A recent HSBC survey that polled 3,100 immigrants in 50 countries shows that Canada provides the best quality of life for immigrants, and is the best country of choice for immigrants in the world.

Canada also provides the highest quality of accommodation for immigrants. Second to Canada as the top country in the world for immigrants to live in and immigrate to is Australia, while the worst is the United Kingdom.

The poll showed that countries with higher salary rates per population, such as the United Kingdom, ranked lowest on the scale when it came to immigrants’ overall happiness and quality of life. In countries with lower salaries, such as Canada and Australia, immigrants reported a good quality of life and found it easier to transition to life in their new communities.

Canada’s immigration system has a Priority Occupation List, which speeds up the immigration process for people who want to move to the country and have a desired set of skills or occupation that is in demand in Canada. This makes Canada an especially appealing destination for immigrants whose career training fall under the occupation list, giving them a better chance at securing a good job in their field and improving their quality of life in their new country.

Montreal, December 15, 2009 – Dery & Associates (Canadim) is an immigration law firm based in Montreal, Quebec. With the growing demand for immigration to Canada, the demand for law firms to provide full service solutions to their clients is at a peak.  With the growing needs of the landed immigrant, Canadim discusses their solutions.

“We have been in this industry for a long time and understand the importance for a newly landed immigrant to have confidence in their legal professionals to help them navigate the Canadian system.  We help with everything from finding temporary lodging, getting their ID cards, finding employment and much more.  Most importantly, we are one of the few law firms that doesn’t charge extra for these services.” explained Renaud Dery, Managing Partner.   He added that when a person arrives in Canada, they need people they could turn to with confidence that they will be taken care of.  Dery & Associates, according to Dery, has helped many families settle in Canada successfully.

Dery explains that when a client first arrives in Canada, they go straight to their law firm’s office where they are welcomed and given essential information. “When a person first arrives in our office, we immediately try to help them gain their bearings and get settled.  If they need temporary lodging, we help find that for them, if their children need to be placed in a school, we tell them which schools are good for which age groups.”

One of the most important aspects of arriving in Canada is achieving employment.  Some of the challenges facing immigrants settling in the province of Quebec is learning the French language which is something they have provided a solution for. “We recently incorporated an extra service where we provide express language training for those that need it. This helps them integrate much faster into the labor market.” adds Richard Dery, Executive Director.  He explains that through their network of contacts, they are able to help their clients find employment by making calls and setting up interviews if the opportunity exists. Some people are interested in setting up companies and small businesses upon arrival, Dery & Associates helps clients get established by helping them navigate the legal aspects of getting setup. “We consider it our responsibility to make sure that our clients achieve success when they come here whether they want to start a business or find employment.”

Dery says “Most of the time people just need to be pointed in the right direction and we’re always here to provide ongoing support.”

Their website is: http://www.Canadim.com

Hong Kong and Canada have reached a number of key agreements during a three-day visit to China by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Hong Kong and Canada have signed youth mobility, trade and import agreements in what has been called the first warming of diplomatic tensions since Harper took office in 2006.

As part of the youth mobility Working Holiday Visa agreement, Hong Kong residents from 18 to 30 years old will be able to live and work in Canada for up to one year.

The new youth Hong Kong and Canadian Visa agreement will come into effect in March 2010.

Hong Kong has also lifted its six-year ban on Canadian beef, which could be worth about CA$60-million a year to Canadian farmers. China also lifted a ban on Canadian pork products, worth about CA$50 -million a year to Canadian pork producers.

Canada and Hong Kong have many ties, however, business experts believe that Canada has the potential to participate more fully in the region.

Hong Kong is currently home to 13 regional headquarters, 32 regional offices and 41 local offices for a variety of Canadian companies and more than 225,000 Canadians live in Hong Kong. 

Newcomers to Canada have a large number of settlement services available to them once they arrive, most of which are provided to them at no cost. In recent years, the Canadian government has consistently increased funding to provinces and municipalities, to enable them to provide as well as improve settlement services for their immigrants. This month, we look at a few of the wealth of new initiatives that benefit new Canadians and ease their settlement process.

