- Andrea Diaz Cardona
- BBC News World
5 hours before
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“Canada? But there the cold is unbearable and the land is empty…”
Anyone who has immigrated or is considering moving to the North American country has surely heard this type of comment from someone else.
And it is also very likely that the person mentioned subsidies or aid from the Canadian government as reasons for immigrating.
But how much is all this true? BBC News Mundo, the BBC’s Spanishlanguage service, analyzed three myths about immigration to the country.
1. Is the cold unbearable?
The answer is yes and no: it’s very cold, but not necessarily unbearable.
In Canada, winters are long and in many cases quite snowy, but there are several factors to consider before making generalizations.
The first is that the climate is not the same in all regions. Canada is the second largest country after Russia with 9.98 million square kilometers stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Therefore, the climate varies depending on location and proximity to the coast and the North Pole.
The harshest winters, for example, “occur in the center of the country, in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, because they’re furthest from the oceans, which help keep the coasts a little warmer since they don’t freeze,” explains Phil Austin, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia.
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On the other hand, on the west coast, where Vancouver is located, winters are less cold and with less snow.
“In Vancouver, the wind comes from the west, from the Pacific Ocean, which never freezes, it blows over warmer waters. Real snowstorms only happen when the wind comes from the Arctic and brings very cold air, which is rare,” he adds.
The places with the worst weather are in the north of the country, where the provinces of Yukon and Northwest Territories are located, which due to their proximity to the Arctic are very cold, have lots of snow and darker days.
Another important factor related to winter is exposure to the sun, because the intense cold does not mean that the days are getting darker.
The question is then what everyone prefers: less snow and at the same time less light or a lot of snow and a clear sky.
“In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, for example, you can have very clear days with clear skies and the sun reflects off the snow, while in Vancouver in the winter there is almost no snow, but you don’t see much sun either,” explains the professor.
“A lot depends on the person’s personality type, whether they prefer sunny days or whether their mood is affected by grayer days.”
Finally, we must remember that winter affects Canada’s infrastructure, culture and way of life. Therefore, the cold is far from being a factor of paralysis or confinement.
Artificial heating is readily available, cities that usually snow have snow removal systems to avoid roadblocks, and there are many interconnected locations so you don’t have to walk the streets.
Such is the case with the Montreal subway. Several stations are connected to shopping malls, educational institutions and government agencies by underground passages.
Added to this is the culture of winter sports; Children, for example, often learn early on how to practice different types of sports and thus have a number of outdoor leisure activities during the cold season.
“For someone like me who immigrated from the US 30 years ago, it was amazing to see how important hockey is in Canada. It’s almost a religion really, and that’s why they party and build ice rinks in their parks and backyards,” says Phil Austin of the University of British Columbia.
“They really make winter a crucial part of their identity.”
As an example, Austin cites the large ice rink that connects the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, the nation’s capital.
At 7.8 kilometers and free entry, it offers a fun and alternative way to get around downtown.
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Ottawa’s Rideau Canal turns into an ice rink
Because Canada has maintained a regulated immigration policy in an attempt to attract foreign workers for several decades, the belief that it is a depopulated country, where there is much land and few people, has spread.
But that’s not entirely true.
“Canada’s problem isn’t population size, it’s population structure. That means it’s not a problem of population, but of the age structure of the population,” explains Diva Marcela García, PhD in Demography from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
This is explained because the country “has a low birth rate, so there are fewer people in the early stages of life, while mortality occurs later thanks to its high quality of life and universal access to health”.
“These two factors make it a country with a very aging population,” he added.
In other words, Canada has people of all ages, but there are more people over 65 than there are children growing up.
This becomes clear when you analyze the fertility rate, a metric that measures how many children a woman will have over a lifetime.
“The global replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman, an estimated number necessary to ensure population sustainability. In Canada, the number of children per woman has been below 2.1 for at least 20 years,” argues Garcia.
According to the United Nations, that number currently stands at 1.47 in Canada. The country’s strategy is therefore to attract immigrants of working and childbearing age, who will contribute to the growth of the young population in the medium and long term, while contributing to the labor market and social security.
3. Is it true that they offer many benefits?
First of all, it must be made clear that it is problematic and imprecise to say that the state gives “gifts”.
Immigrants have access to some grants, but these are not necessarily given in cash and are subject to several factors.
Canada is divided into provinces, each with an autonomous local government and thus administering its own budget.
Depending on where the migrant lives, this gives him access to the support services in the region. And that depends on your profile.
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The province of Quebec offers advantages to immigrants
“In general, there are no direct economic subsidies for immigrants in Canada,” says Alejandro Hernández, PhD in sociology at Carleton University.
“By contrast, Canada has supported thirdparty integration since the 1990s. It selects agencies that sponsor provincial and municipal integration and settlement services. The budget must be continually requested and renewed by these agencies.”
The most common benefits are usually support and advice when entering the world of work.
For example, immigrants receive support in organizing documents such as a CV and letter of intent, as well as training on profiling and preparation for selection processes. In this case, the beneficiaries will not receive any money.
An example is Quebec, a Frenchspeaking province that is also the only one that has complete autonomy in regulating immigration.
“There is direct support for immigrants there, which is more related to a nationalist issue and mastery of the French language,” adds Hernández.
Since there is an interest in this area in maintaining French as the first official language (English as well), if the immigrant learns French fulltime and facetoface, he can earn “CAN$205 (about R$785) per week, more transportation support,” Hernandez said.
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French and English are the two official languages of Canada.
To be eligible for this program, the immigrant must meet a number of requirements and commit to academic curriculum commitments. It should also be borne in mind that the values and terms of this program are subject to change depending on the government.
Another type of help some organizations offer is legal advice and document translation for those who need to validate their title.
The adjustment to winter is also supported by snow sports courses at lower prices for newcomers.
It’s also possible to find programs and institutions that manage furniture or clothing donations to make life easier for newcomers, but again, people have to apply to these types of programs and go through certain filters.
Finally, it is important to clarify that those who are permanent residents of Canada have access to other types of subsidies offered by the government to the general population, not exclusively to immigrants.
These are study grants, maintenance payments or for economically weak people.
These supports are different for each province and some filters and conditions have been set that must be met.