Is Canada's brand strong enough to attract the immigrants it wants?

English: From left to right, the flags of Sask...
English: From left to right, the flags of Saskatchewan, Canada, and Alberta flying together in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan/Alberta (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


This is part of The Immigrant Answer –The Globe's series on the future of immigration in Canada. Read the original story here.
Stefania Cruz is a catch: 24, ambitious, bright and fluent in English as well as Spanish. In a year, she will complete her degree in industrial engineering at the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Tampico, northeast of Mexico City – training that is desperately sought in Canada's oil sands.
For the past four months, she has worked as a research intern in Vancouver, beefing up her language skills and earning a gleaming reference from her employer. But will she be back?
Upon graduation, Ms. Cruz will decide between Mexico's two northern neighbours. “The United States feels like a land of opportunity,” she concedes, a place with better job prospects and bigger salaries. But Canada feels more like home: “The people are very nice, open and willing to help you. They don't care where I come from.”
They also need her.
The challenges presented by Canada's aging population, low birth rate and growing labour shortages make a strong case for a significant boost in immigration. But the country also should pay particular attention to those it would like to come.
As well as young people like Stefania Cruz, there is a high demand for skilled workers such as Bernard Cross, an Irish heavy-machinery mechanic with 27 years' experience who will arrive in Saskatchewan in two weeks to repair trucks – and take up a post his new boss in Lloydminster has been trying to fill for three years.
Also required are dynamic innovators and job creators such as Sander de Block, who is commercial director of Tocardo International, a Dutch developer of hydro-turbine technology, and currently considering whether to set up shop in Nova Scotia.
Last year, Canada brought in 156,000 economic immigrants and their dependents, along with 191,000 temporary workers, and many more would like to follow suit. But are they the cream of the 640 million global migrants seeking a new home every year?
As countries jockey to lure the most creative and skilled employees – the ones who will drive the knowledge economy and energize its aging society – Canada can't simply wait for them to appear. It must step up the effort to sell the Canadian brand around the world – to get those with the most talent to see it not just as a land of tolerance for diversity, but as a nucleus of economic opportunity.
“We are getting the best who apply, but are those who apply the best?” asks Howard Duncan of the Ottawa-based International Metropolis Project, which researches migration and diversity. “At some point, especially looking at Canada's competitiveness in the international migration market, we are going to have to look at immigration as national – as opposed to a federal, provincial, employer or university project – and put those frictions behind us because there is more at stake.”
The Last Best West revisited a century later
History seems to be repeating itself. In the 1870s, much as now, the West was booming but short on bodies. So the federal government launched an advertising campaign called The Last Best West, targeting farmers and labourers in Britain, the United States and Europe with the offer of free land.
The recruiters ran ads in newspaper, launched touring exhibitions, distributed promotional posters, even covertly bribed steamship ticket agents to pitch Canada to travellers – all to sell a sprawling countryside where a clever newcomer could make a fortune.
The campaign was a success: By 1900, about 1.6 million immigrants had arrived, a number that doubled by 1910 – enough to populate newly formed Alberta and Saskatchewan, and to dampen any expansionist tendencies lurking to the south.
Even so, there were concerns about the “quality” of the newcomers – or, as prairie clergyman J.S. Woodsworth, future leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, put it: “Within the past decade, a nation has been born. ... But how shall we weld this heterogeneous mass into one people?”
Leap ahead 140 years, and Canada's goal is the same, although the groups being targeted are not, and the global landscape has changed dramatically. In the race for the brightest, the United States is way out in front – according to a recent Gallup survey, 23 per cent of all potential migrants want to chase the American dream. Canada ranks third, the preferred destination of 7 per cent, and has fierce rivals in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and, barring recent economic circumstances, most of Europe.
Roughly 13 per cent of the world's adult population would like to settle in another country, but Canada isn't necessarily the destination of choice, or even on the radar. And there is no co-ordinated national approach to solving that problem, as attempts to recruit the best and brightest amount to a patchwork of initiatives – job and education fairs, Web advertising and efforts by individual employers and communities – at times hindered by a misguided sense of rivalry between different parts of the country.
The real competition, as one venture capitalist points out, is the rest of the world. And while Canadian universities are steadily elevating their brands globally, to ambitious parents in New Delhi who can afford to send their children abroad to study, Oxford and Harvard remain storied, household names.
Immigration experts like to talk about Hollywood movies project images of an optimistic, vibrant United States. (Even now, Captain America stars in the biggest movie of the year.) Without its own multibillion-dollar publicity machine, Canada is seen by many as a colder, more cautious cousin, with cities that serve as U.S. stand-ins in the movies, rather than being great metropolises themselves.
