Canada Immigration News

In the wake of several high profile immigration scandals, the leader of Canada' s opposition Conservative Party says it will start examining alternative policies, CTV reports.

Earlier this month, Canada's Immigration Minister Judy Sgro resigned amid accusations that she had accepted gifts of food and help in her election campaign from a constituent, Harjit Singh, in return for a promise to help him stay in Canada despite a deportation order. But Conservative leader Stephen Harper believes there are deeper problems.

The Federal Government and the Province of Ontario will jointly invest C$3.4 million to improve English-language training for immigrants, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) reported on January 20.

Following the January 13 resignation of Judy Sgro, newly-appointed Canadian Immigration Minister Joe Volpe will seek to speed up the process of determining who is a refugee, the website Cnews reports.

Mr. Volpe said he doesn't consider it acceptable that it should take years to deal with some cases.

"If something can be done to shorten the process it will be done," he said January 17.

Mr. Volpe also said he will immediately start looking into the situation of thousands of construction workers operating illegally in Toronto.

Canada's Immigration Minister Judy Sgro resigned January 13 after allegedly offering to help an asylum seeker stay in Canada, Reuters reports.

The Canadian Government is looking at easing adoption rules sothat children orphaned by the tsunami tragedy can be adopted byrelatives living in Canada, the website chinaview.cn reports.

Canada'sImmigration Minister Judy Sgro said on January 5 that theseapplications would be made a priority, as Government and socialservices agencies have been swamped by enquiries from anxious relatives.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has announced that his government may make more concessions on family reunion migration for victims of the Asian tsunami, the newspaper The Globe and Mail reported.