How to move to Canada and become a Canadian citizen

One of the most common refrains this election season (and every election season, really) is people swearing they’ll move to Canada — a land where healthcare is free, people are friendly, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explains quantum computing just for laughs.

Chris Weller Finance  Oct. 5, 2016, 3:06 AM

But to actually become a Canadian citizen, you’ll first need to go through several steps, like living in the country for at least six years, staying on your best behavior, and knowing a thing or two about the country you’ll soon call home.

For those who actually want to head up north, here’s how you move to Canada.

Preface: Make sure you’re not already a Canadian citizen.

Before you go through the hassle of applying for citizenship, take a short quiz to see if you may already be Canadian.

The government outlines several caveats for being a citizen even if you weren’t born there, many of which depend on your parents’ citizenship. Maybe you secretly inherited their status at some point along the way.

Be at least 18 years old.

If you’re not a legal adult, you’ve got an uphill climb ahead of you.

Minors need their parent or legal guardian to fill out the application for them; they need to be permanent residents in Canada (more on that later); and the parent must either be a citizen or applying to become one at the same time.

Or enter the pool for skilled immigrants.

Canada has a fast-track system for immigration called Express Entry. It’s how skilled workers transition into a role in the country.

All applicants into Express Entry are given specific scores based on their specific talents and job prospects and then ranked with other applicants. Those at the top of the rankings are invited to become permanent residents.

Have a permanent residence in Canada.

To become a permanent resident, people can choose between several avenues. They can apply through the province of their choice, go down a special entrepreneur route, get help from a family member who lives in Canada, or go through Quebec, which has a special immigration requirements.

Permanent residents are entitled to healthcare coverage and can work, study, and travel anywhere in Canada. You just can’t vote, run for office, or hold some jobs with high security clearance.

Declare your intent to reside.

If you’re invited to become a permanent resident, you must confirm your plans to stay Canadian. The government defines permanent residence as living in Canada for at least two years in a five-year period. If you don’t spend that much time within the borders, you could lose your permanent residence status.

If you don’t live in Canada, you must work outside Canada as a public official known as a Crown Servant or live abroad with certain family members who are Crown servants. 

Spend six years at that residence.

Permanent residents don’t always become citizens. The bar for citizenship is higher.

If you’re living in Canada, you must be physically present in Canada for at least 1,460 days (three 365-day periods) immediately before the date of your application. You must also be present for 183 days (half a year) during each of the four calendar years before the application date.

In other words, your time in Canada needs to be consistent. You can’t leave for an entire year and remain a permanent resident.

Provide your income tax filing.

Like the residence requirement, you must be able to provide four years’ worth of tax returns in the six-year period leading up to the date of your application.

Basically, they want to see if your job is legit.

Speak English or French.

Along with dozens of other countries, Canada has two official languages. In this case, it’s English and French.

To become a citizen, you need to know just one. You don’t need to be fluent, just conversational enough to make small talk, give directions, use basic grammar, and know your vocab well enough to describe yourself.

You’ll send along written documents with your application, but a citizenship officer will make the final call whether your English or French is up to snuff.

Know a thing or two about Canada.

You should probably brush up on your Canadian history anyway, but the government also issues a formal quiz to applicants on the history, values, institutions, and symbols of Canada.

You take the test if you’re between 16 and 64 years old. Typically, it’s a written test, but the citizenship officer may also ask questions orally.

There are no real surprises. Everything you’d need to know can be found here: Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship.

Know why your application might get denied.

There are a number of reasons your past may prohibit you from becoming a Canadian citizen.

For instance, the government looks down upon granting citizenship to people who have committed a crime within four years of submitting their application or are currently on trial for a crime.

It also specifies that people currently in prison can’t use their sentence toward becoming a permanent residence. (That doesn’t quite fit with the “intent to reside.”)

Invest in durable clothes for your local climate.

Canada is the second-largest country on Earth behind Russia. As such, there is no singular “Canadian climate,” even if people may think it’s just cold most of the time.

Depending on how close you live to the British Columbia coast, for example, spring can begin as early as February and summer temperatures can rise into the 90s.

So if you’re looking for places to take up permanent residence, research what the weather’s like. You won’t waste money or space buying unnecessary items.

Take advantage of the customs of your new life.

Now that you’ve left your home country behind (and if you’re an American, abandoned the circus of presidential elections), embrace what makes Canada unique.

Many Canadians express deep fondness for Tim Hortons, quirky slang, celebrity ambassadors, and hockey.