For the past few months Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced multiple local immigration partnerships with municipalities in Ontario such as Hamilton and York. The municipalities received funding from the federal government to develop settlement strategies that will help their newcomers integrate.

In Manitoba, immigrants can get ahead on their settlement process with the ENTRY program, a four-week program designed to help newcomers learn about life and work in Manitoba. A new aspect of the settlement process, such as finding employment, is covered each week, and a one-week express program covering all the topics is also offered.

Last month CIC revealed that it would be sending language training vouchers, which would enable individuals to take classes in one of the official languages free of charge, to newcomers chosen at random as part of a pilot project.

WelcomeBC, a settlement resource for new Canadians in British Columbia, recently enhanced their online services portal with the help of funding from the provincial and federal governments. The enhanced website includes task wizards in six languages: English, Punjabi, French, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, and Korean.

These are just some of the recent developments in settlement services in Canada that immigrants can take advantage of upon their arrival. The federal and provincial governments are constantly working to maximise the benefits these services provide to new Canadians.

Immigrants and immigrant service workers in Langley took the opportunity Saturday to tell Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney what does and doesn’t work with the system, and to give him ideas for improvement.

Langley MP Mark Warawa led a round table discussion on Canada’s immigration system with the minister and with Langley residents who have a vested interest in the subject.

Some of the recommendations from Langley included enhancing integration programs, ensuring that Immigration Canada staff are more understanding of the language barrier, and are more welcoming.

Kenney acknowledged the needs of immigrants to integrate with a better knowledge of one of Canada’s two official languages, which is key to their success. Developing further protection for migrant farm laborers was also discussed and is something the minister is working on.

“Consulting with people in Langley and other communities gives me a practical sense of how policies actually work on the ground,” said Kenney.

Kenney also congratulated the Langleys for welcoming 350 government-assisted Karen refugees who have arrived in the past few years.

“Canada receives the largest number per capita of resettled refugees than any other country, and I intend to increase the funding for refugee assistance programs and ensure those programs are successful,” he told the Langley audience.

He is also working toward an ambitious entrepreneurial immigration program that will benefit both the immigrant and Canada.

“We are working with the provinces on a pan-Canadian framework for foreign credentials. We want highly skilled immigrants certified and working in Canada quickly,” Kenney said.

“It’s imperative that Canada’s immigrants are given every possible opportunity to make the most of their integration into our community, and I appreciate the tremendous work done by Langley Community Services Society who handles the bulk of those services.”

The minister was in Langley as part of the Conservative government’s ongoing consultations with Canadians.

Another reason why Canada’s such a great destination for skilled migrants: according to a recent survey Canada tops the list of expat-friendly countries.

The HSBC Bank International’s Expat Explorer Survey interviewed 2,155 expats in 48 countries and concluded that Canada was the most welcoming country to expats. Ninety-five percent of the expats surveyed said that they’d struck up friendships with locals, compared to 92% in Germany, which came in at second on the list.

The survey considered four main categories: how easy it was to meet and befriend locals, the number that joined a community group, the percentage who bought property, and the number that learned the local language. Read more here.

It’s no surprise that Canada rates so highly as an expat destination: it has a diverse culture, accessible language, and a thriving expat community. It even offers free language training and host programmes designed to help new migrants to Canada navigate through daily life.

If you’re a skilled professional thinking of making Canada your new home then check out Working In Canada for information on how to make your dream a reality. We’ve got all the information you need including some great tips on adjusting to your new life in Canada.

The Federal government has recently announced changes to the way that Federal Skilled Worker applications will be processed.

From 28 November 2008 if you have at least one year’s continuous experience in one of 38 occupations designated as ‘in-demand’ you can have your application fast-tracked.

Do you have one of the ‘in-demand occupations‘?

If you’d like to live and work in Canada visit www.workingin-canada.com to see if you’ve got the skills that Canada needs.