In places such as India, entrepreneurs say, Canada is still known more for its service-industry jobs than for its energetic innovation. And, as noted by Roopa Desai Trilokekar, a specialist in international education at Toronto's York University, negative messages are hard to reverse. It's widely known that immigrants are doing less well in Canada of late, she says. The recent decision by Canada to wipe out its immigration backlog in one fell swoop – thereby dashing the hopes of people who had waited years in the queue – hasn't helped. Even newspaper stories about crime rates in Saskatchewan have deterred Irish tradespeople considering offers from employers there.
Still, Simon Anholt, a London-based adviser on country-engagement strategy, points out that Canada is almost universally admired. He says foreigners just have trouble articulating the basis for that admiration – which is a key weakness in our national brand: They like us; they just don't know why.
“There are a lot of people for whom Canada resonates positively,” says Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies. “We need to expand their knowledge.”
Hunt for new Canadians begins in the classroom
One area where Canada is bolstering its recruitment effort is in drawing international students such as Stefania Cruz – the 2011 federal budget set aside $10-million to develop a proper strategy. The interest in students comes, in large part, from the tuition money they bring with them, as well adding a global perspective to classrooms and valuable research skills to graduate programs.
Seeing them as potential immigrants is controversial, since it raises the indelicate matter of poaching from nations that need their best talent to come home. But students are key because for many, foreign education is the first step in an immigration process – in surveys, as many as 60 per cent of international students say they would like to stay in Canada. If they do, they leave school with social networks, strong language skills, Canadian credentials – the kind of people the country wants. Even if they return home, they have built ties to Canada that may develop into business opportunities and diplomatic links, and they raise Canada's profile.
The U.S. attracts 20 per cent of foreign students, followed by Britain with 12 per cent. Canada draws only about 4 per cent – slightly more than half that of Australia, a comparable market. At 7 per cent, the Australians have seen a 40-per-cent increase in the past decade, although recruitment efforts suffered significantly after racially motivated attacks on students from India, further demonstrating how quickly reputations can be damaged.
To tap this market more aggressively, in 2007, Immigration Canada took the bold step of changing the postgraduation opportunities for international students – allowing them to remain for three years, even if they don't immediately have a job offer in their field – a significant departure from the previous policy, which gave them six months, even as the U.S. and Britain have tightened their restrictions. Ontario has set a goal of increasing foreign enrolment by 50 per cent, introducing the Trillium Scholarship and spending $30-million over four years to give free rides to top PhD students from around the world.
But Canadian universities have joined the game relatively late. In the 1990s, when Prof. Desai Trilokekar was working for the British government to recruit students, she noticed that there were no Canada-specific education offices in India – and there still aren't. When students came in asking about Canada back then, she had nowhere to send them – often not even an education contact at the local consulate.
Meanwhile, countries such as Britain and Australia have been especially aggressive in setting up such offices, approaching recruitment as a national, rather than institutional, goal. This approach is complicated for Canada, as provinces oversee education, so it lacks, as with many recruiting initiatives, a healthy infrastructure to sell the notion of coming here for an education.
Although institutions such as the University of British Columbia are stepping up their efforts, Prof. Desai Trilokekar contends that Canada has failed to capitalize fully on alumni networks found in many countries or to recognize the significant benefit (at relatively low cost) of a locally hired education officer speaking on its behalf. (Some universities use private recruiters, but as well as fraud being a potential problem, students and parents are more willing to consider options when presented by an official government representative.) This is especially important because, while grad students will seek out the best programs in their field, undergrads are more likely to base their decision on how they see the country in question.
If attracting top students from around the world is challenging, it's even harder to identify and recruit the next Steve Jobs or Mike Lazaridis, who could be graduating from an engineering program in Bangalore with a big idea and looking somewhere to plant it. A new program of start-up visas that will help young foreign entrepreneurs with little capital has been well received by the business community. But venture capitalists such as Chris Arsenault, managing partner at iNovia Capital in Montreal, say Canada still needs to work at developing its critical mass of entrepreneurs as well as specific hubs, such as video in Montreal, e-commerce in Toronto and high tech in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.
But the issue, he suggests, also includes raising the profile of existing companies, and selling the message that you don't need to be in Silicon Valley to be successful. Canada has many positives: its quality of life, stable economy, educated work force, proximity to the U.S. and European markets. “But when you sell California,” he adds, “you are not selling the beach or the sun, it's a cultural thing” – an energy that Canada has yet to project.
To accomplish this, Mr. Arsenault says, successful companies and start-ups must connect with global peers both to exploit their experience and to spread the word that Canada is “fertile ground” for innovators.
