Close X
Saturday, November 30, 2024
ADVT 
India

Indians still want to move to Canada despite growing anxiety over political tensions

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 27 Oct, 2023 10:21 AM
  • Indians still want to move to Canada despite growing anxiety over political tensions

As tensions flare between India and Canada, recruitment firms say interest from workers moving between the two countries has not dropped significantly – even though anxiety is building.

The firms attribute the uneasiness some Indians now feel around relocating to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's mid-September announcement revealing "a potential link" between India's government and the killing of a Sikh leader in B.C. that Canada was investigating.

Canada later removed most of its diplomatic presence from India after New Delhi threatened to strip diplomatic immunities from them and their families.

The moves have made many nervous.

"We've definitely seen a large increase in people saying, 'Hey, why should I move to Canada?'" said Ilya Brotzky, chief executive and co-founder of VanHack, a Vancouver-based firm connecting employers and tech professionals around the world.

Before the tensions, he estimated about 95 per cent of the conversations his company had with Indians interested in relocating to Canada were positive. These days, it's dropped to about 80 per cent.

"We've never seen that before," he said. "It's a bit of an alarming trend."

Of the 32,115 international tech workers who migrated to Canada between April 2022 and March 2023, nearly half – 15,097 – came from India, a July report from the Technology Councils of North America and Canada’s Tech Network found.

Indians are often sought after by Canadian companies because of their skills, said Arif Khimani, the president and chief operating officer at MobSquad, a Calgary company that helps businesses with recruitment and visas.

A high proportion of the Indian population has work experience or degrees in engineering, software development and data science – areas that are seeing tremendous growth in demand.

Many are keen to move because they see Canada as a place offering a good quality of life, relative safety, beautiful landscapes and a decent health-care system, Brotzky said.

Entry to Canada also tends to be easier to land than U.S. or European visas, he said: "There's not too many better alternatives out there."

But even before strife with India materialized, he noticed some were growing weary of coming to Canada because of how much it would cost them to buy a home.

The national average home price was $655,507 in September, up 2.5 per cent from September 2022, according to the latest data from the Canadian Real Estate Association.

"The political (aspect) is just one piece of the pie," Brotzky said.

Yet newly-strained relations between Canada and India don't seem to have many thinking twice about immigration between the two countries, said Khimani.

"We're still seeing really, really strong demand if we look at the applications we're getting and there's still a ton from India."

However, people who have already made the move but don't have permanent residency or those who put in visa applications before the current geopolitical climate shifted are anxious.

"What we are seeing, of course, is just the nervousness, the uncertainty of whether people can stay or how long things will take or if things escalate, what does that mean?" Khimani said.

"Obviously we don't have full answers."

Kumar Erramilli has found staff who emigrated from India to work at his Toronto-based life sciences learning platform company ACTO are not worried about the ongoing tensions because they have Canadian citizenship.

However, Erramilli and his two co-founders, who each hail from India, are worried about how they will visit a team ACTO keeps in Hyderabad.

Erramilli usually visits the group every November or December but is currently restricted because he doesn't have Overseas Citizenship of India status, which would allow him to travel between both countries more freely.

India has suspended much of its other visa services for Canadians.

"I'm not able to go and get an Indian visa and go to India right now, which is hindering our workflow significantly," he said.

"In the same vein, I'm not able to get some of my key strategic folks to travel there and come to Canada without any friction, so it's a bit of a struggle right now."

However, he is more hopeful of a return after news Wednesday that India's high commission in Canada would resume processing some types of visa applications for business, medical and conference travel as well as entry for people in India.

 

MORE India ARTICLES

PM Modi to interact with Asian Games contingent tomorrow

PM Modi to interact with Asian Games contingent tomorrow
Modi will interact with the athletes at around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday (October 10) at Major Dhyan Chand Stadium, New Delhi. India won its highest-ever medals tally of 107 medals, including 28 gold medals in Asian Games 2022.

PM Modi to interact with Asian Games contingent tomorrow

India’s decision to stop visas for Canadians proving costly for Punjab: Akali Dal

India’s decision to stop visas for Canadians proving costly for Punjab: Akali Dal
India’s decision to stop visas for Canadian citizens - and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s silence on the issue - is proving too costly for Punjabis and the decision is badly affecting lives of thousands of Punjabis and the state is heading for big economic crisis due to this decision, Akali Dal leader Bikram Majithia said on Monday. In a statement released here, Majithia said the decision to stop visas for Canadian citizens has come at a time when wedding season is about to start.

India’s decision to stop visas for Canadians proving costly for Punjab: Akali Dal

Take stand against construction of SYL canal: Punjab Congress to Guv

Take stand against construction of SYL canal: Punjab Congress to Guv
Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and senior members of the party on Monday took part in a march to the Governor’s office to hand over a memorandum demanding that he take a stand for Punjab against the construction of the Satluj Yamuna Link canal. A huge number of supporters joined the march, coming forward to fight against any decision that would lead to the construction of the SYL canal.  

Take stand against construction of SYL canal: Punjab Congress to Guv

Niramala Sitharaman to attend World Bank-IMF, G20 meetings in Morocco

Niramala Sitharaman to attend World Bank-IMF, G20 meetings in Morocco
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will leave on October 10 for an official visit to attend the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), along with G20 meetings at Marrakech in Morocco. During the visit, the Finance Minister will also hold bilateral meetings with Indonesia, Morocco, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany and France, besides other associated meetings, scheduled to take place from October 11-15 in Marrakech.

Niramala Sitharaman to attend World Bank-IMF, G20 meetings in Morocco

BSP fields five more candidates in Rajasthan

BSP fields five more candidates in Rajasthan
The BSP in Rajasthan came out with a list of five more candidates for the forthcoming Assembly polls on Monday, a few hours after the Election Commission announced dates for elections in five states and the BJP announced its first list of 41 seats. BSP officials, this time, are being extra cautious as its six MLAs became turncoats and joined the Congress soon after winning in the past.

BSP fields five more candidates in Rajasthan

Sikkim Floods: Army undertakes massive operation to reconnect isolated villages

Sikkim Floods: Army undertakes massive operation to reconnect isolated villages
In Sikkim, troops of Trishakti Corps of the Indian Army are undertaking operations at a massive scale to reconnect villages cut off post the flash floods on the night of October 3-4. An Army official said that the focus of the operations are on restoring connectivity to North Sikkim through Chungthang, which was the worst affected during the devastating floods. 

Sikkim Floods: Army undertakes massive operation to reconnect isolated villages