Author: IANS
Publication: The Times of India
Date: March 22, 2009
Introduction: Canadian immigration minister
on Friday hinted that the government may make it mandatory for all immigrants
to know either of the country's two official languages: English or French
Hinting that language skills will soon become
a must for getting citizenship, Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney
on Friday said immigrants should either learn English or French, or face denial
of citizenship.
Speaking at an immigration conference in Calgary,
the minister said new immigrants must have to learn one of the two official
languages (English and French) to integrate into Canada society.
Giving an example of how immigrants are not
making efforts to learn any of the two official languages, the minister cited
his experiences during his visit to India in January. He said when he attended
a few immigration interviews in Delhi, he was surprised to find a woman who
had been a Canadian citizen for 12 years but had no knowledge of English.
"This woman was sponsoring a spouse to
come to Canada...It made me wonder-is this an isolated example? Regrettably,
I don't think it's isolated enough,'' the minister said.
The minister emphasized that the immigration
system needs to be overhauled to make learning of official languages mandatory
for those seeking to become citizens of this country.
"In terms of the citizenship, if you
can't complete the test in one of those two languages, you are not supposed
to become a citizen, which I don't think is harsh. It is just basically saying
go back and study more and come back to us when you can get by in one of those
languages,'' the minister said at the conference.
Of the about 250,000 new immigrants into Canada
each year, more than 66,000 were admitted in the family category where language
skills are not mandatory. This has led to huge investment in government programmes
to impart language skills to these people so that compete and integrate in
Canadian society.
The immigration minister recalled citizenship
judges telling him that they frequently give oath of citizenship to people
who have no language skills to compete in their adopted society. Last year,
the current Conservative government tightened the immigration system by passing
a law to give the immigration minister discretionary powers to decide how
many immigrants to admit each year or whom to deny entry.