But that also requires making a personal connection, says Suneet Singh Tuli, the Toronto-based chief executive officer of Datawind, a wireless developer that has devised a $57 tablet computer and signed a contract to distribute it to students in India.
Mr. Singh Tuli arrived in this country when he was 11 and says he regularly talks up Canadian opportunities when he travels. “Canada, in my opinion, is the natural choice,” he says. “Unfortunately, there's still a perception that it's America's sleeping neighbour and all the action is in the United States. I tell them they are wrong – all the action is here. You are on the doorstep of wherever you want to be.”
As an example of what Canada could do to project a different global image, Mr. Singh Tuli cites a recent program started in Britain to identify high-achieving entrepreneurs as “ambassadors,” both to help mentor local (and incoming) young innovators and to raise the country's international profile.
There are two advantages to encouraging successful young Canadians to be more prominent at global gatherings, he points out. “It allows us to pitch Canada. And the validation it bring us is also important – that we are not Lone Rangers in the wilderness; we are credible people with the support and backing of the Canadian government.”
Good-bye Australia. Canada, hello
Bernard Cross can't find work in his native Ireland, but he has a gold-plated résumé in Canada. For 27 years, he has worked as a factory-trained Volvo mechanic, fixing truck engines, training apprentices and supervising on a dealer's shop floor.
One Sunday morning in March, he stood in line with more than 6,000 compatriots at a foreign job fair. After waiting three hours, he sat down with Leonard Conlon, the plain-spoken owner of Midwest Truck Centre, who had come from Lloydminster with a delegation organized by the province and led by Premier Brad Wall.
Mr. Conlon had been looking for someone like Bernard Cross for three years – plus his credentials could be easily transferred to Canada, and language, obviously, wasn't a barrier. One handshake and four hours of filling out immigration application forms later, and the deal was struck: Mr. Cross will land in Saskatchewan on May 24, followed by his wife and three children.
It sounds deceptively simple – a match of mutual opportunity. But the Saskatchewan government, facing, like all western provinces, a shortage of skilled employees to keep the economy booming, had orchestrated the encounter, taking up half the space in a convention room at the Royal Dublin Society, hoping to out-pitch such rivals as New Zealand and Australia, also in attendance.
Mr. Wall walked the lineup himself, fielding questions about the price of milk and how long it would take to get a driver's licence. In the best-land-to-live competition, his province lost to Down Under on winter and how well the Irish could find it on a map, but won on affordable housing and a shorter flight home for family visits.
Saskatchewan had strategically organized a one-stop event: Once an employer offered a job, a cheerful immigration staffer next door assisted with the application forms. In an adjacent room, an Irish couple who made the move last year also fielded questions. It was a success by the only standard that counts: The 27 employers who made trip had hoped to fill 272 vacancies, but at last count were up to 282 job offers, and counting.
Employment fairs aren't new, but they are a recruitment tactic of choice for western provinces and employers, especially now that economically troubled Europe seems to be such a rich vein for workers. A significant shift has been to clear the ground work for approving foreign credentials – the British Columbia Construction Association, which also visited Ireland in March, met in advance with Irish professional associations. Perhaps even more significant is the fact that employers, even smaller companies, now come along, ready to hire on the spot if they find what they need.
A strong recruitment campaign must recognize what entices people to uproot their lives and settle in another country: good jobs or schooling, proximity to family back home, as well as social support, an easy route to citizenship, a strong economy and stable government. Highly skilled travellers aren't coming for their kids any more: “They are coming for themselves,” says Dr. Duncan, the Ottawa researcher. “If they don't make it in three to six months, they're gone. They don't have the patience of immigrants who came in the fifties, sixties and seventies.”
To that end, current Canadian approaches to recruitment, especially for skilled workers also being wooed by countries such as Australia, have focused on making firm job offers in advance of arrival – and reducing the timeline for starting that new job.
An effective plan also includes making newcomers want to stay. Sometimes, it doesn't work out: Bryan MacFadden, the Saskatoon division manager for Allnorth Consultants, hired two engineers and an engineering technologist after making a hard sell for Saskatchewan. But he lost a top candidate to an Australian company that offered a higher salary.
At the same time, the kind of immigrant who does choose Canada says a lot about where its sales pitch succeeds and where it falls down: A 2010 Gallup survey found that, compared with the United States, Canada is more likely to be a first choice among older, highly educated immigrants, especially those from Asia and Europe. As well, transnational networks are clearly important: A 2011 analysis of Gallup data from 146 countries found that adults who had friends or family in another country were three times as likely to express a desire to move there.
Bernard Cross illustrates this finding. On the weekend of the job fair, he had just arrived home from Australia with a firm offer in hand and expecting to move there imminently. Why did he change his mind? In large part because his wife has family in Canada. After all, newcomers are also natural ambassadors to potential workers at home: “Who is getting the message out is a reflection of who is here,” Dr. Jedwab explains.
