The problem is that a lot of skilled people who come to Canada end up having a difficult time finding a job and not all skilled workers are the same. One example I read in the paper was someone from Africa who was an architect. They qualified as a skilled worker but two years later and he was doing menial jobs.
There is a shortage of skilled laborers and targeting that demographic over the next few years would be a good idea.
The analysis on HN is way off. The Skilled Worker program brings in skilled people without jobs lined up in the expectation they will find a job once they get here.
Computer related industries must not be hiring, or at least not hiring immigrants. Because having thousands of unemployed skilled workers in Canada is not the goal of the program, they delisted it as a category.
By the way, it's possible this happened because people don't want to hire immigrants despite competent developers being in high demand in Toronto. Here's a blog post I wrote about that a long time ago:
I am thinking in going to Toronto to work in web development(C#, javascript with 2 years of experience). One of the reasons was because I see Toronto as a sophisticated city.
I'm portuguese, would I have a problem with my nationality/origin/accent?
I was not worried at all with this until I read your blog post.
0811 Primary Production Managers (Except Agriculture)
1122 Professional Occupations in Business Services to Management
1233 Insurance Adjusters and Claims Examiners
2121 Biologists and Related Scientists
2151 Architects
3113 Dentists
3131 Pharmacists
3222 Dental Hygienists & Dental Therapists
4151 Psychologists
4152 Social Workers
7216 Contractors and Supervisors, Mechanic Trades
7241 Electricians (Except Industrial & Power System)
7265 Welders & Related Machine Operators
7372 Drillers & Blasters – Surface Mining, Quarrying & Construction
8222 Supervisors, Oil and Gas Drilling and Service
Old:
0111 Financial Managers
0213 Computer and Information Systems Managers
0311 Managers in Health Care
0632 Accommodation Service Managers
0711 Construction Managers
1111 Financial Auditors and Accountants
2113 Geologists, Geochemists and Geophysicists
2143 Mining Engineers
2144 Geological Engineers
2145 Petroleum Engineers
3141 Audiologists and Speech Language Pathologists
3143 Occupational Therapists
3151 Head Nurses and Supervisors
4121 University Professors
4131 College and Other Vocational Instructors
7213 Contractors and Supervisors, Pipefitting Trades
7217 Contractors and Supervisors, Heavy Construction Equipment Crews
7241 Electricians (Except Industrial and Power System)
7252 Steamfitters, Pipe fitters and Sprinkler System Installers
7265 Welders and Related Machine Operators
7372 Drillers and Blasters – Surface Mining, Quarrying and Construction
8221 Supervisors, Mining and Quarrying
8222 Supervisors, Oil and Gas Drilling and Service
9212 Supervisors, Petroleum, Gas and Chemical Processing and Utilities
Unchanged:
0631 Restaurant and Food Service Managers
3111 Specialist Physicians
3112 General Practitioners and Family Physicians
3142 Physiotherapists
3152 Registered Nurses
3215 Medical Radiation Technologists
3233 Licensed Practical Nurses
6241 Chefs
6242 Cooks
7215 Contractors and Supervisors, Carpentry Trades
7242 Industrial Electricians
7251 Plumbers
7312 Heavy-Duty Equipment Mechanics
7371 Crane Operators
Note that this is the list of people who can apply for a work permit without a job lined up. Does anyone know if there are any restrictions for people with job offers? (Proof that no eligible Canadian can be found, etc.)
(EDIT: because I didn't read the formatting guidlines)
I don't know what the government is thinking but getting more skilled workers is the point not getting less of them. Were loosing a huge amount of them to the US and all they can think of is to reduce the amount coming in?
In 2006, nearly half the population of Toronto was a "visible minority". It's estimated that more than half are now. Similarly, half of the population is foreign-born.
And almost all of the population is of foreign descent. It's quite funny to have your application denied by a Chinese first generation immigrant.
I've spent 5 years getting 'landed immigrant' status in Canada and finally gave up, to anybody that is planning to try to emigrate to Canada, make sure that you get your paperwork done before you move, no matter what they promise you.
The Canadian government will routinely break their promises to immigrants, also be aware that there is a whole crowd of people who feed of those that arrive in Canada and that do not yet know how the game is played (immigration lawyers especially), and that even though Canada at face value seems to be a healthy and equal society in practice it is much less so, there is a lot of resentment between ethnic groups.
On top of that you lose between 4 and 6 months per year (depending on where you live) to the winter.
A good friend of mine has been working as a graphic designer in Canada for 2 years now. He's a UK citizen but has all his reference, a
job obviously and several weathly family members dotted around the country. He just managed to get a year's extension by the skin of his teeth after
6 or 7 months of wrangling.
Anecdote it may be, but it wouldn't fill me with confidence if I was considering a move myself.
Have him call his MP - I can't stress enough how helpful this is (or even better, have someone who's a citizen and lives in the riding call the MP).
The vast majority of MPs have someone in their constituency offices who spends 90% of their time on immigration issues. They know who to call at CIC, they know their way around immigration laws inside and out, and they know which organizations in the community are reputable when you need one for sponsoring, etc. This isn't something they do in their spare time; a major part of constituency work is helping people deal with the Federal government, and seeing as there is such a high number of immigrants in Canada, this often means dealin with immigration/citizenship issues.
Talk to them - and if they can't help you personally, they'll know every immigration lawyer in the area and who to trust.
Thanks. While he's sorted for a little while, I'll definitely pass this info on for the next time he's due an interrogation. Annoyingly for him (and his bosses) they had to pass him over for promotion in case he was booted. I'm sure he'd love a bit of security!