If you’re on the hunt for the perfect location to spend Christmas Day then look no further. Climatologists at Environment Canada have trawled through 45 years of weather data to come up with a list of the areas Canada that are most likely to experience a white Christmas.

The list includes almost all of northern Canada and highlights cities that offer a 100% chance of a white Christmas as well as locations likely to experience ‘perfect’ Christmas weather.

If you’re a skilled professional thinking of making Canada your new home then check out Working In Canada for some great information on the regions of Canada and Canada’s climate.

A report entitled “Powering Up the Future”, undertaken by Canada’s Electricity Sector Council (ESC), has revealed that Canada’s electricity is at risk from the lack of skilled staff available to fill vacancies. The report states that there is an immediate shortfall of 1300 skilled employees and that there will be 25,000 positions needing filling within the next 6 years, if Canada’s energy demands are going to be met.

Catherine Cottingham, Executive Director and CEO, Electricity Sector Council explained, “At a minimum, our jobs require a high school diploma or completion of a four-year apprenticeship, and the vast majority of the electricity industry’s positions need post-secondary education. This means that if the industry is to address these shortages in time through Canada’s learning institutions and immigration channels, we must act now.”

Perhaps you hold relevant skills? You could use them to gain entry into Canada to live and work. Check out www.workingin-canada.com for details.

Alongside the Federal Government’s development of 320 Foreign Credential Referral Offices across the country, Provincial Governments have also been working to ease labour shortages by streamlining skilled migrants passage into the workforce.

This month, Alberta released A Foreign Qualifications Recognition Plan for Alberta. The plan was developed through consultation with stakeholders and various government departments.

The key features of the plan are:

• “To create a $1-million Innovation Fund to encourage the development of innovative and flexible approaches to foreign qualifications assessment;
• To improve access to information and resources for employers, immigrants and potential newcomers;
• To develop International Education Guides which will include comprehensive information on educational systems and credentials in other countries, along with comparisons to Alberta standards; and
• To develop occupational profiles detailing the certification, licensing, or assessment process.”

“Streamlining foreign qualification recognition is a ‘win-win’ scenario for newcomers to our province and for Alberta,” stated Doug Horner, Alberta Minister of Advanced Education and Technology. “This plan will help expand our labour market, strengthen our economy and provide opportunities for immigrants to make the most of the skills they’ve brought to out province.”

Canada is working hard to make your emigration dreams realise as smoothly as possible. If you have skills and an ambition to live and work in Canada, visit www.workingin-canada.com, right away!

Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, who is attending the APEC Leaders Week in Peru, announced yesterday that Canada is joining the APEC Business Travel Card programme.

The system allows business people to have streamlined entry into participating countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Holders of the card only have to apply for one every three years and avoid having to gain multi-entry visas to the countries in which they conduct business. There are now 18 countries participating in the scheme, which include Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Another step towards making international business and travel a little easier. Interested in emigrating to Canada? Take a look at www.workingin-canada.com!

Speaking in the Ukraine last Friday, Jason Kenney, Canada’s Immigration Minister, said that the current economic climate would not affect the numbers of skilled immigrants entering Canada.

“Obviously, the economic crisis worries us a great deal… But we believe it would be counterproductive, from an economic growth point of view, to cut off a labour supply from those sectors of the economy that are still growing by reducing immigration levels,” he said.

“We intend to maintain a robust immigration programme but we’ll obviously monitor the situation closely to make sure it is working for Canada and our economy.”

The federal government in Canada has recently been working very closely with its provincial counterparts to ensure that the country’s labour shortages are being addressed. Consultation with these governmental departments, in conjunction with labour heads and industry leaders, has led Mr Kenney to believe that skilled migrants are key to ensuring economic growth in Canada.

If you have skills and an interest in moving to Canada, you may find it easier than you imagine. Visit www.workingin-canada.com. It’s all there – information, links and useful relocation tips.

Despite the global recession, figures are showing that full time employment in Canada was actually up, in the three months to October, by a staggering 75,000 jobs. Surprising when the increase between January and July was only 36,500.