The city that refused to just hope for the best
The personal touch is also behind a new immigration initiative by the Manitoba municipality of Winkler-Stanley, which began advertising for newcomers on the Web. Marketing doesn't have to be fancy, the community of 12,000 found – a simple ad on the Chamber of Commerce site quickly went viral through online forums. With the help of an immigration consultant, Winkler was looking for new residents who matched a certain skill set, or were interested in starting a business. Within months, 130 résumés had landed, and last summer, city representatives travelled to Berlin to interview the best candidates, co-ordinating with local employers to offer jobs. They spoke to pharmaceutical researchers, tradespeople, midwives, a doctor who had travelled from Israel. They also interviewed potential first-time entrepreneurs.
It wasn't just a job interview, says Darlis Collinge, Winkler's economic development officer; the candidates discussed their families and their hobbies, and asked questions about musical opportunities in Winkler and soccer teams for their kids.
“We really wanted to get to know who these people were,” Ms. Collinge says, “because we didn't want to just bring people over to fill jobs. We wanted people who will make a home here.”
Back in Winkler, a committee approved a final list of applicants, the first of whom will arrive this summer. In the fall, Winkler plans another recruiting trip, this time to Moscow and including a contingent of employers.
Stefania's choice: job offer is ‘most important'
To some extent, this is a step-by-step process; each successful recruitment strategy, from word of mouth, to networking, to face-to-face hires creates an opportunity for another.
For Stefania Cruz, her final decision, she says, will also come down to logistics: which country (and employer) signals that it wants her the most. Ultimately, she is pragmatic: “I want to work in the industry,” particularly in quality control and production. “The job offer is most important.”
For Sander de Block, the personal approach – and the genuine interest shown by Nova Scotia representatives – has won him over: “In most places, it stops with being wined and dined, getting a nice brochure, or a tax rebate,” he says. In Nova Scotia, he says, the conversation was also about fostering his company's innovation.
As for Mr. Cross, he isn't even in Canada and already he is serving as ambassador for his adopted land. Last weekend, in his country home about 30 kilometres west of Dublin, he played host to a Canadian-style barbecue for a handful of other families also en route to Saskatchewan.
“I feel like I won the lotto,” he says of the job awaiting him.
Back in Lloydminster, his new employer echoes the sentiment: The Irish trip, Leonard Conlon says, “was the best thing that happened to me.”
And looking to the future, Canada needs to make connections like this happen much more often.
‘Innovation Idol’
Last year, venture-capital fund Innovacorp conducted the Nova Scotia Cleantech Open, a global competition that offered, among other incentives, $100,000 for the best non-polluting tech proposal by a company either in the province or willing to set up shop there.
As well as advertising online, Innovacorp actively sought out candidates around the world – which was no mean feat, according to investment manager Thomas Rankin. “It's hard enough to find an entrepreneur in your backyard.”
The results: 65 submissions from China, the Caribbean and Europe, as well as several fledgling local companies, one of which was the eventual winner. Still, Innovacorp has stayed in contact with other finalists – and raised the profile of Nova Scotia as a hub for clean-tech development.
The personal touch
This summer, Edmonton's economic development agency will conduct a marketing campaign in the U.S. to attract unemployed, skilled workers, taking along a contingent of oil sands employers looking for thousands of engineers, mechanics and welders.
To sell the idea of moving to Canada, the recruiters will rely on a combination of the familiar “quality of life” pitch and a solid message about just how big Alberta natural-resource projects are.
“No one really understands the order of magnitude in the oil sands,” says Mike Wo, executive director of the Edmonton Economic Development Corp. “We want them to understand it's a massive undertaking and there are literally, dozens and dozens of employers who would be thrilled to have them.”
The agency is going so far as to fly in potential hires to show them what Edmonton is like. Pooling their resources, employers will cover the cost of group flights so that candidates can check out the city, from its housing and university to the quality of its golf courses.
The brain gain
Next month, a federal advisory panel will publish a report proposing how Canada can improve its recruiting of international students – an initiative supported by $10-million from Ottawa.
Meanwhile, universities and provinces go it alone – attending education fairs abroad, targeting certain regions (India, in particular), expanding their social-media presence and building research ties with foreign universities.
Recruiting consultant Gardiner Wilson says that attracting foreign students “serves any number of positive objectives.” But other countries, such as Singapore and Malaysia, have become rivals and, he says, Canada “got a slow start. ... It's a bit tricky when there is no department to take on the role at a national level.”
To fill the void, several provinces have special sections within their education ministries, such as the Manitoba International Education Council.
Sending students abroad is also a major part of Canada's strategy as countries are more open to two-way exchanges. Brazil recently announced a $1.65-billion initiative to send 100,000 science students to foreign schools, including 12,000 to Canada. It will pay their way with tax dollars and corporate contributions – provided that they agree to return home.
— With files from Tavia Grant and James Bradshaw



