While the Quebec Facilitated IT program came to an end on February 24th, the 7 affected professions are now part of a newly announced facilitated labour market assessment process. The new process, in effect now, includes a much broader range of 44 occupations, both in high tech and from other fields. It is an accelerated way for employers to hire foreign workers in Quebec, which importantly does not require employers to show local recruitment efforts.

Montreal was just ranked the best city for university students in Canada, and the 10^th best in the world.

More financial and other types of support are being pledged for Quebec’s female immigrants.

A new online tool will be deployed by the Quebec government to help immigrant engineers as they seek to become members of the Order of Engineers of Quebec and have their credentials recognized in the province.

Montreal recently made the New York Times list of globally hip cities — the only one in North America, alongside such luminaries as Shanghai, Berlin, and Barcelona.

Above Canada’s second largest city, Montreal, sits Laval, also an island-bound city, that has become Quebec’s fastest growing English-speaking community, and home to many of its immigrants.

Quebec had the best performance in all of North America in terms of job creation. While jobs were lost in other parts of Canada during the month of September, more than 14,000 new jobs were created in Quebec. Since June 2009, more than 125,000 jobs have been created in Quebec, which means Quebec has created almost twice as many new jobs as were lost in the recession of 2008-2009.

Last summer, we reported on a new, fast-track immigration program for the province of Quebec that would allow some individuals who had lived or studied in Quebec to immigrate to the province. As of Sunday, February 14 2010, the new Quebec Experience Class program is finally in effect and those who qualify can now submit their applications.