07-02-12
Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is aiming to strengthen Canada’s immigration programs, particularly Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs), with the help of language proficiency standards. Minimum language proficiency requirements are just one of the ways to prevent immigration fraud schemes from taking advantage of potential Canadian immigrants, according to Kenney.
“Some provinces were allowing consultants to run fast and loose and attract people who had a lot of money but no language proficiency,” Kenney said.
He recommends that the Federal government and Canadian provinces work closer together to deter immigration fraud, as well as to recruit qualified immigrants and help them line up jobs for when they arrive.
PNPs allow provinces to nominate people to immigrate to Canada according to their economic needs. In recent years, the province of Alberta has seen some success with their PNP, but would like to attract more immigrants. Alberta’s PNP is currently capped at 5,000 nominations per year, but Alberta Human Services Minister Dave Hancock says that the province would need 10,000 per year to meet their upcoming labour shortage.