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Report urges Canada to double down on foreign students to fuel innovation

English: International Students
English: International Students (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


Canada should double the number of international students studying here by 2022, a new report commissioned by the federal government says.
The task force responsible for the report, headed by Western University president Amit Chakma, wants Ottawa to boost the number of international students from about 239,130 to 450,000 in 10 years – from kindergarten through Grade 12 and post-secondary institutions – without taking away seats from Canadians.
The 122-page report entitled International Education, a Key Driver of Canada’s Future Prosperity, released on Tuesday, makes a connection between attracting international students and filling labour market shortages.
Calling the report’s recommendations ambitious, Dr. Chakma said he anticipates most of that recruitment will go to the growing economies of Western Canada.
“Our larger institutions may not have as much capacity to take on [additional] international students ... because they already have been recruiting aggressively, but there is a lot of potential room in our northern institutions and Western provinces,” Dr. Chakma said.
International students spent a total of $8-billion in Canada during 2010, up from $6.5-billion in 2008.
“There aren’t too many sectors that have shown that degree of growth, especially during the economic recession,” said Paul Davidson, president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.
The Conservatives put aside $10-million in their 2011 budget for the advisory panel on attracting the top young talent globally and catching up with countries such as the United States, Britain and Australia.
But aside from the immediate boost to the economy, international students are often seen as prime candidates to immigrate, with the established Canadian credentials and work experience for successful application. Even if these students return home, the panel report said, their ties to Canada might develop into business opportunities and diplomatic relations, and generally raise Canada’s profile abroad.
The University of Alberta’s international student population has already doubled to 10 per cent for undergraduates, and president Indira Samarasekera says there is room to grow.
“Especially in Alberta, parents like to hear that the return on investment is almost immediate with so many job opportunities,” she said.
The competition was already fierce for international students.
Countries such as India and China – Canada’s top suppliers of international students – are trying to reverse the brain drain. In 2011, India increased higher education spending by 30 per cent while the Chinese government aims to enroll 500,000 international students by 2020, twice the number it now hosts and more than it sends abroad.
“It’s dangerous to rely on international students to bring in income for Canadian universities, especially since India and China are expanding rapidly,” said Dru Marshall, provost at University of Calgary. “We might not always have access to those students.”
Paul Davidson, president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada also said the costs of marketing abroad and ensuring international students’ needs are met once they arrive in Canada will likely offset much of the potential revenue generation for cash-strapped universities.
Both, however, said the real advantage is in exposing young Canadians minds to other cultures.
That’s why the task force also recommended creating 50,000 opportunities per year for Canadian students to go abroad for study and cultural exchanges. About nine in 10 Canadian students go to university in their home province.
Other countries are also trying to buck that trend. Over the next four years, the Brazilian government will spend $2-billion to help send more than 100,000 of its best students to universities globally to help forge future economic ties. Canada will receive about 12,000 of them, the second-highest total of all recipient countries.
The panel, however, shied away from asking Ottawa to commit to a dollar figure on international education investments, saying individual provinces and institutions will have unique needs.
Ottawa will consider these recommendations and possibly incorporate them into a global commerce strategy due in 2013.
Dr. Chakma said Western is prepared to earmark $1,000 and raise another $1,000 from alumni and donors per travelling fellowship, if Ottawa also commits $1,000.
“Unfortunately, the strategy ignores the skyrocketing costs faced by international students,” said Adam Awad, national chairman of the Canadian Federation of Students.
Many recruiters say that while Canada has a generally positive name abroad, they have difficulty articulating exactly what its brand is. And considering that education in Canada is primarily a provincial jurisdiction, developing a national brand is a challenge.
Some provinces, such as B.C., have already announced province-specific plans to recruit international students. Even so, Dr. Chakma said a “united front” is needed. That’s because research indicates that while students will always seek out well-known schools like Harvard, Oxford and McGill, most choose their international education destination based on a country’s reputation.
“Several university presidents went to Brazil, and while we were all promoting our individual institutions, we got much better access and coverage because it was a Canadian mission under a Canadian banner,” Dr. Chakma said.
Ms. Samarasekera agreed, adding that “people get confused when you talk about provinces with international students.”
“It doesn’t mean anything to them ... students don’t necessarily want to go to California or Massachusetts; they want to go the United States,” she said. “We need to do the same for Canada.”



