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!