MIGRATION TO CANADA: HOW TO MIGRATE CANADA AND FACTORS 2022
The number of Nigerians immigrating to Canada has tripled in the last five years. Nigeria is now one of the main source countries of Canada’s immigrant population.
For many Nigerians, immigrating to Canada presents a wealth of opportunities not available to them in their home country. Political stability, a thriving economy, and internationally recognized schools are all factors that make Canada a top destination for Nigerian immigrants.
WAYS OF MIGRATING
There are different ways of migrating to Canada.
Express Entry
Express Entry is the fastest and most popular pathway for newcomers seeking a new life in Canada. Express Entry organizes and processes applications for people who wish to immigrate to Canada and acquire Canadian permanent residence.
Candidates with university or college degrees with skilled work experience and moderate proficiency in English and/or French are ideal candidates.
Candidates who qualify for the following programs are also eligible to submit an application under the Express Entry program:
Federal Skilled Worker (FSW)
Federal Skilled Trades (FST)
Canadian Experience Class (CEC).
Provincial Nominee Program (PNP)
Each of Canada’s thirteen provinces and territories operates its own immigration programs, called Provincial Nominee Programs, or PNPs. As the provinces have different populations and economies, their immigration programs are unique and built to fit their economic and demographic needs.
PNPs are a popular option because they can be the fastest pathway to Canadian permanent residence.
If you are nominated through a PNP which is aligned with Express Entry, you will receive an additional 600 Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) points. This means you are basically guaranteed to receive an invitation to apply (ITA) for permanent residence in the next Express Entry draw!
Family Sponsorship
Family reunification is a top priority for Canadian immigration. Canada offers several immigration programs that give Canadians the opportunity to sponsor their family members to Canada.
To sponsor a family member as a permanent resident under family class sponsorship, the sponsor must fulfill the following conditions:
Be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada aged at least 18 years.
Reside in Canada if they are a permanent resident. Canadian citizens can sponsor a family member even when living outside the country. However, he or she must reside in Canada when the sponsored family member becomes a permanent resident of Canada.
Have adequate resources to provide financial support to the sponsored person for the mandated duration.
Further, the sponsor must comply with additional requirements like not receiving social assistance (except for reason of disability), meeting financial obligations including support for sponsored family members on time, a clean criminal record, etc.
Canada’s Start-up Visa Program
If you are an entrepreneur with an innovative business idea, you may be eligible to immigrate to Canada through the start-up visa program.
Canada is looking for talented entrepreneurs that are interested in starting businesses that will stimulate the Canadian economy while creating employment opportunities for its residents.
Qualified candidates can come to Canada on a work permit and will be granted Canadian permanent residence once they have established their business.
FACTORS OF MIGRATION
So, we start by talking about the factors that make people migrate from their countries to Canada, especially Nigerians.
Today we would be talking about a few, the main factors of migration are:
Availability of Jobs
Security
Education
Culture
Economy
Politics.
Government
Availability of Jobs
In Canada there are much more jobs opportunity using the statistics of my research, Canada has been on an average of 60.26% since 1976 to date. But if you’re considering staying back in Nigeria the employment rate has been diminishing.
So, they’re different types of employments we would talk about, let’s get right into it.
Unionized employees vs non-unionized employees:
Unionized employees have different rights and obligations in Canada which are created and enforced by the operation of the statute. These rights and obligations are defined pursuant to various acts of Parliament and Provincial Legislation in each of the 11 jurisdictions in Canada. A detailed examination of the Labour Relations Acts or Codes, and the case law with respect to them in each of the provinces, and federally, is required in order to properly understand the specifics in any jurisdiction.
Non-Unionized employees are engaged by a contract or agreement directly between the employee and the employer. Employment contracts are subject to contract law principles and certain statutory minimum requirements as dictated in each of the respective provincial and federal jurisdictions.
