The world would love to be Canadian
The world would love to be Canadian
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[pic]Survey results suggest Canada can thrive in the looming global talent wars
[pic]Joe Friesen The Globe & Mail
More than half of people around the world say they would abandon their homelands and move to Canada if they could.
Given the choice, 53 per cent of adults in the world's 24 leading economies said they would immigrate to Canada, according to an international survey commissioned by the Historica-Dominion Institute in partnership with the Munk School of Global Affairs and the Aurea Foundation.
It's a startling finding, one that is reinforced by respondents' overwhelmingly positive attitudes about Canada's welcoming and tolerant treatment of newcomers. The results bode well for Canada's efforts to attract highly educated immigrants as the global search for talent heats up in coming years.
“Canada is considered desirable for people all around the world. The shining city on the hill, as America was, and remains, for many people,” said Andrew Cohen, president of the Historica-Dominion Institute.
“Largely, it's because we welcome immigrants. We do not have anti-immigration parties in Canada. Almost every European country has one. We do not have a skinhead movement in Canada. So that speaks well of Canada and may point to our greatest success of the last 25 years, which is the manner in which we have continued to welcome immigrants.”
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The tilt toward Canada is most pronounced in the emerging economies of the G20. More than three-quarters of those surveyed in China said they would prefer to live in Canada, followed by Mexico and India at close to 70 per cent. Slightly more than half of Britons, Italians and Russians said the same, while about four in 10 French and Germans would also choose Canada. Citizens of Japan and Sweden, followed by the United States and Australia, were the least interested in moving to Canada, with only one in five Swedes saying they would make the move.
Janice Stein, director of the Munk School at the University of Toronto, said the survey suggests Canada can thrive in the looming global talent wars.
“In terms of our economic future, our social future, our capacity to innovate, on all these dimensions that intelligent Canadians think about all the time, these are enormously encouraging data,” Prof. Stein said. “The developed world is getting old very quickly. … We are going to have to recruit globally as everybody else does.”
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The reasons for Canada's relative attractiveness are clear: 86 per cent of respondents around the globe said Canada is a country where rights and freedoms are respected; 72 per cent said Canada is welcoming to immigrants; 79 per cent said Canadians are tolerant of people from different racial and cultural backgrounds; and 79 per cent said Canadians have one of the best qualities of life.
On most questions Canadians feel more strongly about their openness and tolerance than non-Canadians. Ninety-four per cent of Canadians say Canada is welcoming to immigrants, more than in any other country, but China and India, which have the largest diasporas in Canada, are not far behind.
“Of course we think we are [generous, open and tolerant,] Prof. Stein said. “Are we more vain than other publics? I doubt it.”
Canada's reputation in some areas is even stronger than Canadian vanity. Citizens of five countries, South Africa, Australia, France, Indonesia and South Korea are all more likely than Canadians to describe Canada as a country where rights and freedoms are respected.
Citizens of 10 countries, including China, South Africa, France and Russia, are more likely than Canadians to say Canada is tolerant of people from different racial and cultural backgrounds.
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Fast-track program cuts visa waits in half
By Norma Greenaway, Canwest News Service The Vancouver Sun
[pic]A federal move to fast-track handling of prospective immigrants with job skills needed in Canada has been pivotal in cutting in half the overall processing time for immigrant visas since 2005, a new analysis shows.
Immigration consultant Richard Kurland, who conducted the analysis, said Monday the processing time for applications overall dropped to 26 months in 2009 from 50 months in 2005.
The decline can be traced to federal legislation implemented in 2008 that committed the government to speedier handling of applications from foreign workers deemed skilled as chefs, steamfitters, nurses and in 35 other designated occupations, Kurland said.
They are given preference over foreign workers in the queue who do not have work experience in those occupations. Canada issued 14,917 visas to foreign workers who met the new criteria and their families last year.
Skilled worker applications now are being approved in about seven months, a dramatic decline from the five or more years it used to take for them to get through the system, Kurland said.
"Skilled workers are no longer facing very poor service from Immigration Canada," Kurland said. "Our immigration system has gone from being a supertanker that needs three days to stop or to turn, to being a nimble rabbit."
Kurland said, however, there is a downside to the "good news story" because progress on the foreign worker front has not been matched by progress on reuniting families.
"Here's the thing in the closet," he said. "We have parents and grandparents waiting for over a decade [to immigrate], which is not very helpful for family reunification. Economy trumps family."