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Residency bid for Chinese wife fails as immigration crackdown focuses on marriage fraud

BY DOUGLAS QUAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS AUGUST 14, 2012


Neil Macdonald insisted his marriage to a woman he met on a Chinese dating website was genuine and that she was his “soul mate.”
But a federal judge was unmoved, recently upholding immigration officials’ decision to deny the Kitchener, Ont., man’s attempts to sponsor his wife, Zheng Qun Huang, for permanent residence in Canada on the grounds she was interested only in a ticket to this country.
The decision comes at a time when the government has introduced measures to crack down on marriage fraud, making it much more difficult, immigration lawyers say, to apply for spousal sponsorship.
“No question, decisions on spousal sponsorships are getting tougher,” said Toronto immigration lawyer Jacqueline Bart. “We have to work harder as lawyers to make sure the application package we submit … is very strong.”
In 2006, Macdonald registered with two websites, Chinese Lovelinks and Cherry Blossoms.
Chinese Lovelinks bills itself as a website for people interested in “serious Chinese dating and relationships.” Cherry Blossoms boasts profiles for thousands of single Chinese, Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese women “who are looking for online dating, love and romance.”
Macdonald, a financial adviser in his 60s, began to exchange emails with Zheng and also made several trips to visit her in China. The couple married in 2007, and in August 2008, Macdonald applied to sponsor his wife for permanent residence in Canada.
Four months later, a visa officer denied the application, concluding that the marriage was not bona fide and was entered into primarily for immigration purposes.
Macdonald took his case to the Immigration Appeal Division, which held a hearing in March 2011.
Macdonald’s lawyers, Mary Lam and Cecil Rotenberg, said in an interview Tuesday that they presented evidence showing that the couple exchanged emails daily, that Macdonald visited Zheng twice a year in China, and that Macdonald had set aside half of his estate to her in his will.
Macdonald’s son from a previous marriage also vouched for the genuineness of their relationship.
“We’re in an age where cross-cultural marriages are not unusual. We’re in an age of technology. You have to take that into account in relationships and marriages,” Lam said.
But the immigration adjudicator dismissed the appeal, saying that the relationship had “very little time to evolve and develop,” and that there were issues with Zheng’s credibility.
The adjudicator cited the fact that she had made no effort to learn English after five years of marriage, that she had failed to tell Macdonald about a condominium purchase in China, and also lacked knowledge of Macdonald’s son.
Zheng sought a “new life in a new land … with one of the first persons she met over the international website despite the ongoing and considerable language barrier,” the adjudicator concluded.
In a decision reached last Friday, federal Judge David Near said the appeal decision was reasonable.
Macdonald’s lawyers said Tuesday one thing that worked against their client was a change to immigration rules that took effect in September 2010.
In the past, determining a “bad faith” relationship required that two conditions be met: an immigration officer had to find that the marriage was not genuine and that the marriage was entered into primarily for the purpose of obtaining immigration status.
After the rule change, a sponsorship application could be denied so long as one of the conditions was met.
“We’re losing sight of the humanity,” Rotenberg said.
Given the tougher rules, immigration lawyers need to cull as many documents as possible that prove a couple’s relationship is loving and will “stand the test of time,” Bart said.
That includes photos, email exchanges and financial-support records – even documentation of sexual encounters.
“When a couple is in love they want to communicate. There is proof. And we access that proof,” she said.
Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said Tuesday he believes the crackdown on marriage fraud by the federal government is generally headed in the right direction, and that the Macdonald case is not indicative of any major surge in sponsorship denials.
The stricter regulations could have the effect, he said, of saving Canadian sponsors who enter into relationships in good faith only to be victimized by fraudsters seeking permanent status in Canada.
“People have to guard their hearts and wallets from abuse, the same way people do right here in Canada when they are thinking of spending forever with someone,” Kurland said. “It’s no different.”
Twitter.com/dougquan