Statutory Jurisdiction
Federal legislation covers employees who work for ‘Federal Works or Undertakings’. Federal Works or Undertakings are those jurisdictions specifically given to the Federal Government in the Canadian Constitution and include banks, telecommunications and broadcasting, interprovincial transportation, and other matters of ‘national importance’.
If the nature of the undertakings does not fall under Federal jurisdiction, the governing law of the employment relationship is generally the law of the province in which the work is performed.
The Common Law employment rights referred to below do not apply to unionized workers. Unionized workers’ rights are replaced by the right to collectively bargain which is created and protected by statute, and whatever rights have been included in any collective agreement that has application to a particular workplace.
Statutory Minimum Requirements
There are statutory minimum provisions in each of the eleven jurisdictions which are set out in the Employment Standards Acts or Codes of those jurisdictions. These provisions are typically universally applicable, and parties are not legally permitted to contract out of these employee protections. The protections include but are not limited to hours of work; minimum wages; overtime; payment for work; sale of a business; public holidays; vacation with pay; termination of employment; leaves of absence; reprisals; employment records; liability; and, enforcement.
Under the various provincial and federal Human Rights Statutes, an employee cannot be discriminated against based on any of the grounds as set out in the respective Codes or Acts. These include race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, age, records of offenses, marital status, family status or handicap. In addition to being treated equally, employers must ensure that disadvantaged employees are given an equal opportunity to employment, which includes being given “accommodation” or special dispensation to the point of “undue hardship” to the employer in order to permit the employee to continue gainful employment.
Accommodation takes many forms and is specific to the circumstances.
There are, of course, other issues that arise because of legislation, including but not limited to employee privacy, equal pay for equal work, and employment equity.
The Common Law in Canada
Common law employment rights are the contractual rights and obligations of both employees and employers that form part of their express or implied contracts of employment. These do not apply to unionized workers.
In addition to the mandatory rights provisions under the various Employment Standards and Human Rights Acts, employees and employers are subject to rights and obligations at common law (or under the Civil Code in the Province of Quebec). These rights and obligations are defined by the parties in an agreement or alternatively, in the absence of any such express agreement between the parties, they are implied by law and imposed by Courts. For example, at common law, employees owe an implied duty of loyalty to their employers, the nature of which is further defined by the employee’s role, responsibilities, and circumstances. These concepts are articulated in judicial precedents.
Another key example of an implied common law right is the employee’s right to reasonable notice of termination or payment in lieu thereof when there is no just cause for termination. This is very different from the fundamental principle of some jurisdictions which consider the employment relationship to be “at-will”. The “at-will” concept simply has no application in Canada and is prima facie unlawful.
There is no simple formula to determine the period of “reasonable notice” to which an employee is entitled. A court looks at all of the relevant factors and comes to a determination by applying these factors to the individual case. Normally, a Court does not give any indication as to how the calculation was made.
Sometimes the Court will indicate the importance of one factor or another in its overall determination, but the more usual course is an examination of all the facts and then the simple statement that “In my view, the appropriate period of notice is X.” By looking at recent cases, one can get a feel for the appropriate range for a given employee, but this is by no means a scientific process.
Extensive reasonable notice periods of one year or more are often awarded to employees with long service. Historically, a two-year reasonable notice period is the normal maximum a Court will award, absent special considerations or a demonstration of bad faith on the part of the employer.
Some of the more important factors to be considered in determining the reasonable notice period are:
1. Length of service.
2. Age.
3. Level of responsibility, for example, how many employees report to the individual, who does he or she report to, and any other relevant indicia of the level of responsibility.
4. Qualifications–professional or otherwise, either required for the position or held by the individual.
5. Ability to mitigate by finding replacement employment.
6. How the employee was hired, that is, whether the employee was induced away from other secure employment.
7. Reason for termination.
8. Remuneration – in general, courts consider the level of remuneration to be a measure of the importance of the position.
