ARCHIVED – Speaking notes for The Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

At an event to announce the 2013 Immigration Levels Plan, which makes room for the rapid growth in the Canadian Experience Class (CEC)

Ottawa, Ontario
October 31, 2012

As delivered

Good morning. We’re really delighted to welcome some of our foreign students who are here studying at Carleton and the University of Ottawa. These are the kind of bright young people we`re trying to recruit to stay in Canada after their Canadian studies if they choose to do so to pursue economic opportunities here in Canada.

We’re working very closely with our colleges and universities to increase the opportunity for post-secondary education for bright young people from around the world who can come and share their knowledge and experience and benefit from the high-quality education available in Canada. We believe that young people like these can be model immigrants to Canada because they will complete their studies with degrees or diplomas that will be recognized by Canadian employers.

They will have perfected or improved their English or French language skills, and it would be very easy for them to find successful employment in Canada. Many of these young people will represent, we hope, the future of Canada’s large and generous immigration program. So, I am very pleased today to announce that I have presented the Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration in Canada. In the past six years, the government has maintained the highest level of immigration in Canadian history and our rate of immigration per capita is the highest in the developed world

Our Government has been maintaining the highest sustained level of immigration in Canadian history, admitting more than a quarter of a million new permanent residents each year since 2006, adding the equivalent of 0.8% to our population each year. We’re doing so because, of course, our population is aging and we have significant labour shortages in various regions and industries, which are projected to continue growing. So we see immigration as a tool for our future prosperity, but we can and must do a better job of selecting those who can succeed quickly, quickly integrate and find and keep good employment, start successful businesses and add to Canada’s prosperity.

That is why we are pursuing significant immigration reforms to do a better job of selecting people with the capacity quickly to contribute to our economy. For me the best reform we have made has been the introduction of two programs: the Canadian Experience Class, which invites qualified foreign students who have completed two years towards a degree or diploma and have done one year of work in Canada, or higher-skilled foreign nationals who have completed one year of work on a work permit in Canada, to stay permanently and to get permanent residency on a fast-track basis.

In the past, we used to tell bright young people like these that at the end of their studies they should leave Canada and if they wanted to immigrate, they should get in the back of an eight-year-long queue waiting for us to process their immigration papers. That is no longer the case. If any of these bright young people choose to stay and make Canada their future, they can do so quickly and easily from within the Canadian Experience Class.

I’m delighted to say that that class of immigration, that stream of immigration, has grown substantially since we launched it in 2009. We’ve gone from 2,500 admissions a year to 6,000. In fact, a couple of months ago I welcomed our 20,000th new permanent resident through the Canadian Experience Class. Mr. Gaurav Gore, who completed a degree at the University of Toronto, is now working for RBC. In fact, here I welcomed our 10,000th, a bright young woman from Mongolia who did her studies at Carleton University, like some of these students, and is now working for a Canadian bank.

These are really the immigrants of the future. They are young. They have Canadian degrees or diplomas. We hope they will have Canadian work experience. They have very strong Canadian language skills. They are set for success. The reforms we`re making are based on evidence, on research and on data which tell us that younger immigrants tend to do better over their lifetimes in Canada, those with higher levels of language proficiency and those with Canadian degrees and diplomas.

These reforms are based on research. I’m pleased therefore to announce that in the immigration plan for 2013 we will significantly expand the projected admissions for the Canadian Experience stream to up to 10,000. We expect this program will continue to grow so we’ll be shifting some of the space in our immigration plan from the old skilled worker program over to this Canadian Experience Class, which is a success story.

I should also mention that I announced earlier this year the creation of a PhD stream in our immigration system, allowing enrolled PhD students to get permanent residency after their second year of post-graduate studies, because we recognize that it takes often several years to complete a PhD program. We want to keep these bright young doctoral students in Canada if at all possible.

I want to encourage these young folks to think about staying in Canada if they see economic opportunities here. As I say, next year we will be in our immigration plan maintaining the overall range of 240,000 to 265,000 permanent residents, up to 10,000 in the Canadian Experience Class, and we’ll be releasing the full report and all of the detailed breakdown next Monday.

I’m happy to take your questions.

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