—with its banks declared the best in the world.
With the effects of this financial crisis still being felt, and even intensifying in Europe, Canada has once again, like generations ago, become an option for European immigration.
Recent news stories on CanadaVisa.com highlight booming resource and energy-driven economies in provinces from one end of Canada to the other, such as:
- Saskatchewan (see Destination Saskatchewan),
- Alberta (see Alberta tops in North America for economic freedom),
- British Columbia (see BC looking to boost skilled worker immigration), and
- Newfoundland and Labrador (see Newfoundland and Labrador, another province in need of skilled labour).
The articles listed above point out that along with these economic booms, there has been a resulting skilled labour shortage that extends into the future. They also demonstrate that viable immigrant destinations exist in many of Canada’s provinces, not just in traditional immigrant enclaves like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Another article on CanadaVisa.com explains that at least some of this skilled labour gap being felt across the country is being filled with Europeans: see Irish influx to Canada, more to come.
Florin Tiron, a Romanian carpenter, will be among these European newcomers. While he has been working in Italy for the past ten years, because of recent economic hardship in Italy he can only get work part time. He has therefore decided to leave, not to return to his native Romania, but instead to come to Canada under the Quebec Skilled Worker program.
Florin will come with his wife and young child, exactly the kind of demographic Quebec is after.
While Quebec is a great destination for highly skilled and educated workers, as profiled in last month’s CIC News articleQuebec’s Attraction for Knowledge-based Workers, it is also a great destination for trades people, such as bricklayers, and in the case of Florin, carpenters. Several trades like these score high in Quebec’s point-based immigration system, which also does not require a job offer like many other Canadian immigration programs.
Quebec is also home to an increasingly large number of Francophone Europeans who fill a spectrum of jobs in their new homebase.
With Spanish unemployment hovering around 20%, and Greek immigration to Germany up 84% this year alone—Germany being virtually the only vibrant economy left in Europe—Europeans are left looking for other options.
Nudrrat Khawaja is another case in point. She was born and lived most of her life in Lahore Pakistan, working as a Senior Associate Producer at the television station Express 24/7. More recently, however, she has been completing a Master’s of Business Administration in Liverpool, in the UK.
“I would have liked to stay in the UK,” she says, “but there are no jobs here for foreign students, or a clear way to become a resident, Canada is my only option.”
Nudrrat is planning to pursue her studies in Canada, where she then can become eligible for immigration under programs such as the Canadian Experience Class, or through the newly available PhD eligibility criteria of the Federal Skilled Worker program.
“Every time something bad happens in the world,” says Attorney David Cohen, “people think of Canada as an optional destination for them. Unfortunately there has been a lot of turmoil in the world these past few years, including in Europe. We are seeing that Canada has again become popular as a destination for Europeans like it was generations ago for my own family.”
Both for native born Europeans, like Florin, and for those in transit who might have in other circumstances remained in Europe, like Nudrrat, Canada’s stability, and varied provincial booms, position it once again to become a hot ticket for those across the pond.