9. Any other especially relevant criteria such as, “Did the employee relocate in order to take the position?”
Recommendation
To remove uncertainty and ambiguity regarding their rights and obligations, implied or otherwise, employees and employees should when possible:
Determine what legal jurisdiction applies to the employment relationship.
Be aware of the minimum and universal statutory requirements of that jurisdiction.
Expressly define and agree in writing to the terms and conditions of the employment relationship to avoid implied terms from being judicially imposed upon the relationship.
SECURITY
The security level of Canada is top-notch, due to this the safety of immigrants is secured. Canada is considered one of the safest destinations in the world. Crime rates are low, police are trusted, easy to contact, and quick to respond. No matter where you travel some common sense is an important part of personal safety and the security of your property. Don’t leave handbags or luggage unattended.
The police forces of Canada are organized into three groups: the federal force called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP); provincial police; and municipal police. The RCMP, or Mounties—one of Canada’s best-known organizations—was established in 1873 for service in the Northwest Territories of that time. It is still the primary police force in Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, but it also has complete jurisdiction of the enforcement of federal statutes throughout Canada, which includes the control of narcotics. The maintenance of peace, order, and public safety and the prevention and investigation of criminal offenses and of violation of provincial laws are provincial responsibilities. Ontario and Quebec have their own provincial police forces, but all other provinces engage the RCMP to perform these functions.
Provincial legislation makes it mandatory for cities and towns and for villages and townships with sufficient population density and real property to furnish adequate policing for the maintenance of law and order in their communities. Most large municipalities maintain their own forces, but others engage the provincial police or the RCMP, under contract, to attend to police matters. In 1984 the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was created to replace the security service previously provided by the RCMP. The CSIS’s purpose is to conduct security investigations within Canada related to subversion, terrorism, and foreign espionage.
EDUCATION
Under the British North America Act of 1867, organizing and administering public education are provincial responsibilities. The federal government is directly concerned only with providing education in Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, where it allocates funds but does not administer the system; in First Nations schools throughout Canada; for inmates of federal penitentiaries; for the families of members of the Canadian forces on military stations; and through Canada’s Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. In addition, the federal government finances the vocational training of adults and provides financial support to the provinces for the operating costs of postsecondary education.
Education policies vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but each province has a department of education headed by a minister who is a member of the provincial cabinet. Before they enter an eight-grade elementary school at age 6 or 7, Canadian children in some provinces attend kindergarten for two years, whereas those in other provinces attend kindergarten for only one year. At about 14 years of age, most children enroll in a regular four-year secondary school.
Traditionally, higher education was the preserve of universities. Now, however, they are supplemented by various institutions without degree-granting status—for example, regional colleges in British Columbia, institutes of technology in Alberta, institutes of applied arts and sciences in Saskatchewan, colleges of applied arts and technology in Ontario, and collèges d’enseignement rofess et professional (community colleges) in Quebec. Canada has some 75 degree-granting institutions and more than 200 community colleges, ranging from institutions with a single faculty and enrollments of a few hundred to institutions with many faculties and research institutes and more than 50,000 students. Among the largest universities are the multicampus Université du Québec (founded 1968) and the University of Toronto (1827). One of Canada’s most prestigious universities is McGill University (1821), a private state-supported English-language university in Montreal.
The oldest French-speaking university in Canada, Laval, in Quebec City, traces its roots to 1663; it was officially founded as a university in 1852 and was recognized by a papal bull in 1872. Universities in English-speaking Canada were established after the American Revolution. University of King’s College (1789) in Nova Scotia and what is now the University of New Brunswick (1785) were patterned on King’s College (now Columbia University) in pre-Revolutionary New York City. Most other universities in pioneer days were begun by churches, but almost all have since become secular and almost entirely financially dependent on the provincial governments.
