Ontarians Encouraged To Honour And Remember Veterans

TORONTO, Nov. 6 /CNW/ - All Ontarians are encouraged to honour and remember veterans and keep the memories of their contributions alive during Veterans' Week, said Minister Responsible for Seniors Aileen Carroll at the start of Veterans' Week.

"We need to help future generations remember the contributions the sacrifices veterans made to preserving our freedom," said Carroll. "On behalf of the Government of Ontario, I encourage everyone to take time during Veterans' Week to pay tribute by participating in local Legion activities, school assemblies or faith services, or just by saying thank you to a veteran."

Ontario is continuing to expand its efforts to ensure future generations never forget the debt of gratitude owed to our veterans. Ontario government activities for Veterans' Week include:

- The launch of an advertising campaign for licence plates that feature a poppy and are available only to veterans
- A Tribute to the Fallen Ceremony on November 9, honouring soldiers who died in the past year
- The second annual provincial Ceremony of Remembrance at the Veterans' Memorial on Remembrance Day, November 11.

Federal Minister Finley Announces Overseas Expansion Of Foreign Credentials Referral Services
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2007/2007-11-06.asp

New Delhi, India, November 6, 2007 — The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, today announced the expansion of services to help immigrants from India and China get their professional credentials assessed and recognized in Canada as quickly as possible with the assistance of the Foreign Credentials Referral Office (FCRO).

While in India, the Minister announced the opening of a new office of the Canadian Immigration Integration Project in New Delhi. The new office, which is centrally located, is in response to increased demand in the region.

“The Government of Canada is committed to helping newcomers succeed, and one way to do that is to help them before they get to Canada,” said Minister Finley. “Too many newcomers have come to Canada only to learn after they’ve arrived what credentials are needed. By expanding our FCRO programs overseas, we’re helping prospective immigrants to get a head start by providing information on the foreign credential recognition process and the Canadian labour market.”

Today’s announcement adds service on a rotational basis in the states of Gujarat and Punjab, which are major sources of skilled immigrants from India. In China, rotational services have been added in Beijing and Shanghai so services are available to more potential immigrants. Until now, the orientation sessions have been available in three cities in India, China and the Philippines. To date, more than 1,200 prospective immigrants have registered, and benefited. Overall, participants say they are more confident about being able to settle successfully when they arrive in Canada.

Love Thy Neighbours — Please
http://thecanadianimmigrant.com
By George Abraham

Think of Canada as a huge social experiment with 32 million people. New people are being introduced every year — at the highest rate in the world — and predictably, there is concern about how the new and old are getting along.

Thirty-five years after inventing multiculturalism for the world, Canada is having second thoughts. It’s no longer about what Canadians can do for new immigrants; it’s about what new immigrants should do to fit in. The new mantra might well be “reasonable accommodation.”

The cradle for this shift is in Quebec, which is debating the obligations of society toward new immigrants. Headed by a renowned sociologist-philosopher duo, the Bouchard-Taylor Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences is travelling across the province tapping public opinion.

In one of its first hearings, the commission heard from a public servant who was clearly tired of what she saw as the Canadian tendency to bend over backward. “We took Catholicism out of our lives, but left all this room for all the other religions … [A]pparently, it’s not going both ways. People are expecting to arrive here and still live like they are in Baghdad,” she lamented.

More recently, a 67-year-old retired engineer in Saguenay, said, “I fear that foreigners will impose their values on us, so we’ll lose our place. It’s like I invite someone into my home and he slowly shows me the door.”

The tone of the debate is not uncommon in Western democracies, particularly in much of Europe, the United States and Australia. But it is happening in a country that gave the world the concept of “multiculturalism” and itself stands as a poster child for its success. Canadians rarely thump their chests, but when they do they like to crow about their invention of the policy of multiculturalism.

The word itself is open to interpretation and means different things to different people. It can mean tolerance, a “mosaic” (as opposed to a “melting pot”) model of assimilation, pluralism, but, above all, the equality of all cultures. According to Janice Gross Stein, director of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto and a contributor to the recently published Uneasy Partners: Multiculturalism and Rights in Canada, “Canadians of all backgrounds and cultures are free to be themselves.”

That is what the author of the policy, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, had in mind when he legislated it in 1971. But the world has changed since then. With Chinese and Indian nationals dominating new arrivals that constitute the highest rate of immigration in the world, making a fifth of the population now foreign-born, newcomers have become a more visible presence in Canada. Importantly, the majority of them are not of English or French stock.