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Canada may limit study permits and visas of foreign students


Nicholas Keung
Immigration Reporter 
In an attempt to weed out “disingenuous” international students, Ottawa plans to grant student visas and work permits to only those enrolling in government-accredited schools.
“The proposed regulatory changes would ensure that study permit holders are genuine students by requiring students to enroll in and actively pursue a course or program of study after arrival in Canada,” said Citizenship and Immigration spokesperson Nancy Caron.
“Institutions that are not designated by provinces and territories would no longer be able to host international students.”
Although the changes are still in the consultation phase, the proposal, published in the Canada Gazette, also recommended that work permits, whether for off-campus work or a co-op/internship program, be limited to visa students in accredited schools.
“Disingenuous study permit holders use their study permit as a primary means to gain full access to the Canadian labour market,” Caron noted.
“Strengthening aspects of the program that could be abused by fraudulent schools or non-genuine study permit applicants is vitally important to protect Canada’s reputation abroad.”
The proposed changes came just as a national task force released a report Tuesday calling on the government to double the number of international students studying in Canada by 2020. It urged Ottawa to ramp up efforts to attract foreign students, to encourage innovation and exchange.
The number of international students in Canada — taking anything from short-term language courses to post-graduate studies — has gone up by 36 per cent in the past five years, from 176,000 in 2007 to almost 240,000 last year. More than one-third of those students are studying in Ontario.
A recent study by the Canadian Bureau for International Education found that international students contributed $8 billion to the Canadian economy in 2010.
In overhauling the visa program, Ottawa is taking a leaf from Australia’s book. That nation adopted similar policies after seeing an upsurge of enrollments in fly-by-night colleges when it granted permission for foreign students to work in the country, then apply for permanent residency.
The international student program quickly became a conduit for immigration to otherwise unqualified candidates. Schools also reported students disappearing upon arrival.
In 2008, Ottawa launched the Canada Experience Class, to allow visitors on work and study permits to apply to become permanent residents. Since then, it has also expanded its work permit programs for foreign students.
The proposed changes are welcomed by the Canadian Consortium for International Education Marketing, which is made up of five national educational associations.
Accrediting qualifying schools could help crack down on sham colleges that offer substandard programs to foreign students, said Paul Brennan, of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, a member of the consortium dedicated to promoting Canadian education abroad.
Brennan said some of his group’s 130 member-schools have had visa students who withdrew, transferred or disappeared soon after arrival. A stronger monitoring system can help screen international students and track their movements, he said.
“It’s an issue of manpower. They need money to fund the enforcement and must keep the reporting system simple.”
Under the plan, student visas would no longer be issued to people who enroll in courses of less than six months. These students could instead come as visitors and apply for a study permit from within Canada, officials said.

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Moody's "very comfortable" with top Canada rating


