Canadian Immigration issues in News -- Media monitoring

• New language rules to kick in for citizenship applicants Toronto Star-2012-09-28
• 
  Changes coming to language rules Chatham Daily News-2012-10-04
• New Language Rules for Citizenship Applicants, The Epoch Times-2012-10-01
• Ontario immigration strategy calls for more power to pick newcomers Toronto Star-2012-10-03
• Ontario wants greater power on immigrant selection Toronto Star-2012-10-04
• Ontario immigration strategy calls for more power to pick newcomers Hamilton Spectator - Oct 03
• Media Alert - How will changes to immigration policies affect Canada's future? A new Maytree report explores PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance - Oct 02
  
  
  Visit the official sites for more info:

• http://www.ontarioimmigration.ca/en/index.htm • Federal Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration
• Federal The Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement

Newcomers forced to use food banks

Extract: MISSISSAUGA, September 21, 2012, Can-India New The number of university graduates and middle-aged recent immigrants, many who happen to be South Asians, now make up a significant and growing segment of food bank users. The report released this week titled, “Who’s Hungry: Faces of Hunger”, points to an ever-growing number of visits between April 2011 and March 2012. According to Meghan Nicholls, Marketing and Fund developer at the Mississauga Food Bank, “Up to a third of the 65,000 people served by the food bank is made up of people new to Canada. Many of them are not unemployed but do not have enough money left over for groceries.” “We have a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that in the Peel region in particular, new immigrants are hit really hard. Many of these immigrants have part-time jobs as they are studying or aren’t able to find a job in their field and if they earn say $1300 a month, the average place rents at close to a $1000, forcing them to use our food bank,” she adds. continue reading

TPL's The eh List and National Posts' Look books ~~ Printed books are not dead...

Two current activities show that we are still prospering with printed books. Such a strategy, which some may call as push or pull for the printed book, is a good news for many who are not ready to read its obituary. The hype about ebook is then only true, to a point. Figures don't lie, they say--According to the Stats of TPL, printed title is the top most borrowed book: "Bestselling author Jodi Picoult’s new release in early 2011 topped the year’s adult fiction circulation charts with Sing You Home, a story that explores gay rights, coping with loss and finding love in unexpected places. The book was circulated an incredible 4,580 times in 2011!" (Source)
The good news also here is none of the following talks about e-book (aka digital, electronic book, etc.)

The eh List Author Series - Toronto Public Library

Look books: A survey of the season’s most stylish reading material Nathalie Atkinson | Sep 22, 2012 | Style | Life | National Post.

On the same shelf:

How to Read a Book by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf -- reading a book is for a) amusement, b) informational, and c) educational (reading to articulate, chewed and digested)

How to Read a Book (A Touchstone book): Mortimer J. Adler Mortimer J. Adler

The Future of Reading: Books Are Not Dead! « ALIA Information Online 2013

Library as a tool for integration

By PRADIP RODRIGUES, Can-India News, September 21, 2012 Extract:

I was at our Mississauga branch library over the weekend and as I surveyed the readers I realised that most looked South Asian, many of whom were new immigrants perusing books on resume building and writing cover letters. Others were searching and applying for jobs on the internet while others were reading technical material or studying for some exam or the other, and then I overheard a twentysomething South Asian in conversation with the librarian requesting her help in finding books about the history of Ontario with an emphasis on Toronto and Mississauga. I was intrigued, perhaps he was a research scholar, so later when I saw him hunched over a book and I enquired about his reading choice. He’s a landed immigrant who came here a little under a year ago and it was important that he understood the history and geography of his new adopted homeland. He wanted to travel across Canada with his family next year, over the summer he attended many of the free events in and around the GTA. He was on a quest to discover Canada, it’s people and history. Years ago I met an older immigrant who compared immigration to an arranged marriage. It’s the same principle. According to him, an immigrant’s home country is his or her’s first love, but something went wrong- you needed to separate and so you opted to live in a new adopted homeland which in his parlance is an arranged situation. Naturally there is an adjustment period and to be happy with this new homeland, you have to understand all aspects of it, be involved, do things together and eventually grow to love your new country. And the new immigrant in that Mississauga library was doing just that. continue reading

Top 10 Things You Shouldn't Include on Your Resume: Silicon India

PS. Most of these are common mistakes, new Canadian immigrants need to AVOID!!!

23 August 2012
Extract:
10. Using too many objectives
9. About Your Short-term jobs
8. Strange Hobbies
7. Revealing private matters
6. Writing the resume in extra pages
5. Writing the resume in the third person
4. Including references
3. Mentioning current company’s phone number or mail-id
2. Bad usage of English grammar
1. Attaching Photographs

Continue reading @ SiliconIndia
Info courtesy, Tripathi Online Educare

Young and old spend same amount of time job-hunting: Statistics Canada

By: Steve Rennie, The Canadian Press, 08/22/2012

Extract:
OTTAWA - Older unemployed workers spend as much time looking for a job as younger ones, according to a new Statistics Canada study.

The agency says unemployed people aged 55 to 64 spent an average of 13 hours a week looking for work — the same as those between the ages of 20 and 34.

But the study found key differences in the way each age group looked for jobs.

Older people were more likely to look at job ads and less likely to use the Internet than younger job hunters.

Younger people were more likely to contact employers directly as their main method of finding a job.

Both age groups turned to employment agencies in similar numbers. continue reading

Ads coming soon to Toronto Public Library date-due slips

Daniel Dale, Urban Affairs Reporter, Toronto Star

Extract:

Don’t forget to bring back No Logo on time. And don’t forget the Golden Arches.

The Toronto Public Library has issued a request for proposals in search of a company to sell advertisements on the back of date-due slips. A second request for proposals seeks a consultant to “evaluate all library channels and vehicles” for other advertising opportunities.

Both requests were approved by the library board in February. The library system has never before sold ads outside its publication What’s On, though it allows companies to sponsor programs like the TD Summer Reading Club.

continue reading

How do you know you're in Toronto? It's the little things

By Laura DeMarco, The Plain Dealer, June 02, 2012, cleveland.com

Extract:

TORONTO, Ontario -- "You've got to try the boiled beef and cabbage!"

Well, I did want to get the flavor of Toronto on a recent weekend trip to the cosmopolitan city 300 miles to our northeast. But did I want to get the literal flavor -- from this "very Canadian meal" recommended by the server at Canadian comfort cuisine bistro Bannock (401 Bay St.) in the bustling financial district?

The heavy meal seemed too daunting, with a Friday evening of pub-and-club hopping planned. So I asked for some lighter, but still authentic, options. Continue reading: How do you know you're in Toronto?

How to Get a Job After a Year (or More) Out of Work

Extract from the same source:
Liz Wolgemuth, U.S.News & World Report June 10, 2010

8 Steps to a Job After a Long Unemployment

Stop blaming yourself (Sure, some companies are hiring again);

Stop wasting your time ("There's nothing that takes the place of a strategic and targeted job search," says Judy Conti);

Spend most of your time making new friends (Check out the Facebook and LinkedIn integrations offered by SimplyHired.com and Indeed.com);

Pitch yourself to your last employer ("Going back to former companies and even former bosses or coworkers, wherever they might have gone, is a great strategy," says John Challenger of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. These people know you and your work. That freelance assignment can help you fill a hole in your resume);

Find a project (You may not find paid work, but that doesn't mean this time is a complete wash);

Practice interviewing;

Sell, sell, sell yourself, you big discounted talent!;

Act hopeful (whether or not you feel like it). Continue reading Eight Steps

Info courtesy: localhelpwanted.ca April 28- May 12, 2012