The population of Windsor-Essex is growing, and one driver of that is international immigration. But an increasing challenge for many newcomers is getting permanent residence in Canada. Now, more are opting for a route to help their chances: learning French. Pratyush Dayal reports.
After spending $42,000 on his masters in mechanical engineering at the University of Windsor, Harbal Deep Sidhu is now paying $2,000 a month to learn French to advance his chances at getting Permanent Residence (PR) in Canada — an increasing trend among newcomers.
“I’m very much concerned. From the time I’ve graduated, I have seen extreme changes to the laws and regulations to get permanent residency now. The cutoff points are very high, which is very difficult even for a masters or PhD student,” the 25-year-old said.
“So, we get points for learning French and we can use it in our PR application.”
The pursuit for PR …