In Uneasy Partners, Stein sees a natural evolutionary process unfolding. “Now, I would argue, we are in a second stage, where a deeply embedded culture of individual rights is challenging cultural and religious practices that infringe on our concept of equality. Our perpetual dialogue on these issues has shifted direction.”

Take it from me, this debate has just gotten started and will move beyond Quebec.

StatsCan Study: Economic integration of immigrants' children
1996 to 2004

Highlights
Young women with two immigrant parents had significantly higher hourly and annual earnings than young women with Canadian-born parents
…..Some visible minority men with two immigrant parents appeared to have a significant disadvantage in earnings compared to their peers with Canadian-born parents

Monday, October 29, 2007 http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/071029/d071029a.htm

Much has been written about the widening gap in earnings and low-income rates between recent immigrants to Canada and their Canadian-born counterparts. However, the challenges associated with the integration of immigrants often extend beyond the first generation.

This study, published today in the October 2007 edition of Perspectives on Labour and Income, focuses on second-generation Canadians aged 17 to 29—young men and women born in Canada to two immigrant parents between 1967 and 1982.

Using data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, the study compares, over a six-year period (either 1996 to 2001 or 1999 to 2004), the earnings of these second-generation Canadians who have a strong labour force attachment to those of their peers with Canadian-born parents. It also compares the two groups' family characteristics, educational attainment and geographical distribution, and the extent to which these factors may lead to differences in earnings.

Taking education levels into account, the study found that young women with two immigrant parents had significantly higher hourly and annual earnings than young women with Canadian-born parents during the entire six-year period.

Among young men, on the other hand, there was little evidence of such a second-generation earnings advantage. In fact, everything else being equal, some visible minority men with two immigrant parents appeared to have a significant disadvantage in earnings compared to their peers with Canadian-born parents.

In the case of women, roughly half of their advantage in hourly earnings was due to geographic distribution. Three-quarters of young Canadians with two immigrant parents were concentrated in Ontario and British Columbia, and more than three-quarters lived in large urban centres. In contrast, half of their counterparts with Canadian-born parents lived in less economically prosperous regions, such as Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. About 60% lived in smaller cities, small towns and rural areas.

A large part of the annual earnings advantage among young women with two immigrant parents was also because they were less likely to have been married or had children.

By the end of the six-year period when they had reached the ages of 22 to 34, less than half of women with two immigrant parents had been married. Only a third had given birth to, adopted, or raised children. In contrast, over 60% of those with Canadian-born parents had been married, and close to half had had children.

The situation was quite different for young second-generation men. The study found little evidence of an advantage in hourly or annual earnings relative to their third- and higher-generation male counterparts.

In fact, generalizations about young second-generation men were difficult to make since they tended to be more heterogeneous in terms of earnings than their female counterparts.

Part of the extra heterogeneity arose because visible minority status had no bearing on women's earnings, but it had a large impact on those of men.

The study found that among young men born in Canada to two immigrant parents, visible minorities fared markedly worse. Everything else being equal, their earnings were significantly lower than those of young men with Canadian-born parents.

The earnings of second-generation men who were not visible minorities, on the other hand, were no different from those of men with Canadian-born parents. In fact, the study found some evidence suggesting that the earnings of those with one immigrant parent might be higher.

Internet Is A Major Tool For Canadians
Excerpt From:
http://www.canada.com
CanWest News Service Wednesday, October 31, 2007

OTTAWA -- The Internet has changed the way Canadians live, but also the way they learn, according to a new Statistics Canada report with the latest data on how Canadians are using the Internet.

The study found that in 2005, more than one-quarter of Canadians -- an estimated 6.4 million -- used the Web for education, training or school work.

The study, using data from the 2005 Canadian Internet Use Survey, then took a closer look at the characteristics of the people who are going online for educational purposes.

People who reported using the Internet from home for education tended to be younger -- average age of 34 -- and to have more education than other users or non-users. They were also more likely to be in the paid labour force and less likely to be married, reflecting their lower average age.

More Canadians going online for education-related reasons were students, Statistics Canada said. Nearly 80 per cent of all full-time and part-time students reported logging on to the Internet for education purposes.

The most common type of education-related use of the Internet was to research information for project assignments or for solving academic problems, the study said.

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