Also interesting is the fact that it is Western Canada’s census metropolitan areas (CMAs) that are leading the pack in terms of unemployment rates. All five of the CMAs with the lowest unemployment rates were located in the three western-most provinces. At the top of the list was Victoria, British Columbia, where the unemployment rate has been stuck at 3.2% for the past four months.

There are jobs to be had in Canada. Opportunities exist for people just like you, with transferable skills and a desire to emigrate to this great country.

Visit www.workingin-canada.com, today!

The Canadian government has signed deals with Alberta, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, and Labrador to fund settlement programmes aimed at better integrating migrants to the country. Agreements with other Provinces are also being negotiated, which will total around $500 million each year for six years.

The agreements are part of Advantage Canada, the federal government’s long-term economic plan to create the “best-educated, most skilled, and most flexible work force in the world”. They will aim to get the most out of migrants by encouraging them to upskill and to contribute fully to the economy.

Canada is working hard to encourage skilled migrants into the country to ease labour shortages. For details on visas and other information on how to emigrate to Canada, visit www.workingin-canada.com today!

Winter in Canada may be cold, but Canadians know how to keep an inner glow fired up with fabulous events to stave off the winter blues. Toronto is no exception.

Last weekend the city kicked off its annual Winter Magic Festival, which runs from now into the New Year. Centred around the Downtown Yonge district, the festival combines fire shows, pyrotehcnics, live performances, lighting displays, arts and Kidsfest activities specifically for families, all for free.

Also this month, the city is hosting the Toronto Gourmet Food and Wine Festival. This three day gourmet cocktail party features cooking demonstrations, tastings by some of the country’s best upcoming chefs and a free wine-tasting lounge.

And if anyone has any energy left after all of that, there is the 15th Annual Aboriginal Festival, celebrating the Aboriginal culture through art, dance, sport and pow wow demonstrations. The largest pow wow will involve over 1000 native dancers and drum singing groups from across North America.

Something for everyone!

And you could be part of it all next year… If you have dreams of moving to Canada to live and work, take a look at www.workingin-canada.com for details on how to make your dream a reality!

Jason Kenney, Canada’s Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multi-culturalism recently addressed the Canadian Club in Winnipeg and emphasised his government’s dedication to current immigration policies and settlement programmes.

Highlighting recent improvements to the immigration system, including the new Canadian Experience Class visa, the creation of the Foreign Credentials Referral Office and the $1.4 billion immigrant settlement scheme, Mr Kenney spoke of the importance of a streamlined system.

‘Just as immigration has played a strong role in our past, it will continue to be important to our future. Canada is respected around the world for the way we’ve managed to bring in people from all over the globe. We have done this with a spirit of openness and tolerance, embracing diversity and becoming stronger for it.’

People just like you, with skills needed to fill labour shortages and strengthen Canada’s economy, are being welcomed into Canada to live and work. Some skilled migrants are even being fast-tracked in to the country if their skills are deemed in demand. Perhaps yours are? Take a look at www.workingin-canada.com for information on visas and much much more!

Microsoft Canada’s boss, Phil Sorgen, remains upbeat about the country’s IT opportunities, despite the current global financial crisis. Speaking in Halifax, Mr Sorgen told a gathering of IT professionals that Canada was likely to fair better than most other countries, thanks to government regulations which were put in place in the 1990s. He also recognised the opportunities available to innovative IT business in creating systems designed to cut costs and refine efficiency.

Mr Sorgen also referred to recent research by the Technology Institute of Canada which reported that the IT industry was looking at massive labour shortfalls in the near future. It estimated that at a time when the country was only producing 7000 IT graduates a year, it was also creating 35000 IT jobs in the next 18 months.

“It’s a big gap and we are going to have to get very creative very quickly,” he said.

The solution, Mr Sorgen told his audience, was in education, both at school and in on the job training, and immigration. He encouraged the government to put more energy into solving the issues of the labour shortage.

