Canadian Immigration News

The Quebec Government announced yesterday a comprehensive plan to reduce processing times for permanent residency applicants to Quebec.

A list of the top 100 employers for immigrants to Canada has been announced by Mediacorp and published in the Globe and Mail.

These employers were ranked by their recruiting efforts of recent immigrants, advertising job vacancies in multicultural media or having a similarly targeted dedicated website, recognizing foreign credentials, and training, language improvement, as well as internship initiatives.

Severe labour shortages in Western provinces have resulted in some provincial leaders calling for radical changes in immigration procedures.

Western provinces are largely in the midst of a job boom, which is being hindered by a lack of available and qualified workers to fill new positions.

Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney suggested Wednesday the possibility of legislating away Canada’s backlog of immigration applications.

"We’re looking at all options for dealing with these backlogs… It’s not fair to [applicants] and it’s not fair to our economy," said Kenney.

Applicants in the Quebec Skilled Worker (QSW) program may be required to attend an interview with a Quebec immigration officer.

Two sources in the past week reported a potential influx of Greek immigrants which could be on their way to Canada.

News1130 in Vancouver, and Metro News in Calgary, reported that these respective city’s Hellenic organizations have both fielded a huge increase of calls from people in Greece with interest in immigrating to Canada.