Beginning in the late 1950s, Ontario established a number of new postsecondary institutions. One of these, the University of Waterloo (founded in 1957 and incorporated as a university in 1959), has a cooperative program (alternating academic and work terms) and has gained an international reputation in mathematics and computer science. A number of private universities have been established in Canada, including Royal Roads University, which was established at a former federal military college near Victoria, British Columbia. A somewhat unusual characteristic of Canadian universities has been the system of “affiliated colleges” linked to a “parent” degree-granting institution though separated from it physically. English is the common language of instruction at most universities, except for a few bilingual institutions and several French-language schools.
CULTURE
In 1951 the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences issued a report (what became known as the Massey Report) warning that Canadian culture had become invisible, nearly indistinguishable from that of the neighboring United States, owing to years of “American invasion by film, radio, and periodical.” Henceforth, the government declared that Canada’s mass media would be required to encourage Canadian content—books, television programs, magazines, and other locally made cultural products. By most accounts, the policy has been quite successful, though that success has largely been the result of the individual—not federal—efforts. In its broadest sense, Canadian culture is a mixture of British, French, and American influences, all of which blend and sometimes compete in every aspect of cultural life, from filmmaking and writing to cooking and playing sports. Other peoples have added distinctive elements to this mixture: for example, Canada’s large foreign-born population is evident in the splendid and varied restaurants (notably South Asian) that line Toronto’s Yonge Street, Vancouver’s Chinese population has given that city a tradition of folk opera and puppetry that rival those found in China, Italian is widely spoken in the coffeehouses of Montreal, and Canada’s indigenous peoples are finding a growing voice through a broad range of fine and folk arts.
In 1971, 20 years after the release of the Massey Report, Canada adopted multiculturalism as an official national policy, and the federal government now gives support to various ethnic groups and assistance to help individuals participate fully in Canadian society.
Since the mid-20th century, economic growth has provided Canadians with greater means for practicing and enjoying the arts. Most provincial governments provide some form of financial assistance for the arts and for cultural organizations within their borders, and many have advisory and funding councils for the arts.
At the national level, the Canada Council for the Arts (headquartered in Ottawa) was established in 1957. It is funded by an endowment, an annual grant from the federal government, donations, and bequests. The annual Governor General’s Literary Awards are Canada’s preeminent literary prizes; they are granted to books—one in French and one in English—in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, children’s literature (text), and translation.
ECONOMY
The early settlement and growth of Canada depended on exploiting and exporting the country’s vast natural resources. During the 20th century, manufacturing industries and services became increasingly important. By the end of the 20th century, agriculture and mining accounted for less than 5 percent of Canada’s labour force, while manufacturing stood at one-fifth and services, including transportation, trade, finance, and other activities, employed nearly three-fourths of the workforce. For many years Canada supported its manufacturing industries through protective tariffs on imported manufactured goods. As a result, many U.S. firms established branch plants in order to supply the Canadian market. Another cornerstone of Canada’s economic policy was the government’s provision of grants and subsidies to stimulate economic development in areas of slow growth. In the 1980s Canada began moving away from these two basic policies. Compliance with international rules on trade and the establishment of a free trade area with the United States (1989)—which with the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 came to include Mexico—reduced protection for Canadian manufacturing plants. Funding for regional economic development programs was also reduced. Some multinational companies have relocated their factories to countries where costs are cheaper, causing job losses and political dissatisfaction within Canada.
Canada’s economy is dominated by the private sector, though some enterprises (e.g., postal services, some electric utilities, and some transportation services) have remained publicly owned. During the 1990s some nationalized industries were privatized. Canadian agriculture is firmly private, but it has come to depend on government subsidies in order to compete with the highly subsidized agricultural sectors of the European Union (EU) and the United States. Several marketing boards for specific farm commodities practice supply management and establish floor prices.