No one will expect you to dive headfirst into this new world, but if you want to become a genuine citizen, formal requirements are only the start.

http://www.businessinsider.my/how-to-move-canada-2016-10/#67QEo886XrGK1RXD.97

Brexit scare stories are haunting the City

The cobwebs falling from the windows of pubs and shops in the City are much more likely to be Halloween decorations than an indication that businesses have abandoned the Square Mile in the wake of Brexit.

Sunday 30 October 2016 10:56pm
Christian May

The UK voted to leave the European Union on 23 June (Source: Getty)

Nevertheless, post-referendum scare stories hang thick in the air.

Project Fear takes on a new meaning at this time of year, but it seems as if the terrifying claims made ahead of the referendum will become folklore rather than fact.

The predictions of instant layoffs and a painful recession, based on official forecasts by the likes of the Treasury and the IMF, have been rendered absurd by economic reality.

Read more: After positive 3rd quarter GDP figures, has Project Fear been proved wrong?

Figures relating to everything from PMI to GDP defied the ghoulish soothsaying of the experts and in fact put the UK on course to be the fastest growing G7 economy this year.

This observation is not to jump on a populist bandwagon and declare the irrelevance of experts, rather it serves as a warning against the dangers of writing a scary script and trying to flog it in the non-fiction aisle.

Leaving aside matters of economic divination, plenty of spine-tingling tales are now doing the rounds about the future health of the City and of financial services more widely.

Headlines may scream that the banks are set to abandon London (before Christmas, according to some) but the reality is much more nuanced.

Work is going on behind the scenes to protect the City's interests and those of the wider European economy, too.

For while it may not make for a good ghost story, most people (including plenty of European officials and politicians) recognise that the EU doesn't stand to gain from dismembering London.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Read more: Look to Twitter for why Britain's economy proved Project Fear wrong

The negotiations, such as they are at this stage, will be tense (and may make a good thriller one day) but they're unlikely to resemble a bloody slasher movie.

One other spectre hovering over the British economy of late has been the fate of Mark Carney, with weekend papers shrieking that he could announce his departure from the Bank this week.

That would have been a shocker, but reports emerging last night suggest he actually intends to extend his term. In other words, horror stories are often just... stories.

Happy Halloween.

http://www.cityam.com/252590/brexit-scare-stories-haunting-city

You’re in denial. The UK economy is heading off a cliff

The UK showed its strength in Q3, with data out last week that showed the economy grew 0.5% quarter-on-quarter, much greater than the 0.3% analysts expected ...

Jim Edwards Finance  Oct. 30, 2016, 5:05 PM

The UK showed its strength in Q3, with data out last week that showed the economy grew 0.5% quarter-on-quarter, much greater than the 0.3% analysts expected. That’s 2.3% growth year-on-year.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Naturally, the government and its Greek chorus of pro-Brexit talking heads hailed this as yet more evidence that leaving the EU will not damage Britain.

They remind me of that perennial scene in the Road Runner cartoons, where Wile E. Coyote races over the edge of a cliff. For a brief moment, Coyote thinks he is soaring through the air. Only belatedly does he realise it’s too late, the plunge is coming.

That’s where we are right now — waiting for the plunge.

This isn’t an opinion. It’s what the granular, forward-looking data is saying about the UK economy. The UK will leave the Single Market, it will face increased barriers to trade (after Brexit in 2019), and the pound is sinking. These things will weigh us down. We cannot defy gravity for long. 

In the short-term, this GDP chart from HSBC makes Britain look really good right now:

HSBC

But GDP is a backward-looking measure. It tells us what just happened, not where we might be going.

In terms of the future, here is the scariest chart published last week (which Prime Minister Theresa May, trade secretary Liam Fox, and Brexit chief David Davis are unlikely to be boasting about). It shows the volume change in mutual fund money leaving UK investments:  

HSBC

This is a forward-looking metric. Investors don’t bet on what just happened (i.e. positive Q3 GDP). They’re betting on the future. And the smart money is getting the hell out of Britain right now.

The data was collated by HSBC analysts Robert Parkes and Amit Shrivastava. This is what they told their clients:

“Post Brexit, international investors continue to head for the exit. Since the Brexit vote, holdings of the UK have fallen by more than 100 basis points. Relative to history (on a z-score basis), the UK is now the most out of favour region globally.”

A big part of that is the falling pound. As Business Insider has noted before, the drop in sterling is bad in the long-run for Britain because it makes us all poorer, and it beggars anyone who keeps their money in the UK. 

