The following is a summary of developments in Canadian Citizenship and Immigration that took place or were announced over the last few weeks.

• Canada increases the number of visas available through the provincial nomination programs:

The Government of Canada increased the number of visas that may be issued this year for Canadian permanent residence under the provincial nomination programs. Citizenship and Immigration Canada decided to increase the numbers beyond what was originally promised earlier this year. This year, Alberta will now receive 5,000 immigrants under the Alberta Immigrant Nomination Program (AINP); British Columbia’s provincial nomination program will receive 3,500; Saskatchewan will receive 4,000, and Manitoba will receive 5,000.

• Canada supports world-leading research and creates skilled jobs:

The Government of Canada is committed to strengthening Canada’s knowledge economy. Canada recently announced it will invest $600-million as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan to promote research excellence and improve research facilities and equipment. This investment will enable Canadian universities to develop and attract top scientists while improving long-term competitiveness.

• Clean energy development in Canada could be jeopardized by shortage of skilled workers:

A skilled labour shortage in the electricity generation sector has the potential to hurt Canada’s ability to develop clean sources of energy. Over the next 10 years, 40% of all workers in the electricity sector plan to retire and 74% of the industry’s workers are now already over the age of 40. Unless Canada is able to attract skilled workers from abroad, there will be a a large gap between the demand and supply of trained staff for the thousands of new green power projects that are expected to be up and running between 2011 and 2013.

 

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