Liberals and New Democrats have long accused the Harper government of giving family reunification short shrift in the quest to lure highly skilled and educated people to Canada.
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Kurland's findings on waiting times show the government is on the right track with its plan to make Canada more attractive to the world's "best and brightest" people.
Toronto MP Olivia Chow, the NDP immigration critic, said many immigrants have been waiting five or more years to have their parents accepted in Canada.
Chow also cited the case of a Toronto neurosurgeon who last week abandoned Canada for the United States after giving up on what had been a three-year effort to get his wife accepted in Canada.
"So, yes, if you're part of the 38 professional categories, it's faster," she said. "But Canadians need their loved ones in Canada."
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Newly minted citizens full of pride
Ceremony means a lot to new Canadians
By Valerie Fortney The Calgary Herald
Forgive Julie Reynard for not quite appreciating the solemnity of the occasion.
The little girl in a floral dress with a bold red sash has been told to "shush" countless times, but she's still behaving pretty well for a three-year-old as she conducts an imaginary orchestra with a stick in one hand while wildly waving a Canadian flag with the other.
Her grandpa Herman Reynard, who's trying to keep her baby sister Shannon from wriggling out of his arms, understands. So does her dad, Darcy. And her mom, Ying Wei, clearly grasps the magnitude of the day as she alternates between smiles and tears.
"Ten years ago, I was a young girl who had never been out of China and couldn't speak English," says the 30-year-old mom. "Today, I am a Canadian."
On Monday morning, Wei joins 39 other newly minted Canadians at a special citizenship ceremony, taking place at the Glenbow Museum. Within a stone's throw of an exhibition by Riopelle, one of our country's great artists, they take their final steps in a journey that started years ago in one of the 17 countries represented on this day -- everywhere from Afghanistan and Hungary to Sudan and Eritrea.
Although the weekly swearing-in ceremonies are special for the 12,000 individuals who receive their citizenship certificates each year in our city, this day stands out from the others. Prior to the ceremony, a meeting of the Calgary Citizenship Committee, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Institute for Canadian Citizenship met for a community roundtable discussion.
The institute, which was founded by former governor general Adrienne Clarkson and her husband John Ralston Saul, strives to promote understanding among immigrants on the rights and responsibilities of citizens, and encourage new programs that support immigrant integration into communities.
Also on this day, National Aboriginal Day, the new Canadians receive words of welcome from Blackfoot elder Clarence Wolf Leg and are treated to the national anthem sung in English, French and Blackfoot by students from Crowfoot Elementary School at Siksika Nation, all topped off with a powwow.
The crowd here is more than celebratory -- the joyful atmosphere is contagious as people yell out a loud and collective "Yes!" when citizenship judge Joan May Way asks, "Isn't it a great day?"
Like little Julie Reynard, they wave their flags throughout, sing their hearts out when singing O Canada and some even jump in the air after receiving their official certificate of citizenship.
As I stand with the crowd reaffirming my own citizenship vows -- I was probably a child the last time I did so, though I can barely remember ever reciting the words -- the emotion of the moment brings tears to my eyes, as I join in what is one of the biggest moments in the lives of those around me.
You can call it corny, but for me, it takes a citizenship ceremony to make me stop and take a rare moment to think about what I've mostly taken for granted all my life, this sense of belonging in one of the best nations in the world.
Being around people like Ying Wei, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to.
"I never thought in a million years I'd be living in Canada," she says with a smile.
A decade ago, she became a pen pal to Darcy, who worked with her aunt in Calgary. After five years of correspondence, Darcy went to China for a visit. Today, Wei has a new family and life in Canada.
"In China, our tradition is to keep your last name after you marry," she says. "I've decided to change my name to Reynard, because this is my family and this is my country."
While it's a profound moment that her beautiful little girls might not understand today, it's not lost on some of the other youngsters on hand. Sanjana Prajapati may be only 11 years old, but she's not hesitant to call this "the biggest day of my life so far."
She came to Canada with her parents Yogesh and Preeti when she was six years old, and joins mom and dad in receiving her official declaration of Canadian citizenship.
While she may still be a bit young to grasp the magnitude of the event, Sanjana has a good teacher to show her the way.
"This is a milestone for our family, but we still have a long way to go," says her dad, a software engineer.
"Our next dream is to create a legacy in this country, for our family today and generations to come."
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