As per the recently-released Immigration Plan for 2023-2025, Canada wants to welcome up to 500,000 new permanent residents a year by 2025
Speakers and learners of French language in India wanting to immigrate to Canada stand to benefit with the Canadian province of Nova Scotia launching its new ‘Francophone’ immigration action plan, reported IANS. As per the recently-released Immigration Plan for 2023-2025, Canada wants to welcome up to 500,000 new permanent residents a year by 2025.
The plan, ‘Growing Nova Scotia’s Francophone Population – An Action Plan for Success (2022-25)’ aims to attract French-speaking immigrants to support the existing francophone and Acadian communities. These communities have been an essential part of the province’s identity and heritage for more than 400 years.
In Nova Scotia, Latin for ‘New Scotland’, more than 30,000 people report speaking French as their first language, according to census 2021 data on languages. The province said in a statement that it aims to meet or exceed the federal government’s target for French-speaking immigrants to Canada, which is 4.4 percent.
A Ministry of External Affairs data shows that in the first six months of 2022, as many as 64,667 Indians going abroad for education named the USA as their destination, followed closely by Canada (60,258)
Recently, 150 Francophone candidates in the federal Express Entry system were invited to apply to Nova Scotia’s Labour Market Priorities stream of the Provincial Nominee Programme (NSNP). All these candidates either spoke French as their first official language or had Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) scores of 10 in all language abilities.
In India, thousands of students and skilled professionals enroll in language institutes and universities to learn French, which is the second most widely learned language after English, and the sixth most widely spoken language in the world. Alliance Française is one of the premier institutes in India with nearly 13 branches across the country, followed by ReSOLT in Mumbai and European Institute of Foreign Languages in Delhi, Mumbai and other major cities.
Attracting French-speaking immigrants and migrants to Nova Scotia is of crucial importance to the vitality of our Acadian and francophone regions and community as a whole, Allister Surette, President and Vice-Chancellor, Université Sainte-Anne, said.
A Ministry of External Affairs data shows that in the first six months of 2022, as many as 64,667 Indians going abroad for education named the USA as their destination, followed closely by Canada (60,258).
Nova Scotia says its retention rate for immigrants is currently around 70 percent — highest in Atlantic Canada. Since the launch of the first francophone immigration action plan in 2019, the percentage of French-speaking candidates approved through the Provincial Nominee Programme grew to 6.4 percent in 2021 from less than one per cent in 2018.
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