TORONTO (Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service is "very comfortable" with its top Aaa credit rating for Canada because the country's fiscal and banking strength give it room to react to risks arising from the European debt crisis and Canada's hot housing market, Moody's chief analyst for Canada said on Thursday.
Steven Hess said he did not believe the risk from Canada's booming real estate sector was very great, but that he would not be surprised if there was some price correction. External risks from Europe would mainly flow to Canada from the United States, Canada's largest trading partner, he said.
"We still have a stable outlook on Canada and don't see any reason why that would change anytime soon," Hess said in an interview with Reuters.
"The fiscal situation being pretty good relative to other countries and ... our bank financial strength ratings for the Canadian banking system as a whole are the highest really of any banking system in the world."
Hess said if one is looking for risks to Canada they would come from high household debt and the heated housing market, but that Canada's strong banks and economic strengths would likely limit the fallout of a housing correction.
The Bank of Canada, in its semi-annual Financial System Review on Thursday, said the country's financial system remains highly vulnerable to a further escalation in the European debt crisis and the possibility of a correction in the housing market.
But even if a severe housing correction resulted in problem loans, Hess said Canada's big banks would be able to manage without having to resort to government help.
"It wouldn't be surprising if there was some correction in the housing market," Hess said. "Now will that cause a financial problem, system-wide? In the end we don't think that that risk is very great because of the lending standards that are in the banks, because the economy is still doing relatively well and employment is all right.
"You don't have the same thing that you had in the United States of people losing jobs before losing their houses. And also the legal framework surrounding foreclosures and whatever is different in Canada, and is more conducive to people continuing to service their loans."
Canada's federal housing agency said in a report on Thursday that the country's hot housing market will likely cool toward the end of 2012.
SAFE-HAVEN STATUS
Canada and Germany are alone among G7 countries in having Moody's highest credit rating with a stable outlook. Canada's prudent fiscal management and sound banking sector have been credited with helping it survive the global recession better than many countries.
Hess said Canada's strength - including the relatively positive budget positions of the federal and provincial governments and the prospect of eventual official interest rate increases - is turning Canada into a safe haven for foreign investment.
"In some sense, the Canadian government bond and Canadian dollar assets in general are taking on some characteristics of a haven currency internationally (with) investors who are wanting to diversify away from Europe because of the situation there," Hess said.
"And with the debt-limit question coming back to the fore in the United States, maybe some diversification away from the U.S. dollar is also desirable and Canada looks like a place you could put your money."
The emergence of Canada as an alternative safe haven for foreign investment is benefiting the government in terms of low bond yields. Hess said the proportion of Canadian government debt held by nonresidents has risen in the last couple of years to about 20 percent.
That is low compared with the United States, where nonresidents hold about 50 percent of U.S. Treasury bonds, and compared with France and Germany, where it is more than 60 percent.
"In Canada it is still relatively low so there is a lot of room, if you want to put it that way, for foreign investment coming into not just the federal government but the provinces as well," Hess said. "And this means that their borrowing costs are lower than they would be otherwise. Even if the Bank of Canada raises the short-term rates, the longer-term bond market is going to benefit from foreign demand."
Last month, the federal government announced a smaller-than-expected budget deficit for 2011-12, giving Finance Minister Jim Flaherty some leeway to react if needed to what he called an "unstable" situation in Europe, and keeping Ottawa on track in its plan to balance the budget by 2015-16.
Hess said Canada can't escape feeling the effect of any return to fiscal crisis in the United States or a knock-on effect of the euro zone debt crisis or breakup.
"It's not something we are predicting, but the risk to the financial system coming from Europe, for example, is there. And that would obviously have some spillover effects on Canada because of the close association of Canada and the U.S.," Hess said.
(Reporting By Andrea Hopkins and Claire Sibonney; Editing by Peter Galloway)

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Immigrant Underemployment is Costly for Canada, CIBC Says

English: Tour CIBC in Montreal.
English: Tour CIBC in Montreal. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Nirmala Menon


Bloomberg
A worker at an auto-parts plant in Ontario. A CIBC economist argues that changes to Canada’s immigration model could help productivity.
Immigrants in Canada are underemployed and paid less than Canadian-born workers, a phenomenon that’s costing the economy over 20 billion Canadian dollars in forgone earnings, and is probably  a significant factor in Canada’s productivity gap with the U.S., according to a report from CIBC World Markets.

Newcomers to Canada may be more educated now, but they only earn about 60 cents on the dollar relative to their Canadian-born counterparts. That compares with 80 cents on the dollar earned by those who arrived in the 1970s, the report says. The earnings gap is also narrowing at a much slower pace.

The crux of the issue is a mismatch between the skills that an immigrant brings and those the country needs, according to the report’s author, Benjamin Tal. Furthermore, immigrants are arriving with less proficiency in English or French, Canada’s official languages.

“This is not an efficient market,” Mr. Tal, who is deputy chief economist of CIBC World Markets, said in an interview.

He says Australia is doing a better job of narrowing the discrepancy between its native-born and immigrant populations, noting that the earnings gap is 50% smaller than in Canada. He says mandatory pre-immigration English language testing introduced in the 1990s is probably the key factor for the advantage that Australian immigrants enjoy. There’s also more coordination between government and the professional bodies responsible for licensing, so immigrants have a greater chance of success in their fields, he says.

Although many recent changes in Canadian immigration rules are modeled on Australia, Mr. Tal worries that Canada may be focusing too much on short-term needs.

“We should be taking a long term view,” he says.

The earnings disparity between immigrants and those born in Canada doesn’t bode well for the country’s lackluster productivity. Mr. Tal points to estimates that suggest some 20% of the increase in the productivity gap with the U.S. over the last decade can be attributed to immigration.

“Without a significant increase in immigration-based productivity, the aging profile of the Canadian population will work to reduce the standard of living all Canadians,” Mr. Tal writes.


http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2012/08/13/immigrant-underemployment-is-costly-for-canada-cibc-says/Enhanced by Zemanta

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