Ordinary consumers are starting to catch on to this, too. Consumer confidence actually dipped this month — a bad sign for the future — because of the declining buying power of the pound, according to GfK:

GfK

Why would consumer confidence dip if GDP is so good?

The answer is that while GDP was growing in Q3 the pace of that growth was slowing. That’s what economies do before recessions.Barclays analysts Andrzej Szczepaniak and Fabrice Montagne told their clients, “Despite printing just above our forecast, it nonetheless confirms our overarching view that economic activity slowed post-referendum in light of rising post-exit uncertainty.” Industrial production actually shrank by 0.4% quarter-on-quarter — a weird thing to happen given that UK exports ought to be cheap right now. 

Here is what that shrinkage looks like in a chart, from HSBC’s Elizabeth Martins:

HSBC

Those downward-pointing lines at the far right should give you chills. 

Most analysts had predicted the economy would start slowing dramatically in the second half of 2016. They were wrong, apparently.Martins admitted to her clients that the current data makes economists looks bad, as if they were backers of “Project Fear.” The important thing, Martins says, is that while those economists may have got the timing wrong they have not changed their minds on its inevitability:

“In fact, despite the uncertainty, the UK looks to have seen faster growth than the Eurozone or the US in Q3. This affirms our view that the Bank of England will not cut rates next week, and poses upside risks to our 2016 growth forecast of 1.8%. It will also support the argument that economists overstated the impact of the vote as part of ‘Project Fear’. Unfortunately, however, it does not change our view that a slowdown is coming. We expect investment to fall and consumption to slow next year as higher uncertainty and costs start to weigh on the UK economy. …”

“For those who accused economists of subscribing to ‘Project Fear’, today’s numbers will be viewed as a vindication. Indeed, our near-term pessimism does appear to have been premature.” 

“However, higher uncertainty and costs are already starting to weigh on businesses, and could start to hit the consumer too in the coming months. We expect investment to fall and consumption to slow next year.”

That’s where we are right now. The UK is the Wile E. Coyote of global economies. We’re either soaring toward greatness, or we’re treading on thin air.

Meep-meep.

http://www.businessinsider.my/youre-in-denial-the-uk-economy-is-heading-off-a-cliff-2016-10/#j9yOLcuS3xD50DrA.97

Britain wants tariff-free trade for motor industry after Brexit

Britain told Nissan it would aim for tariff-free trade with Europe for the motor industry after Brexit, persuading the Japanese company to invest in the country's biggest car plant ...

BUSINESS NEWS | Sun Oct 30, 2016 | 3:52pm GMT

A worker is seen completing final checks on the production line at Nissan car plant in Sunderland, northern England, June 24, 2010. REUTERS/Nigel Roddis/Files

By Paul Sandle | LONDON

Britain told Nissan it would aim for tariff-free trade with Europe for the motor industry after Brexit, persuading the Japanese company to invest in the country's biggest car plant, a cabinet minister said on Sunday.

Last month Nissan's CEO Carlos Ghosn said he would need a guarantee of compensation to offset any tariffs imposed when Britain leaves the European Union, before deciding whether to build new models at the Sunderland factory in northeast England.

Business Secretary Greg Clark said the government was determined the motor industry would remain competitive, and he had told Nissan it wanted to negotiate tariff-free trade for the sector with the remaining 27 EU members.

"Our objective would be ensure we have continued access to the markets in Europe and vice versa without tariffs and without bureaucratic impediments, and that is how we will approach those negotiations," he told BBC television.

However, he added that a promise of money to compensate for tariffs was not part of an agreement with Nissan.

Nissan announced on Thursday that it would build the next generation of its Qashqai and X-Trail models at Sunderland, which directly employs around 7,000 people and exports 55 percent of its cars to Europe.

A source told Reuters the government promised extra support to Nissan in a written assurance that Brexit would not hit the competitiveness of the Sunderland plant, which built nearly a third of Britain's 1.6 million cars last year.

The British government has sent conflicting signals about what kind of relationship it wants with Europe after divorce talks end.

Prime Minister Theresa May has made comments pointing towards a "hard Brexit", where Britain would limit immigration at the cost of leaving the huge European single market.

Clark's pledge to Nissan, however, indicates that Britain wants to remain part of an EU customs union - which would allow some controls on free movement of people - or negotiate a special free trade deal for the industry, even if it does not stay in the single market.

He said he was asking industry what it needed from Brexit, and the government hadn't made a decision on "what that crystallises into in terms of what we want to achieve".