POLITICS
During much of the 20th century, Canada had two major political parties: the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals. Although both parties were ideologically diverse, the Progressive Conservatives tended to be slight to the right, while the Liberals were generally regarded as center-left. These two parties formed all of Canada’s national governments. From the 1930s to the ’80s both the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals became somewhat more liberal regarding social and health welfare policies and government intervention in the economy. Under the leadership of Brian Mulroney, who became prime minister in 1984, the Progressive Conservative government underwent a distinctly conservative shift, which included selling crown corporations, deregulating many industries, and granting tax advantages to corporations and the wealthy. However, after Mulroney’s retirement in 1993, his party suffered a cataclysmic decline in the House of Commons, their number of seats being reduced from 169 to 2 in October 1993. At the same time, the Liberals increased their representation from 83 to 178. In particular, the Liberals dominated federal elections in Ontario, which elects one-third of all members of the House of Commons; in 2000, for example, the Liberals won 100 of Ontario’s 103 seats, though they won only half of the overall popular vote and failed to control the provincial government. Beginning with a loss in the 2006 election, however, the Liberals went into something of a tailspin that culminated in a third-place finish in 2011.
Throughout much of the 20th century, the main third party was the New Democratic Party (NDP), its support largely concentrated in western Canada. The NDP occupies a left-of-centre position, advocating an extension of the welfare state. It often won 30 to 40 seats in the House of Commons, but it too saw its representation cut dramatically in the 1990s. In particular, the decline of the NDP and Progressive Conservatives was the result of the regionalization of Canada’s elections. In 2011, however, the NDP made historic gains, capturing 102 seats to become the official opposition, largely as the result of its sweeping success in Quebec. The Bloc Québécois, which supports Quebec’s independence and maintains links with the provincial Parti Québécois, won 54 seats in the House of Commons in 1993 and became the official opposition. In 1997, however, the conservative and western-based Reform Party of Canada, which opposed concessions to Quebec, won 60 seats to become the official opposition. In 2000 the Reform Party was replaced by the conservative Canadian Alliance—formed by elements of the old Reform Party and disgruntled Progressive Conservatives—which subsequently became the official opposition. The Canadian Alliance merged in 2003 with the remaining Progressive Conservatives to create the Conservative Party of Canada, which continued in opposition until 2006, when the party rebounded and recorded the first of three consecutive federal election victories, beginning Stephen Harper’s long tenure as prime minister.
GOVERNMENT
Formally, Canada is a constitutional monarchy. The titular head is the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom (locally called the king or queen of Canada), who is represented locally by a governor-general (now always Canadian and appointed by the Canadian prime minister). In practice, however, Canada is an independent federal state established in 1867 by the British North America Act. The act created a self-governing British dominion (recognized as independent within the British Empire by Britain in 1931) and united the colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada into the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario. Rupert’s Land and the Northwest Territories were acquired from the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1869, and from them, Manitoba was created and admitted to the confederation as a province in 1870; its extent was enlarged by adding more areas from the territories in 1881 and 1912. The colonies of British Columbia and Prince Edward Island were admitted as provinces in 1871 and 1873, respectively. In 1905 Saskatchewan and Alberta were created from what remained of the Northwest Territories and admitted to the confederation as provinces. In 1912 the provinces of Quebec and Ontario were enlarged by adding areas from the Northwest Territories.
In 1949 Newfoundland and its mainland dependency, Labrador joined the confederation following a popular referendum (the province was officially renamed Newfoundland and Labrador in 2001). The Yukon Territory (renamed Yukon in 2003) was separated from the Northwest Territories in 1898, and Nunavut was created from the eastern part of the territories in 1999. Thus, Canada now consists of 10 provinces and 3 territories, which vary greatly in size.
BENEFIT OF MIGRATING TO CANADA
These are but a few benefits from getting a permanent Resident in Canada
Right to Live and Work in Canada.
Extend or renew your visa after 5 years.
Allows you to bring your family along!
Free Education for children.
Universal Healthcare.
Social Benefits.
Possible Canadian Citizenship.
Freedom to Move.
