Canadian provincial and territorial leaders seek more French-speaking immigrants

08/13/2016

The Premiers of Canadian provinces and territories want more French-speaking immigrants outside the province of Quebec. This is in line with the objective of the Canadian federal government, which wants to see francophones constituting four percent of all immigrants settling in territories and provinces outside Quebec.

This is the first time that 13 Premiers of all provinces and territories of Canada are unanimously supporting a target of immigration for francophone immigrants.

Though the first preference of the most native French speakers is Quebec, the other parts of Canada also have a considerable francophone population, which is estimated to be more than one million.

In the federal department of IRCC (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) year-end Express Entry report, it was stated that in 2015, of all the candidates that were issued an ITA (Invitation to Apply) under the Express Entry immigration selection system for permanent residence, two percent were francophones. This was despite the fact they made up for one percent of all candidates in the Express Entry pool.

IRCC said that it was looking at ways of increasing the French-speaking people’s numbers who want to come to Canada via Express Entry.

On 1 June, the federal government also launched an initiative, named the Mobilité Francophone stream of the International Mobility Program, to let employers in Canada, except for Quebec, to recruit francophone and bilingual skilled workers without the necessity to apply for an LMIA (Labour Market Impact Assessment).

Canada’s Immigration Minister John McCallum was quoted by CIC News as saying that their government is encouraging skilled French-speaking people to come to the North American country and relocate in communities outside Quebec, and these people would be encouraged to apply for permanent residence.

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