PLEDGES FOR ALL

As a member of the EU customs union Turkey, for example, remains outside the bloc but trades freely within it. However, were Britain to adopt a similar model, it would not be able to sign separate trade deals with countries like India and China, which was an objective of some Brexit campaigners.

Clark said Nissan's confidence in the government's position meant it could invest in the new models and safeguard thousands of jobs.

Britain's agreement with Nissan, details of which had not been made public, has led rival car makers to seek their own assurance that they won't be hurt by Brexit.

Industries such as pharmaceuticals, banking and aerospace are likely to want similar assurances that their interests will be protected after Brexit.

The opposition Labour Party said the pledges given to Nissan needed to be made more widely. "All businesses and workers across all regions deserve the Nissan treatment and a clear answer from government about whether they are aiming for full single market access, a customs union, or some other set of arrangements," Labour's business spokesman Clive Lewis said.

"Clark should make a statement to Parliament immediately about what he said to Nissan and how he plans to support the whole economy through Brexit."

Clark said a lot of the assurances made to Nissan applied to the auto industry generally.

A customs union-type agreement, however, would not allow Britain's services sector, including the City of London financial industry, to retain access to European markets.

Clark said Brexit talks needed to approached in a "considered and sober" to make sure all of the different sectors, including the hugely important financial services were considered.

(editing by Larry King and David Stamp)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-tariffs-idUKKBN12U0B2

Will the EU survive the year? Crisis-plagued bloc faces EXISTENTIAL crisis in 2017

THE EU is facing multiple existential crises and the future of the Brussels bloc could hinge on the fate of the French, German and Dutch elections in 2017.

By CYRUS ENGINEER

PUBLISHED: 08:10, Sun, Oct 30, 2016 | UPDATED: 12:21, Sun, Oct 30, 2016

Euroscepticism, partly fuelled by Britain’s historic vote to leave the EU, is running high in all three nations currently.

And according to a respected German journalist, the continued existence of the EU is in jeopardy.

Malte Lehming, the opinion page editor at Der Tagesspiegel, told DW: “The pessimist in this case [of the EU’s future] is the well-informed realist.

“The crisis is not just a singular crisis – we have multiple crises."

“We have the refugee crisis, a split in Europe about what to do with a million refugees it is still unresolved.

“We have thousands of refugees still coming over the Mediterranean to the southern shores of Italy and nobody knows how to really make a difference between migrants and refugees.

GETTY

The EU, and its leaders like Jean Claude Juncker, faces an existential crisis

The crisis is not just a singular crisis – we have multiple crises

Malte Lehming, opinion page editor at Der Tagesspiegel

“We have the Ukraine crisis, we have the unresolved Greek debt crisis.”

In a damning indictment of the leadership of Europe, Lehming said there was “no clear will” to resolve the issues facing the EU.

Next year will see national elections in Germany, France and the Netherlands – three critical nations which form the core of the EU.

Eurosceptic and right wing parties such as Marine le Pen’s National Front, the Alternative for Germany and Geert Wilders’ Dutch Party for Freedom have all frequently promoted anti-EU messages.

Last month Ms Le Pen vowed to hold a referendum to decide whether France remains in the EU if she becomes president.

Citing the UK’s example she told the European parliament: “Brexit has really broken a taboo. The Brits have shown us that you can leave the European Union and you can come out better.

“The catastrophic visions were just a lie. The UK is doing quite well, the shock that you wanted to see has now turned into trust, everybody thought there was going to be apocalypse falling on the UK but that didn’t happen.

“You’ve shown a disdain for the referendum, so what are you protecting us from? Freedom? Democracy?

“It is time to move on and I think that people need a project for the future. Let’s be democrats, finally, and let the people decide.”

On June 24, in the immediate aftermath of Britain’s EU referendum, Mr Wilders said: “We want to be in charge of our own country, our own money, our own borders, and our own immigration policy.

“As quickly as possible the Dutch need to get the opportunity to have their say about Dutch membership of the European Union.

“It is time for a new start, relying on our own strength and sovereignty.

“If I become prime minister, there will be a referendum in the Netherlands on leaving the European Union as well. Let the Dutch people decide.”

General elections in the Netherlands are scheduled to take place on March 15 next year. 

Shortly afterwards the French go to the polls with a presidential election to be held in April and May.

The German general election, which many will view as a referendum on Angela Merkel’s open door to refugees and migrants, is expected to take place around September.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/726622/eu-crisis-brussels-france-germany-brexit-netherlands