There's a lot of FUD in this comment. (I'm a Canadian immigrant myself).
"It's quite funny to have your application denied by a Chinese first generation immigrant." Why is it funny? an immigration official is a Canadian citizen, I don't know what you are implying/thinking/feeling here.
"The Canadian government will routinely break their promises to immigrants" this is utterly crap. The Canadian government cannot break any promises because they don't make any. Otherwise please indicate any official site or comment about any "promise".
It's true that there are lots of unscrupulous immigration lawyers or advisers, that's not the Government's fault; actually they recently hardened the requirements to be an immigration consultant to avoid scammers. Also unlike other governments Canada has everything related to immigration clearly explained in their web site, including forms and a tracking system and one of the first things they do is to advise against immigration "consultants" and note that anyone can apply by following the instructions (I did it without a hitch).
The Canadian immigration program is probably one of the most (or "the" most) generous and transparent in the world although of course they can make mistakes, especially when there are many fraudulent applications.
Finally if you don't like long winters (those months you don't "lose") probably you're better off someplace else; this is like wanting to live in Arizona and not liking hot weather.
No, it's just one persons experience that apparently does not match yours.
> Why is it funny?
Because that person has no more or less business in Canada than I do. A native Canadian would, and technically they're the only people that should be running Canadian immigration.
If you can't see the humor in that it's not my problem.
> this is utterly crap. The Canadian government cannot break any promises because they don't make any. Otherwise please indicate any official site or comment about any "promise".
Wow. You must be able to read all my email with lawyers and government officials right through my fairly well closed up imap account.
For the record, I spent a small fortune in Canada on the written promise of the Canadian government that my entrepreneurs status would be enough to get my paperwork fast-tracked through the Buffalo unit. After the investments were done suddenly nobody remembered about these writings, when confronted with them they 'would see what they could do'. After year upon year of being promised that for sure within the next year matters would be resolved I finally gave up, fired everybody and moved back to Europe.
Too bad, and I'm definitely sorry about what happened to the employees of my two Canadian companies.
So, this is the governments fault, they make promises, in writing and they don't give a damn about breaking them.
After we shut down our companies and moved back within two weeks we had our paperwork done and if we would please come back because Northern Ontario needs those jobs. Right. Once bitten, twice shy.
> The Canadian immigration program is probably one of the most (or "the" most) generous and transparent in the world
Gushing admiration for a system that is so broken that people that I know that have been trying to get their landed immigrant status changed to citizenship after 35 years is indicative of limited experience.
The long winters I can deal with, but they don't help. The unreliable government makes things much harder than they need be and causes hardship where none need be.
That my experience does not match yours is fine, but I'm not going to call yours 'FUD' any more than you should call mine that, my case was heard to ministerial level, the local mayor lobbied on my behalf all to no avail. I'm fairly well connected, if I had that much trouble I think that others may have the same or more and hence my warning not to move or invest until you have your landed immigrant status in your pocket.
Not in Canada though, or at least not in the big cities. If it weren't for immigration our population would be in decline (especially once the baby boomers start dying off).
It really depends on the area of Canada you're in. My folks live in Southern Alberta and there's still a bit of xenophobic climate there. That being said, I didn't notice it when I went to school out east, or now that I live on the west coast.
Edit: Actually, I should mention that since I went to school in Quebec, there was usually some sort of xenophobic/racial issue in the news. I went to an english school though, so most of the kids were from Ontario or Montreal where it's way less of an issue.
I've lived in Northern Ontario (St. Josephs Island), and owned a gas station. We employed the one black person in the region in a gas station we'd invested in and saw a noticeable drop in sales.
Xenophobia is doing fine in rural Ontario. Needless to say we stood by our employee.
Xenophobia is endemic to rural areas in general. But I agree with your implied point (unless you weren't implying it, in which case I'll take it) that Canadians have a blind spot about praising ourselves for how tolerant and inviting we are. Like everything else about Canada (I mean English Canada), it needs to be understood in terms of an implied contrast with the US.
Hmm, that's a lot of implying. And this is kind of inflammatory material. I think I'll stop here.
> Canadians have a blind spot about praising ourselves for how tolerant and inviting we are.
That's true. For big cities the situation is better but not nearly as good as it could be. Technically Canada is 'colour blind', but in reality it definitely isn't, which is a pity.
I'm not even sure if it is better than all of the US, both countries have enough variation that some areas are ahead of others in both countries.
As for it being inflammatory, I think it's perfectly ok to outline the shortcomings of a country as long as its done in a realistic way without an agenda.
My own (current) country, the Netherlands has gone from being fairly tolerant to being outright hostile to foreigners, especially those of Maroccan, Turkish, Romanian and Polish descent (for a variety of reasons). In the last elections the ultra-right scored the biggest gain of all parties, a full 15% of the electorate now backs them. A very scary development.
That sounds like a recipe for population replacement. Historically a wonderfully bad idea.
Why are Canadians (like whites everywhere) not having children? It strikes me that we should answer that question before replacing them by populations a bit further left on the civilizational bell curve.
i guess i'm just bashing these keys with my elbows randomly out of some primordial animal instinct, hoping the Python interpreter will consider it valid code.
It's not a list of skilled professions. It's a list of skilled professions that are in demand in Canada. Restaurants have to be managed in person. Programming is not on the list most likely because Canadian firms have been outsourcing it to India.
Programming and technology jobs were under their own heading: "Information technology workers" and were given expedited processing, making the entire process fairly easy.
There is a shortage of skilled laborers and targeting that demographic over the next few years would be a good idea.