an alliance of university, community, and government partners dedicated to fostering welcoming communities and promoting the integration of immigrants and minorities across Canada
The Media Roundup provides links to recent and archived articles, in both English and French, on immigration and diversity appearing in the national and local news. Some international content is also included. Articles are updated weekly.
A new system for granting refugee status came into force this weekend, allowing claimants from the European Union, Croatia and the United States to have their applications fast-tracked. The goal of the new rules, according to the federal government, is to weed out bogus cases more quickly, but some worry it doesn’t offer legitimate claimants enough time to prepare their cases.
Manitoba may not be the most popular vacation destination, but for people seeking employment in the Great White North it’s a pretty good place to settle. Statistics Canada reported Friday the province is home to the highest employment rate in the country for landed immigrants ages 25 to 54. The agency said 82.5 per cent of immigrants in this core age group living in Manitoba were employed in 2011, well above the national average of 75.6 per cent.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/employment-rate-for-immigrants-best-here-183614011.html
“They are not jails,” insists Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. “In the case of the Toronto one, for example, the main one, it’s a former three-star hotel with a fence around it.” So Kenney told CBC News when it presented him with the fact that 289 children of asylum-seekers are being held in Canadian detention centres while their parents’ immigration status is being decided. He had no comment on what can been openly seen and photographed: children’s outdoor slides surrounded by actual razor-wire fences, guards, surveillance cameras and rooms with barred windows. Of the detained children, 75 are under 5 years old, 65 are aged 6 to 9, 55 are 10 to12 and 92 are between 13 and 17, the CBC reported. It would be one thing if these children were allowed to live with their families, but no. Canada keeps the fathers in a separate section of the building. Children and their mothers can visit them only at set times.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1302604–canada-puts-asylum-toddlers-behind-razor-wire
The first batch of the so-called “designated countries of origin” list, unveiled Friday, includes 25 European Union member states, the United States and Croatia. They are all countries the government has declared generally safe and therefore unlikely to produce real refugee claimants.
People from those countries will now have their refugee claims expedited and lose some avenues of appeal if they are rejected, including the ability to ask for a stay of deportation pending a Federal Court hearing. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney stressed that the merits of claims from the designated countries will be assessed the same as others.
An attempt by two unions to stop more temporary Chinese workers from coming to Canada has been tossed out by a Federal Court judge. Judge James Russell said Friday in his ruling denying the injunction that any alleged loss the unions claim will be suffered by the Canadian labour market remains nebulous. The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115 and Local 1611 of the Construction and Specialized Workers Union wanted the injunction in place until their broader legal challenge against the mining company’s foreign worker permits can be heard at a judicial review.
Immigrants are less likely to have a job than their Canadian-born counterparts, according to Statistics Canada data released Friday. The data agency says the employment rate for what it calls core-aged immigrants (those between the ages of 25 and 54) was 75.6 per cent last year. That lags behind the employment rate of 82.9 per cent for people born in Canada. Employment among landed immigrants in the agency’s core working-age group increased 4.3 per cent from the previous year.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/12/14/business-immigrant-employment.html