Monthly Archives: May 2013

Immigration Reduces Canadian Bilingualism Since 2001

The 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, […]

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Capital City Ottawa Voted as Canada’s Most Boring City

(Via Global BC) Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, beat out five other nominees to be voted as the country’s most boring city in the annual “Boring Awards” ceremony held last Tuesday. Other cities nominated for the most boring title were: Laval (Quebec), Lethbridge (Alberta), Abbotsford (British Columbia), and Brampton (Ontario). Despite being the most boring, Ottawa is also the “richest” large […]

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B.C. Spends Less On Health, Has Healthiest Population in Canada

British Columbia has the healthiest residents among the Canadian provinces according to a new Conference Board of Canada (CBoC) study. The B.C. provincial government spends less than almost all other Canadian provinces on health care, but still comes out on top in the health care ranking thanks to the healthy lifestyles of B.C. residents, who have the lowest smoking rates […]

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TD Report: Asia No. 1 Source of Immigrants to Canada, But Share Shrinking

A 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 […]

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Vancouver Sun: Hong Kong Immigrants Returning to Asian Homeland

A 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 […]

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Muslim Immigration Fueling “Islamic Banking” in Canada

Amid 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 […]

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Immigration Minister to Visit Silicon Valley to Promote ‘Start Up Visa’

Canadian 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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Passports to be Handled by Citizenship and Immigration Canada

The federal government announced last week that Canadian passports would come under the responsibility of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) this summer. Passport Canada is currently managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), which will officially transfer control of the program to CIC on July 2 2013. Service Canada, which is a part of Human Resources […]

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Parent and Grandparent Immigration Program to Re-Open in 2014

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced on Friday that it will lift the moratorium on new Parent and Grandparent (PGP) permanent resident applications on January 2, 2014. The program has been closed to new applications since November 2011 to give CIC time to work down the mounting backlog of parent and grandparent sponsorship applications. Commenting on the program re-opening, Citizenship […]

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