Voies vers la prospérité: Canada

Afin que les régions puissent bénéficier des retombées tant démographiques qu’économiques de l’immigration, le Québec s’est doté d’un réseau national de régionalisation. Ce Réseau des Organismes de Régionalisation de l’Immigration du Québec (RORIQ) est composé de dix-neuf organismes représentant onze régions du Québec, y compris l’organisme Accueil et intégration Bas-Saint-Laurent et de quatre organismes qui constituent les portes d’entrée montréalaises pour la régionalisation de l’immigration. Les membres de RORIQ sont des pionniers dans le domaine de la promotion de la vie en région et ils en demeurent les moteurs et jouent plusieurs rôles. Ainsi, à Rimouski, depuis les 5 dernières années, Accueil et intégration Bas-Saint-Laurent a fait la promotion de la MRC de Rimouski-Neigette auprès de 1 300 personnes immigrantes, a accueilli 190 personnes immigrantes dans la MRC.

http://www.bas-saint-laurent.org/texte.asp?id=22195

Approximately 2,400 new citizens from more than 125 countries were welcomed to Canada at citizenship ceremonies held by Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Mississauga office over the past two weeks. Ceremonies like these demonstrate how the government is working to make the citizenship program more efficient, helping more people realize sooner their dream of becoming Canadian. The government’s proposed changes in Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, will also reduce wait times by streamlining the decision-making process for citizenship. It is expected that these changes will bring the average processing time for citizenship applications down to under one year and that the current backlog will be reduced by more than 80 percent by 2015-2016.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2014/2014-03-28.asp

Immigrant families, not taxpayers, should be on the hook to support family reunifications in Canada, said Employment Minister Jason Kenney. Kenney was defending his government’s policy Friday that makes it harder for elderly immigrants to receive taxpayer subsidies. The Guaranteed Income Supplement is provided to the poorest Canadians in old age. Immigrants who arrive under the parents and grandparents program has traditionally been able to qualify for GIS after living here 10 years. Through that program, the immigrant is sponsored by a family member who signs a declaration saying they bear financial responsibility for the relative for 10 years. The measure, brought in through the budget implementation bill, proposes to extend the sponsorship period from 10 to 20 years and disallows immigrants from applying for GIS while they are sponsored.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/28/guaranteed-income-supplement-changes-take-burden-off-taxpayers-kenney-says

A housing price boom in Vancouver fueled by the arrival of wealthy Chinese investors could be heading south of the border after the Ottawa government rescinded its immigrant investor scheme — and not everyone is happy about it. […] President of the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce Siva Yam said the end of Canada’s investor visa in February, which chucked some 65,000 applications, mostly from Chinese nationals, “will draw some Chinese investors to America” who would otherwise have made a bid for Canadian residency. The Canadian Immigrant Investor program was simpler than its U.S. counterpart: A foreign investor worth at least $1.6 million had to lend the Canadian government $800,000 without interest for a period of five years. Under the U.S. system, EB-5-seekers must invest $1 million, or $500,000 in state-designated “Targeted Employment Areas,” and prove they created at least 10 jobs for American residents for a minimum of two years.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/28/eb-5-visa-programandrealestate.html

These days, Janet Dench feels like she’s stepped back in time to when she started at the Canadian Council for Refugees. Back then, in the 1980s, refugees were slagged as immigration “queue-jumpers” rather than people in need of protection whom Canada welcomed, said the executive director of the council that represents 170 non-government organizations. “In some ways, things come around in a cycle,” she said Wednesday. Dench was in Winnipeg to meet with the Manitoba Refugee Sponsors at their monthly meeting. A “proud to protect refugees” campaign this year aims to switch cycles, said Dench, who is based in Montreal. Canada’s immigration policy has undergone a “massive change,” she said. In 2000, for the first time, the number of temporary foreign workers — with no status or options — outnumbered new permanent residents in Canada, said Dench.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/harder-times-for-refugees-agency-chief-252854551.html

The federal government says it will bring in legislation to allow it to impose heavy penalties on firms that abuse the temporary foreign worker program. A government source says the measure will be contained in the budget implementation bill being tabled in Parliament later today. The new measures will be in place starting in early 2015. The source says the nature of the penalties have still to be determined, but it will be the strongest action the government has taken so far on the controversial issue. The legislation will authorize the employment minister to penalize employers who issue false declarations about their use of foreign workers or who use foreign workers to replace Canadians.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/temporary-foreign-worker-program-abusers-to-face-federal-fines-1.1750279