Canadian government has announced changes to the route to citizenship that would minimize the requirement of stay and allows foreign students to count time of study towards residency petitions.
Under the Bill C-6 foreign students would be able to count 50% of their time towards the requirement of physical residency and would require staying three of the earlier five years in the country.
The law would yearly measures introduced by earlier government through Bill C-24 previous year that required students to reside in Canada for four of the earlier six years and did not provide foreign students time credit towards the requirement of physical residency.
Immigration Minister, John McCallum has said that because the foreign students are perfect candidates for becoming the Canadian citizens and we are looking at them as other nations across the world.
Meanwhile, foreign education stakeholders are positive about the measures that the Canadian government had taken for easing the process of foreign students to apply for the Canadian citizenship.
According to Randall Martin, Executive Director, British Columbia Council for Foreign Education, Canada should contend with other nations for the similar pool of skilled foreign students and creating transitions from studying to working, permanent residency and citizenship would help our case.
According to a report, around 51% of foreign students in Canada had planned to apply for permanent residency with 37% students planning to stay in Canada to pursue further education.
As per Jennifer Humphries, Vice President, Membership, Public Policy and Communications, the main reason for the foreign students choosing to study in Canada is the quality of education this country is providing.
Humphries also said that any initiative to minimize the amount of time a student requires to stay in Canada before being qualified to apply for the citizenship would be viewed positively.
