Voies vers la prospérité: Canada

London employers want Ottawa to think fast and move faster to open Canada’s borders to immigrants with in-demand skills. A new report from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and the London Chamber of Commerce says the federal government should treat as customers both businesses and skilled foreign nationals and cut the time it takes to process an immigration application. If that doesn’t happen, Canada and this province in particular could fall behind in the global race for international students and skilled workers. […] The report includes 13 recommendations and was partially based on information gathered at a series of roundtables, including one at the London Chamber, with Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Michael Coteau.

http://www.londoncommunitynews.com/news-story/4313853-speed-immigration-for-economy-s-sake-chambers/

Proponents of Bill 60 say it’s an important plan that would increase gender equality and shield the province from what has been described as encroaching religious fundamentalism. Critics have called the minority PQ government’s project unnecessary and an attack on personal freedoms that violates the federal and Quebec charters of rights. […] Opponents believe the PQ could use identity as a wedge issue in the province’s next election campaign, which some observers predict could begin as early as next month. […] “There are a lot of people who are misinformed and who sincerely believe that their way of life is threatened by requests from immigrants, especially people who live outside the area of Montreal who are not really in daily contact with immigrants,” said Bourget of Quebec Inclusif, a lobby group with a mix of federalist and sovereigntist voices opposed to the proposal.

http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/daughter-defends-quebec-couple-s-controversial-testimony-on-values-charter-1.1647698

For those that missed it, last week Quebec was back in the pages of the New York Times. A cross section of academics, politicians and individual citizens (myself included) put pen to paper with the hopes of letting the world know what is taking place behind the official narrative the Parti Quebecois is deploying to justify taking away long established individual rights under the proposed Quebec “Charter of Values.” […] It was in response to the op-ed, “Quebec’s Latest Stand” published in the New York Times on January 10, by Quebec’s provincial minister for international affairs and the city of Montreal. The author, Jean-Francois Lisée, told the world that his minority government’s plan to ban ostentatious religious symbols “sets out a vision of government that breaks sharply with Canada’s broader multicultural ethos.” Lisée tried to make a causal link between Canadian multiculturalism and the rise of radical Islam. While every society should be concerned about religious extremism, it would seem that Lisée purposely obfuscated fiction for fact. He failed to mention that it is not the federal Canadian government, but the province of Quebec that pretty much controls its own immigration policies, which are designed to give priority entry to French-speaking immigrants. This is why so many new Canadian citizens living in Quebec hail from northern Africa.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1094206/the-parti-quebecois-is-playing-a-dangerous-game/

Marié et père de trois enfants âgés de 7 ans, 3 ans et 9 mois, Mody Maka Barry est directeur général de Handicap Action Intégration (H-A-I), un organisme communautaire à but non lucratif établi à Montréal. Personne à mobilité réduite, M. Barry fait de sa mission un sacerdoce : intégration par l’emploi des personnes en situation de handicap. Du communautaire à la politique, il s’investit, s’épanouit et s’accomplit dans la ferme ambition de « faire découvrir aux personnes à mobilité réduite les forces intérieures qui sont cachées en eux ». Passionné, il est convaincu que c’est seulement par le travail qu’une personne en situation de handicap réalise une vie saine et accomplie.

http://guineenews.org/2014/01/portrait-le-parcours-exceptionnel-dun-africain-immigrant-handicape-a-montreal/

After overcoming incredible odds, eight Tibetans started their new lives in Calgary on Saturday as they landed in the warm embrace of strangers who will help them learn a new culture, build a new future. They are the first of 400 displaced Tibetans who will arrive in Calgary over the next three years under a national resettlement program. […] The Tibetans had been living in exile in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in eastern India. Until they stepped off a plane into Calgary International Airport, they had been stateless – without a nationality – but the resettlement program grants them permanent residency status in Canada, Dorjee said. […] For the first couple weeks, they will stay in accommodations provided by the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society, a non-profit group that offers settlement and integration services to immigrants and refugees in southern Alberta.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Tibetans+warmly+welcomed+Calgary+their+home/9405053/story.html

There is one quota — and a pernicious one — that no one denies. While the Congress is to be congratulated for passing an appropriations bill with bipartisan support, there are troublesome riders attached to it. One is the rider establishing a quota of a minimum of 34,000 immigrants in detention on a daily basis while they resolve their immigration status. The detention quota is unprecedented and unique to the immigration context. […] Fully 60% of the men and women detained by immigration judges in New York are not represented by counsel. Forced to defend themselves, their cases drag on endlessly. According to the most recent data from a think tank at Syracuse University, the average immigration case in immigration court has now been pending for 570 days without resolution.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/immigrants-jailed-hit-number-article-1.1583488