New Immigration Laws Change the Flow of Residents in Canada

The top ten source countries of permanent residents where selected from the immigration overview of facts and figures from 2003 to 2012. The number of immigrants from China, which is the top overall source country, has gone down by nearly 10% in the past decade. However, the Philippines, is the second source country with highest immigration flow and has increased 173%. Overall, the number of immigrants from the top 10 source countries are increasing and decreasing, this is due in great part to immigration law changes that have redirected immigration flow from these countries.  

According to the government of Canada, a permanent resident is someone who has been given permanent resident status by immigration of Canada, but is not a Canadian citizen. Permanent residents are citizens of other countries.

Bruce Nip, radio operator at Fair Child Radio, was born and raised in Canada however his family came from China almost 23 years ago. Nip has been back to Hong Kong once in a while to visit family and friends. He believes that the reason why a lot of Chinese people have stopped coming to Canada is because of immigration law changes, also "the government has slowly stopped overseas immigration and made it harder", according to Nip. 

Furthermore, he suggests that affordability in Vancouver and over all in canada has made it harder for families to immigrate here, "although for some Chinese families money wouldn't be a problem, their main concern is obtaining legal status in Canada", he says. According to the article 'Rich Chinese angry over cancelled immigration program' by Nathan Vanderklippe of the Globe and Mail, a group of Chinese millionaires are threatening legal action against the Canadian government after Ottawa cancelled the immigration investors program. This program offered a way to buy entrance into Canada for people with a net worth of $1.6 million who were able to lend Ottawa $800,000 interest free for five years. This could also explain the significant decrease in immigrants from China.

On the other hand, the Philippines is the second source country with the highest immigrants coming to Canada. "The Philippines is a mayor exporter of labour" according to Vicente Asuncion, a B.C. Barrister, solicitor Philippines attorney and counsellor at law. Mr. Asuncion is well known in the Vancouver Filipino Community and in the Philippines as a lawyer, he also maintains an office in Manila. "The Philippines is over populated with close to 150 million people and there are little jobs available," a lot of the population is educated but cannot have jobs." Canada is  on the other hand under populated and loosing habitants because people don't want to have kids, they rather have cats and dogs" he says.

Moreover, according to Mr. Asuncion,  the Canadian government has also placed the skilled workers program for equipment operators, construction workers, electricians, etc. Also few Canadians want to work as nannies which are then jobs taken by Filipinos."The philippines now is a major source of immigrants in Canada", says Mr. Asuncion.  "As far as skilled workers are concerned  the philippines is the main source of skilled workers in Canada" and this is why, he claims, the Philippines is the second source country with highest immigration increase.

Iris Solorzano, Immigration Consultant Director

Iris Solorzano is an immigration consultant director at Options Community Services in Surrey, which is a non-profit society and registered charity dedicated to helping immigrants achieve legal status in Canada. They support families and promote community health. 
Solorzano has guided families in the right direction in order to achieve permanent resident status in Canada. People receiving residency in Canada "mostly come from countries where people have applied with skill workers applications rather then refugee claims", says Solorzano.  This makes sense with these data sets, which show an increase of immigrants from countries like the Philippines and China, Canada is welcoming immigrants as skilled workers rather than as refugees.


According to Solorzano "due to immigration law changes, more and more refugees have been denied permanent resident status in Canada". She also suggests that "controversial immigration laws such as Bill C-31, have caused a great impact in the people who are accepted as permanent residents in Canada."

These datawrapper charts show a significant percentage increase in people accepted as permanent residents from the Philippines, which according to experts is due to the skilled workers program. In the other hand China with the most immigrants coming to Canada has shown a decrease in Canadian residents in part due to the immigration investors program and immigration law changes. In conclusion, these datawrapper charts demonstrate that source countries have been increased and decreased residents in Canada in great part due to immigration law changes.

Interviewees:

Bruce Nip
Operator Fair Child Radio (Chinese Radio Station)
Richmond, Canada
604.781.1515

Vicente Asuncion
B.C. Barrister, solicitor Philippines attorney and counsellor at law
Vancouver, Canada & Manila, Phillipines.
604.872.2674

Iris Solorzano
Immigration Consultant Director, Options Community Center
Surrey, Canada
604.579.4060

Update 3

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DATAWRAPPER CHART

The drastic percent change in the amount of Permanent Residents approved in Canada, from the top 15 countries admitted, demonstrates that Canada has changed its immigration laws significantly these past years. The highest percentage increase since 2003 to 2012 in seen in Haiti with 187% increase, opposing places like Colombia and Pakistan which have shown a decrease of over -10% of residents accepted in Canada.

