According to a recent study conducted by Statistics Canada, immigration to Canada has definitely led to an exponential rise in the number of Canadians who speak South Asian Languages other than English and French. In particular, the number of Canadians who spoke a South Asian language at home has significantly increased from 2016 to 2021.
This growth is majorly due to immigration. One-third of the permanent residents who moved to Canada between 2016 and 2020 were born in a South Asian country, and 1 in 5 was born in India.
While the Canadian population increased 5.2% from 2016 to 2021, the total number of Canadians who spoke a South Asian language at home increased quickly. Especially, the increase was witnessed in the number of people speaking Malayalam (+129% to 35000 people), Hindi, (+66% to 92,000 people), Punjabi (+49% to 520,000), and Gujarati (+43% to 92,000). In fact, the rise in the number of South Asian languages was eight times more than that of the whole Canadian population.
Pathways to Immigrate to Canada
If you are planning to immigrate to Canada from a South Asian country, there are two popular immigration pathways, Express Entry and the Provincial Nominee Program.
Express Entry
It is an application management system managed by the federal government of Canada that welcomes economic-class immigrants. Express Entry operates three distinct programs: the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), the Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP), and the Canadian Experience Class (CEC). Each of these programs has minimum eligibility criteria that an applicant must fulfill before applying. First, an applicant must express their interest in becoming a permanent resident of Canada. After this, they will receive a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score which is used to categorize skilled worker applicants and determine who will succeed in Canada’s job market.
It thoroughly assesses each applicant and offers a score based on their human capital: evaluating age, education, language proficiency, and work experience, among other criteria. After every two weeks, the federal government holds Express Entry draws and welcomes applicants with the maximum CRS scores to become permanent residents.
Provincial Nominee Program
Provincial Nominee Program is another leading option for skilled professionals to immigrate to Canada. Usually, all the Canadian provinces and territories have their own PNPs. It permits each province and territory to nominate applicants who are interested in setting in a specific Canadian province. The sole purpose of the PNP is to increase the benefit of immigration across the country. Every province and territory introduced their own immigration pathways to invite skilled workers to strengthen the economic and demographic requirements. Each PNP has one stream that an applicant may enter through the Express Entry pool.
If you get nominated by a province under this stream, it is known as enhanced nomination. The perk of getting an enhanced nomination is that you will receive an additional 600 CRS points, which concludes that you are essentially approved to receive an invitation to apply for permanent residence in the latest Express Entry draw.
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