Canadian gov't imposes language test on all skilled immigrants

[Babbler]

All immigrants face mandatory language test

July 20, 2010

Dodi Robbins, a Harvard-educated corporate lawyer whose first language is English, says she is insulted at having to take Immigration Canada's language test in order to prove she speaks English well enough to settle here. She has been working as a lawyer in Toronto on a work permit since 2006.
RENE JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR

Born and raised in New York, Dodi Robbins graduated from Harvard University and has been practising law for 13 years.

Her first language is English. Yet like all other skilled immigrants applying to settle in Canada, the American corporate lawyer must now take a language test to prove her English is good enough to settle here.

“I was outraged, insulted and floored,” said Robbins, who obtained her law degree at Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School in New York. A mother of two, she has been working in Toronto on a work permit for four years as compliance and regulations counsel for an international financial services company.

“I almost fell off the chair. I’ve been practising law here for years and I have to prove my proficiency in English?”

Last month Ottawa made its language proficiency test mandatory for all skilled immigrant applicants, including native English and French speakers. The so-called “ministerial instructions” stipulate officials are not to process applications without language test results, starting June 26.

The tests – the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and Test d’évaluation de français (TEF) – will affect tens of thousands of immigrant applicants from English- and French-speaking countries. Immigration statistics show Canada landed about 33,500 permanent residents from these countries in 2008; about 60 per cent were skilled workers or investors. The United Kingdom, United States and France are among the top 10 source countries.

Ottawa’s move is creating a furor among immigration lawyers, especially since the government had tried to make the test mandatory back in 2008, then backed down amid protests from the Canadian Bar Association.

Critics say the government is now trying to use the ministerial instructions to circumvent public scrutiny and consultation, ramming through changes without parliamentary oversight.

Earlier this month, Toronto immigration lawyer Cathryn Sawicki applied to Federal Court for a judicial review of the legality of the minister’s instructions.

The application, with arguments to be filed Wednesday, claims the instructions on the language test violate Canada’s immigration law, which states applicants have the option of either a language test or a written submission attesting to their language ability, the latter intended for people whose first language was English or French.

Sawicki said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney should be going through the parliamentary system if he chooses to change the law.

Winnipeg litigation lawyer David Matas said the manner in which the language test was made mandatory could set a “dangerous precedent” if the immigration minister can change the law with the stroke of a pen.

“What they have done is illegal,” he said. “If they can use (the law) this way, they can use it in many different ways,” like choosing to accept immigrants from some countries and not others, he added.

Ottawa has argued a test is the “fairest, most transparent, objective, consistent and accurate” way to assess language proficiency.

But Toronto immigration lawyer Robin Seligman said Canada should make exemptions, as Britain and Australia do. Both countries offer exemptions to native English speakers, to those who hold passports or have lived for 10 years or more in an English-speaking country, and to university graduates of an English-speaking country.

Meanwhile, Robbins says she is juggling her full-time job and two kids to prepare for the IELTS test in August.
IELTS test

The test is divided into academic and general streams. Each stream includes 30 minutes responding to questions from recorded tapes, 60 minutes reading passages with various tasks, 60 minutes on a writing assignment and an essay, and a roughly 10-minute interview with an examiner to test oral skills.

500 — Test centres in 130 countries

1.4 million — People who sat the test in 2009

24 — Test centres in Canada

189 — Organizations, including universities and colleges, which recognize the test in Canada

$285 — Exam fee in Canada

Source: IELTS

Hmm, this seems like petty bad thing given the redundancy this new regulation creates, and the manner of its passing.

 

[really]

Thread title is a bit misleading. Immigrants not workers it seems.

 

[Babbler]

Thread title is a bit misleading. Immigrants not workers it seems.

I've changed the title.

 

[Communisto]

I dont care or see it as insulting. Just pass the damn test and shut up.

 

[warpus]

“I was outraged, insulted and floored,” said Robbins

Oh boo hoo. Shut the frak up and take the test. If you're so good at the language, you won't have any problems with it.

 

[Orange Seeds]

I also fail to see the problem. There are a lot of people immigrating from English countries that can't speak English.

 

[Arwon]

Oh man, telling white people they need to integrate and enforcing tests on them makes them go crazy.

(Edited to add: This probably isn't necessary. A skilled migration system is already selective - the ability to speak the language fluently should be a favourable attribute among several attributes, not a sole determining factor)

 

[Tani Coyote]

I dont care or see it as insulting. Just pass the damn test and shut up.

I also fail to see the problem. There are a lot of people immigrating from English countries that can't speak English.

This and this.