Iris Solorzano is an immigration consultant manager at Options Community Services in Surrey, which is a non-profit society and registered charity dedicated to helping immigrants achieve legal status in Canada. They support families and promote community health. Iris has guided families in the right direction in order to achieve permanent resident status in Canada. Although more people have been receiving permanent resident status as shown in this chart, "they have mostly come from countries where people have applied with skill workers applications rather then refugee claims", says Iris after I showed her my data set. 

According to her "due to immigration law changes, more and more refugees have been denied permanent resident status in Canada". For example, it is clearly shown in this bar graph that countries such as Colombia has had less people being approved for permanent residence then people from the United States. Iris claims that "controversial immigration laws such as Bill C-31, have caused a great impact in the people who are accepted as permanent residents in Canada."

This datawrapper chart shows a significant percentage increase in people accepted a permanent residents; however, the countries where these people are coming from, considered refugee countries, has changes drastically.

A question that I cannot answer with my data is if in fact, more people are being granted resident status due to skill worker applications and not refugee claimants applications. In order to answer my question I would request an FOI to the canadian immigration offices which handle permanent resident applications.

Interviewee:
Iris Solorzano
Immigration consultant
Options Community Services
604.572.4060

Assignment #2: Data Update 2

The number of permanent and temporary residents accepted in Canada has significantly changed for the top 15 countries applying for this status in Canada. The total percent change from 2003 to 2012 is 811.8%. Moreover, China is the country with highest percent increase of 187% and Republic of Korea has the biggest decrease of -25.1% out of the top 15 countries.

Link to excel spreadsheet

Interviewee: Iris Solorzano is an immigration consultant at Options Community Services at 13520 78 Ave, Surrey B.C. 604.572.4060

Assignment 2 - Update 1

For my final project, I will base my story on the top 15 countries who have gained permanent and temporary residency in Canada. I want to know if the number residents accepted has increase or decreased and what may have cause these changes. Also the percent change from 2003 to 2012

1. The data set I will use for this project is an immigration overview of permanent and temporary residents. It comes from citizenship and immigration Canada statistics.

2. this data shows permanent residents by source country from 2003 to 2012.

3. I will use this data as basis for my story by figuring out percentage increase and decrease from the top 15 countries.

4. I understand the formatting of my data because the columns are clear with source country and years.

5. some questions I want to answer with this data is:
- Has the number of residents accepted increase or decreased since 2003?
-Which countries have the highest and which one has lowest percentage increase/decrease of residents accepted in Canada?
- Which country has the most drastic percentage change?
- What could have contributes to these changes.

Public Train Lines - Data Journalism

Daniela Carmona

Data Journalism

SEPT. 29 2014

Assignment 1

Public Train Lines

The article, Size matters: What Berlin’s rapid transit would look like in Toronto, published on the Global News by Leslie young, talks about how the public transportation in Berlin is much more advanced and congested than in Toronto. Young points out that the biggest difference is the population size and also explains that it would be very difficult.

Young was doing a two-month Arthur F Burns fellowship based in Berlin, Germany. As this story is told in a first person narrative, it makes it easy to understand and to compare it to public train transportation in other cities with personal experiences.

The article gives a detailed mapping of the train lines in Toronto. It also compares Berlin and Toronto with statistics of the population, number of stations, number of lines, length of track (km), daily ridership, city Area (sq.km), % of population who take public transit to work. Over all Berlin shows its necessity for a bigger and wider transportation system.

This is a news story that could potentially be done here in Vancouver. First, the journalist would have to contact the Vancouver Translink to get all the information needed, such as number of stations, lines and amount of people boarding the trains daily.  I don’t believe that there would be too much restriction of this kind of information, and it will be attainable as it was in Toronto and Berlin Also, it is necessary to revise Google maps, as done in this article for Toronto, to obtain the images and data of the train tracks in Vancouver. 

Furthermore, if I was the journalist who wanted to recreate this story here in Vancouver, a great comparison of train lines would be to the busy city of New York. Since I lived in New York for 7 years and in Vancouver for much longer, I can compared with first hand experiences how, in a sense chaotic but fluid, train lines can be in over populated city with multiple train lines, compared to Vancouver. 

This story was simple and easy to follow; I believe it did a good job telling the story using statistics and maps. Moreover, telling the story through experience made it believable and easy to compare to our transit situation here in Vancouver. 

Daniela Carmona
Data Story: Size matters: What Berlin’s rapid trasit would look like in Toronto URL:http://globalnews.ca/news/1498993/size-matters-what-berlins-rapid-transit-would-look-like-in-toronto/