And the Canadian government is already working hard to encourage skilled migrants to head to Canada to fill jobs. If you have a burning ambition to move to this incredible country, take a moment now to visit www.workingin-canada.com for information and details on how to make that happen.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has very recently released a report entitled Building a Twenty-First Century Workforce: A Business Strategy to Overcome Canada’s Skills Crisis, in which it calls upon the Canadian Federal Government to take serious strategic steps to address the country’s labour shortages.

“The quest to attract talent and the drive for competitiveness are closely linked. If we don’t have the brightest and the best, we will be neither competitive nor productive. It is that simple. We simply must do better,” said Perrin Beatty, President and CEO of the Canadian Chamber.

Among recommendations made in the report are some directly aimed at tackling the problem through immigration, including improving the country’s immigration system in order to attract the world’s best talent and streamlining systems to cut down on processing times.

There has never been a better time to emigrate to Canada. The government there is working extremely hard to make sure that your move is a smooth one. Interested? Visit www.workingin-canada.com for details!

The Conference Board of Canada has recently reported that its research shows that Canada will need 110,000 more visas issued to skilled migrants per year by 2025 in order to stave off the predicted critical labour shortage.

Currently Canada issues 250,000 visas each year but the Conference Board expects this figure to rise to 360,000 in order for the economy to continue its stable growth.

There are masses of opportunities in Canada right now. If you have transferable skills and are interested in creating a new life in Canada, check out www.workingin-canada.com today! The government recently made changes to its immigration policies to fast-track some skilled migrants through its system. You could be one of them….

It is estimated that by 2015 Canada’s food industry will need an additional 181,000 workers if it is going to operate successfully.  Already 38% of restaurants in Ontario have reported having unfilled positions.  The industry claims that the government needs to widen its immigrant worker policies, past skilled workers to the less highly skilled trades as well.

“We need to stop saying all we need is engineers and doctors”, said Justin Taylor, vice-president for labour and taxation at the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association. “We don’t need doctors working in quick-service restaurants.”

The industry complains that the focus on highly skilled immigrants is ignoring another very real aspect of the country’s labour shortage.

As it stands there is a lot of work going on around encouraging skilled migrants to Canada to fill skilled labour shortages.  The government there is spending a lot of energy trying to refine its policies and immigration procedures to enable the smooth emigration of skilled people into the country.  To see how easy emigrating to Canada can be for you, take a look at www.workingin-canada.com.

A recent report conducted by Ernst and Young predicts that the Canadian mining industry will need 70,000 additional staff over the next ten years if it is to survive.  It also suggests that companies are not taking the shortages seriously enough and that they are going to have to become extremely creative in order to attract sufficient skilled workers.

Bruce Sprague, Ernst & Young partner and human capital practice leader in British Columbia says ““If mining companies want to deliver the growth they have planned, they need to rethink the way they recruit and retain talent. Otherwise, the shortage of skilled labour could become a significant strategic threat to the industry.”

Perhaps you have mining related skills and an interest in emigrating to Canada. There has never been a better time!  Visit www.workingin-canada.com for everything you need to know!

Research body, the Conference Board of Canada, has recently released a report, which suggests that although immigration changes in the country are tackling labour shortages, more can be done.  In particular the report suggests raising the number of permanent residents entering the country from 250,000 to 360,000 per annum, creating more settlement programmes and encouraging employers engagement in welcoming skilled migrants from overseas.

“Canada’s permanent and temporary immigration systems are changing to better address the needs of business, provinces and migrants themselves,” said Douglas Watt, Associate Director, Organizational Effectiveness and Learning. “These changes are positive steps, but more needs to be done. Canada is competing with other countries for top international talent and a willingness to adjust programs and policies is the hallmark of successful immigration systems.”

Canada, like many other developed nations, is suffering from a skilled labour shortage.  Details of occupations which are in demand and information on how to apply for a working visa for Canada can be found at www.workingin-canada.com.  Take a look.  You never know what you might find!