Canada To Require Tests In English Or French For Skilled Immigration Class
The Canadian government will be requiring that all applicants applying to immigrate to Canada under the skilled immigrant category should prove their fluency in either English or French, Canada’s two official languages, through a test.
Canada’s federal Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration today announced that as of April 10, 2010, applicants whose first language is neither English nor French will have to submit the results from an ‘independent, third-party’ language test.
Until now, applicants could take a test, or submit a written submission in either of the language to the appropriate visa office.
However, the ministry now feels that the written submission is not sufficient to test the fluency of English or French of an applicant.
Hence the new regulation.
This rule applies only to those wanting to apply for immigration under the Federal Skilled Worker and Canadian Experience classes, and will not apply to those applying under Family Class (see article for Family Class).
An applicant can get up to 24 out of a 100 points for language fluency.
Some critics question the rationale of asking for fluency in English or French from skilled workers such as construction workers or chefs, whom Canada so desperately needs but who will not necessarily be fluent in either of the Canada’s two official languages.
Language Testing Bodies
This is a test jointly managed the British University of Cambridge-ESOL, the British Council and IDP Pty Ltd. of Australia.
IELTS has two options for reading and writing tests: General Training and Academic, and applicants need to take the General Training option.
University of British Columbia, Canada, administers this test.
French:
The Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry administers these tests.
The applicant must submit results from the following TEF tests:
- compréhension écrite
- compréhension orale
- expression écrite
- expression orale
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These changes don’t go nearly far enough. ‘Skilled’, or not, being able to function in either official language should be a requirment, PERIOD. This is as much for the benefit of immigrants themselves as the host country. A frightening example is the arson incident at a Calgary Chinatown building, adjacent to an apartment complex. The inhabitants were mostly Chinese-Canadians, who had been living here for years, yet the Fire Department required INTERPRETERS to tell them to evacuate. I have middle-class, Chinese-Canadian neighbours–with jobs, bank accounts and drivers’ licenses–who can’t converse in English. I’ve encountered University students who can’t distinguish ‘seventeen’ from ‘seventy’ in speech and medical professionals (radiologists, phlebologists, dentists, pharmacists) who had serious problems communicating verbally. There is simply no excuse for this. Middle-class and ‘entrepreneur’ (i.e., with more than $400,000 in assets) immigrants should undertake ESL training BEFORE setting foot here. One needn’t be required to write a paper on English phonotactics, or whatever–simply COMMUNICATING AT A FUNCTIONAL LEVEL should be demanded. Yet, even wealthy immigrants keep arriving in Canada assuming that they can live in linguistic, cultural and social bubbles. Businesses and governments enable this sort of ‘linguistic apartheid’ by offering Putongua ATMs, multilingual forms and the like. It’s time to admit that linguistic integration is part-and-parcel to the social integration of immigrants in Canadian society.