Canadian diplomats stationed in 12 missions around the world walked off the job on Thursday in a dispute with the federal government over compensation. The diplomats are members of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO), a union and professional association representing foreign service officers working for the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) and Citizenship and […]
Read moreA new report by Canada’s largest association of petroleum companies projects that the country’s oil production will double to 6.7 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2030 as a result of increased production in Northern Alberta’s oil sands region. The outlook, published by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, estimates that production in the oil sands will increase from 1.8 […]
Read moreFollowing recent changes to the citizenship application process that increased the difficulty of acquiring Canadian citizenship, including the introduction of proof of minimum language proficiency and an increase in the difficulty of the citizenship knowledge test, the federal government is reversing course to make it easier for permanent residents to meet citizenship eligibility requirements. According to an announcement made on Monday, […]
Read moreAs part of the effort to combat bogus asylum claims, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced on Thursday that two more countries have been designated as ‘safe’ countries from which asylum claims will be given an expedited treatment. CIC created the list of designated countries of origin (DCOs) in December 2012 to stem the tide of welfare seekers from European […]
Read moreThe Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a think tank established by the founder of Canadian firm Research in Motion, Jim Balsillie, released a study this week that finds immigration source countries benefit from the migration of their skilled workers to the developed world due to the foreign remittance, investment and philanthropy that their emigrants give back. The study proposes […]
Read moreThe influx of immigrants accounts for a slight decline in Canadian bilingualism over the last decade, according to Statistics Canada. Approximately 17.5 percent of Canadians in the 2011 Census reported being able to speak both English and French. This was down from a peak of 17.7 percent in 2001. In 1961, the rate of French-English bilingualism was only 12.2 percent, […]
Read moreA new TD analysis of the recently released 2011 National Household Survey (NHS) shows Asia is the largest, though shrinking, source of immigrants to Canada. While 60 percent of immigrants originated in Asia, which includes the Middle East, in 2005, by 2011 that number had declined to 56.9 percent. The three largest source countries for immigrants were all Asian: the […]
Read moreA story in Saturday’s Vancouver Sun reports that an increasing number of Canadian citizenship of Hong Kong origin are moving back to the South East Asian city, according to demographic data: Statistics Canada’s numbers tell the tale. Despite Canada’s rapid population growth in the past 15 years, there are now 32,000 fewer Hong Kong-born residents in Canada than there were in […]
Read moreAmid the headlines in recent weeks of a group of Muslim extremists plotting a terrorist attack in Canada, a look at some of the mundane ways in which Canada’s growing Muslim communities are having an impact can be a refreshing reminder that the bad apples are few and far between, and that the majority of Muslim-Canadians are ordinary individuals who […]
Read moreCanadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney will be visiting California’s Silicon Valley on Friday for a four day trip intended to promote Canada as a place to live for the region’s entrepreneurs. According to an article in San Jose’s Mercury News, a billboard is currently appearing near Silicon Valley advertising Canada to foreign tech workers struggling with H-1B visa […]
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