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.
Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister wants business to be more like the government of Saskatchewan. Jason Kenney is calling on employers to actively seek out and recruit the skilled immigrants they need, as Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is doing in Ireland this week, so that the Immigration Department can fast-track their applications and address Canada’s skills shortages.
A huge immigration wave has brought thousands of new children into Winnipeg schools and produced enrolment growth in the province’s public schools for the second straight year. The Department of Education’s enrolment report released this week reports net growth of 1,354 students in public schools — a growth of 0.8 per cent, after a net gain of 173 students last year ended 16 years of what appeared to be inexorably declining enrolment. The immigrant-driven growth is predominantly in urban centres, including Brandon, Portage la Prairie and Steinbach, while most rural divisions continue to get smaller.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/immigration-swells-numbers-141003943.html
The Conservative government is poised to overhaul the immigration system to give employers an important role in the selection of new Canadians. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said he plans to build a faster, more flexible, just-in-time immigration regime. He’s also going to redesign the points system, on which immigrants are judged, to emphasize language ability and youth.
The workers are often the same from year to year and they work at the same farms and shop in the same communities, typically from April through to autumn. Yet they remain mostly isolated from the Canadian mainstream and are unlikely to integrate, according to a new study from the Institute for Research on Public Policy.
Ontario is one of only three provinces to impose a waiting period before new immigrants can receive public health insurance, and opposition to the restriction has united civic politicians, doctors, nurses and immigration settlement workers. Newly arrived immigrants cannot get OHIP coverage for the first three months they are in Ontario. Refugees are supposed to be covered by a special federal health plan, but it is unpopular with physicians, who say it takes too long and is too bureaucratic.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada is poised to crack down on so-called “passport babies” or “birth tourism” — the practice of travelling to Canada to give birth so that child can have Canadian citizenship — as a media report out of China reveals a ring of consultants are coaching pregnant women to do exactly that. “We are aware of crooked consultants who encourage pregnant women to illegally travel to Canada to give birth and gain access to Canada’s considerable benefits,” Citizenship and Immigration spokeswoman Candice Malcolm told Postmedia News on Sunday.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/birth-tourism-pains-canada-140534943.html