Nick Noorani Website

Canada proposes to expand its overseas pilot project aimed at better equipping newcomer professionals immigrating through the skilled worker program to hit the deck running after landing here, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney said last week.”We will announce details about the expansion next month,” he told Focus.

The minister was speaking to the media alongside the Sixth Annual Diwali Gala organized by the Canada-India Business Council at a glittering function graced by several key politicians of all stripes and hues, senior business leaders and prominent community members. An estimated 400 people attended.

Kenney said the planned expansion would follow the success of its initial pilot project wherein Ottawa had selected its missions in New Delhi, Beijing and Manila to do a better job of informing prospective immigrants about actual Canadian conditions, particularly as regards the jobs market and the importance of credentials evaluation.

The project had been initiated by the then CIC Minister Diane Finley, to enable newcomers learn if, for instance, they needed to upgrade their academic skills, and how they could do so, even before landing on Canadian shores; this has since already been substantially enhanced, Kenney suggested.

“Prospective immigrants (provisionally) selected through the federal skilled workers’ program are being invited to a free two-day seminar conducted in New Delhi, where they’re given practical information about the jobs market in Canada, which jobs are in demand at which places, how they can get their academic credentials evaluated, what they need to do to upgrade their qualifications and how they can do so – even as their medical and security checks are being carried out,” the minister said.

Kenney earlier informed the audience Canada is working with India on several initiatives, all aimed at boosting bilateral trade, currently at a “ridiculously low” level, to $10 billion.

He noted applications for immigrant visas are today coming in from all over India – rather than primarily the north-western region of Punjab and Haryana, as has hitherto been the case – and that Canada has also vastly improved its express visa service for businessmen, which offers multiple entry visas to applicants within just 24 hours.

“We’re also actively negotiating a nuclear cooperation pact and have an investment protection agreement, and have established one of our most widespread overseas network offices in India, with three new trade offices opened by our government since 2006,” he said.

“We’re also dedicated to doubling the number of Indian students coming to Canada,” the minister said.

He however declined specifics on the nuclear cooperation pact, noting Prime Minister Stephen Harper leads a high-level delegation to India Nov 16-18.

Earlier Liberal Opposition leader Michael Ignatieff welcomed Harper’s visit to India, “as long as it’s not just a photo-op”.

Addressing the diners, he said Canada must take a leadership role in helping India develop financial services, clean energy and advanced water technologies.

Ignatieff praised the Indo-Canadian community and India as “a country that has managed to maintain democratic stability and at the same time (brought) hundreds of millions of people into the promise of growth”.

He added Harper’s visit must be part of a “steady, sustained, engaged commitment” to develop closer relations between the two countries.

The Liberal leader stressed Canada needs to diversify its trade partners, and that the moving axis of trade towards India and China “reflects no more than the very identity of Canada itself, today, and its peoples”.

Sandra Pupatello, Ontario Minister of Economic Development&Trade, noted the province’s trade with India has surged 108 per cent over the last five years, and attributed “the relation we’ve built with India is due to the people in this room”.

The council’s new president and executive director Rana Sarkar noted C-IBC has doubled its membership since he was brought aboard some nine months earlier.

He added that going forward, Canada’s single requirement is the need to diversify, and that India, even with its many challenges, provides a strong future alternative.

Others to address the gala included Roy MacLaren, chair, C-IBC, who welcomed the audience; Gerald Grandey, president and CEO, Cameco Corp, who provided an outline of the possible benefits nuclear energy cooperation would offer both Canada and India; and Peter Sutherland, who conducted the proceedings.