I don't see the problem... if you don't like the test, you can always move somewhere else... welcome to actually having to work for your status as a citizen/resident!

Also, god forbid nations make sure everyone can understand eachother, right?

 

[bhsup]

Dodi Robbins, a Harvard-educated corporate lawyer whose first language is English, says she is insulted at having to take Immigration Canada's language test in order to prove she speaks English well enough to settle here. She has been working as a lawyer in Toronto on a work permit since 2006.

Aww, poor baby. Be insulted then. Their country, their rules. Don't like it, don't try to work there, foreigner.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Aww, poor baby. Be insulted then. Their country, their rules. Don't like it, don't try to work there, foreigner.

Precisely. There's ~200 more to choose from, and this increases if you include de facto independent nations!

Also welcome back V. Everyone made it sound like you were gone forever.

 

[otago]

Oh man, telling white people they need to integrate and enforcing tests on them makes them go crazy.

(Edited to add: This probably isn't necessary. A skilled migration system is already selective - the ability to speak the language fluently should be a favourable attribute among several attributes, not a sole determining factor)

Now if we add the cricket test in that would confuse ALL North Americans.
Question one, explain the LBW law
Question two, explain the Aussie wicket keeping law

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Its a bit redundant but she should deal with it instead of acting like it is the end of the world.

 

[Turner]

Personally I don't like it, but I see the need for it. But, as stated, if Canada voted for it, more power to them.

 

[Camikaze]

Whenever I think about language tests regarding immigration, I get all confused. Is it right to selectively...select (the thesaurus section of my brain is on holidays) immigrants based on a cultural factor, when a multicultural society really should be able to deal with people of different backgrounds and different languages, or is the very pressing and obvious need for most people to be able to effectively communicate in order to integrate/be productive more important than any ideological concerns? Perhaps setting low standards is best (although providing free compulsory language lessons isn't too bad either).

 

[Formaldehyde]

Gee, I wonder which ethnic groups this is geared towards excluding.

Does this mean that I would have to pass a French proficiency test to immigrate to Quebec? If so, do English-speaking Canadians have to prove proficiency before they can move to that province as well?

And it costs $285 to take a standardized test?!? Someone is getting rich off of this...

 

[Communisto]

Whenever I think about language tests regarding immigration, I get all confused. Is it right to selectively...select (the thesaurus section of my brain is on holidays) immigrants based on a cultural factor, when a multicultural society really should be able to deal with people of different backgrounds and different languages, or is the very pressing and obvious need for most people to be able to effectively communicate in order to integrate/be productive more important than any ideological concerns? Perhaps setting low standards is best (although providing free compulsory language lessons isn't too bad either).

It has nothing to do with culture. It has everything to do with not utterly frustrating everyone around you. We speak English and French here (officially), bloody pick one.

 

[emzie]

Not for all immigrants, as far as I understand this. Requiring skilled immigrant class people to speak English or French makes quite a bit of sense. These are people Canada brought in to better this country, not to reunite families. Being able to speak an official language seems to be a de facto requirement to serve the population.

Gee, I wonder which ethnic groups this is geared towards excluding.

The majority of French speakers in the world aren't white, you know. This is geared at excluding those in a specific immigration class who don't meet a de facto requirement.

Does this mean that I would have to pass a French proficiency test to immigrate to Quebec?

If you're going from out-of-country directly into Quebec, you have to apply to CIC and a second immigration authority, actually. You don't need to be proficient in French, though you'll be put in French classes.

If so, do English-speaking Canadians have to prove proficiency before they can move to that province as well?

Nope. I, as an immigrant to Canada, could move to Quebec now.

And it costs $285 to take a standardized test?!? Someone is getting rich off of this...

That's a bit much, yeah.

 

[otago]

I take it there are American citizens whose first language like mine is not English ?
For example a person with a doctorate in Spanish who lives and works in a Spanish speaking area of the USA and who in day to day life speaks only Spanish.
I would want them tested for the English before they arrived to take a job in my country.

 

[emzie]

I take it there are American citizens whose first language like mine is not English ?
For example a person with a doctorate in Spanish who lives and works in a Spanish speaking area of the USA and who in day to day life speaks only Spanish.
I would want them tested for the English before they arrived to take a job in my country.

To acquire citizenship requires English proficiency. However, one can be an American citizen without speaking English: Puerto Rico springs to mind, though there are Spanish-speaking families in the southwest that have spoke Spanish for hundreds of years and are Americans.

 

[Perfection]

So wait, if you're skilled and have a job, wouldn't it be better to keep you regardless of if you're proficient in the native language?