Until nine months ago, prospective students from India had to wait up to eight months for a visa to study in Canada – with many of them being rejected after a long delay or missing the course deadlines.

But a pilot program to fast-track applicants by Citizenship and Immigration Canada has dramatically reduced the visa-processing time to mere weeks for students like New Delhi’s Dharam Pratap Singh, 29, who is enrolled in Centennial College’s one-year project management post-graduate program.

Until the visa change was made, he says, students had to pay a fee and wait, possibly for too long, until they missed a term “and it’s a year lost.”

Canadian colleges laud the program, saying it will help them compete with schools in the United States, Britain and Australia in attracting international students, who pay far higher tuitions than local students.

The joint program between Canada’s visa offices in India and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges has tightened the screening of applicants. Among other things, college officials must verify an applicant’s financial resources and English proficiency.

“We want our international students’ first experience with Canada to be a welcoming one,” said Lorraine Trotter, dean of international and immigration education at George Brown College.

Under the pilot program, visa offices in India have received more than 4,000 applications with an approval rate more than double the previous year. Visa processing averages only 2 1/2 weeks.

As a result, Centennial College has seen its students from India increase from 450 to 975, with the visa-approval rate jumping from 27 per cent to 87 per cent.

“We want good students. Canada wants good immigrants. The program is marrying both,” said Virginia Macchiavello, Centennial’s international education director.

The number of foreign students in Canada has doubled since 1998 to 178,000, creating an estimated 83,000 jobs for Canadians last year. A 2009 government report found the students contributed $6.5 billion to the local economy.

As a result of globalization, George Brown’s Trotter said many colleges have developed international strategies that include the delivery of programs overseas through partners and the globalization of curriculum for Canadian students.

“Employers are always looking for global-savvy employees,” said Trotter, who just returned from a month-long tour of China and Korea to meet with overseas partners and promote the college.

Macchiavello said many visa students are keen on immigrating to Canada after graduation.

Their investment in a Canadian education can help cut integration costs, she said.

Rashmeet Kaur, a food and nutrition post-graduate student at Centennial, is one of those interested in staying in Canada.

“I like Canada,” the 23-year-old New Delhi native said.

“I like its multicultural environment.”

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Canada will beat out average G7 economic growth this year and next, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

The global economy is bouncing back from negative territory quicker than expected and will grow 3.9% this year, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook.

Vigorous growth in Asia combined with surprising strength in U.S. consumer demand led the IMF to revise its October growth projection of 3.1%.

But, the IMF said, the recovery is proceeding at different speeds in different countries and advanced economies remain “sluggish.”

Canada is considered part of that slower pack with estimated growth coming in below the world average at 2.6% for the year. Still, however sluggish, economic growth in this country will outperform other advanced economies, such as the U.S., U.K., Euro area and Japan, which as a group will see average growth of 2.1%.

The pace of recovery Canada should pick up steam in 2011 at 3.6%.

The problem for Canada and other industrialized economies is a heavy reliance on government stimulus measures.

“For the moment, the recovery is very much based on policy decisions and policy actions,” said IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard in an IMF video interview.

“The question is when does private demand come and take over.”

Financial markets have rebounded since the lows of last March and risk appetite has returned but that could take a turn for the worse as policy makers seek to unwind unprecedented stimulus measures, the IMF said.

In the past, the IMF has warned of a double-dip recession if anti-crisis measures are withdrawn too soon and without a thorough exit strategy. In Canada, the Conservative government plans to turn the taps off on the $62-billion federal Economic Action Plan by year’s end.

High unemployment rates, rising public debt and weak household balance sheets in some countries also present further roadblocks to recovery, the IMF said.

In Canada all three of those barriers to growth exist with unemployment hovering around 8.5% and the average Canadian carrying a record household debt to income ratio of 140%.

Bank reform also needs to be tackled head-on in many countries to address issues of impaired assets, restructuring and potential market bubbles, the IMF said.

“Policymakers will also need to move boldly to reform the financial sector with the objectives of reducing the risks of future instability and rethinking how the potential fallout of financial crises would be borne in the future, while at the same time making the sector more effective and resilient.

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Canadian immigration officials are warning members of Montreal’s Haitian community to be wary of companies promising to help accelerate the immigration process for their loved ones affected by last week’s earthquake.

For a second day in a row, hundreds of Montrealers have queued in front of the Montreal offices of immigration consulting firm Immigration International 911 Inc.

The law firm has offered its assistance, purportedly free of charge, to those hoping to help family members come to Canada. The group has even advertised on a local Haitian radio station touting its services.

Style Léon was among those who had been waiting in the lineup which began forming around 5 a.m. on Tuesday.

Léon wants to sponsor her husband and mother-in-law who are in the area affected by the earthquake.

“They have nowhere to go,” Léon said. “They’re on the street, and … [she] is diabetic.

“There is no food, there is no water, there is nothing,” Léon said.

The federal government has promised to accelerate the process for those seeking to sponsor family members  but the process is confusing, Léon said.

“Everybody’s telling different things, different papers, different documents. But we don’t really know what’s going on.”

Officials asked to intervene

Montreal-based immigrant and refugee groups said they hoped the authorities would intervene to protect any potential victims of fraud.

“In these times there are unfortunately always certain individuals … who try to take advantage of the situation,” said Rivka Augenfeld, the head of a Quebec coalition of refugee and immigrant groups.

Augenfeld said she could not comment on the specific case of Immigration International 911 Inc., except to say what she saw “is to be deplored.”

“We don’t know who it is because if you go on their website there is not one name to be read,” Augenfeld said.

No one from Immigration International 911 Inc. was available to comment Tuesday.

Immigration officials have previous knowledge of the company, said Albert Deschamps, Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s regional director general for Quebec.

“We’re quite concerned with the way people have been showing up at this consultant,” Deschamps said. “We’re hoping that they are not hearing from this firm that [the firm] can actually accelerate the process of immigration applications because that is not the case.”

Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has said the government will speed up the process for immigrants from Haiti, but immigration consultants cannot push the process along any faster, Deschamps says.

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper has travelled to Davos, Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum, where world leaders will brainstorm the best way to combat the current financial challenges facing the global economy.

Harper will spend the next day and a half in Davos, where he will mingle with business executives, other world leaders and academics at the annual agenda-setting conference.

While the forum will see leaders debate a number of topics — including disaster aid in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti — the focus clearly remains on the global economy, at a time when employment remains high and governments are becoming less inclined to bail out troubled banks and industries.

In a statement released Tuesday, Harper said his government will stick to its stimulus plan and will continue to fight forms of trade protectionism, as it previously committed to doing.

On Thursday, the prime minister will address the forum and reveal his agendas for the upcoming G8 conference in Huntsville, Ont., and the G20 conference in Toronto.

In his Tuesday statement, Harper said he will push to improve the health of women and children at the G8 summit — a cause he believes is of increased importance in the aftermath of the global recession.

Citing statistics that suggest a half-million women die during pregnancy or childbirth each year, Harper said there is a “pressing need” for action, especially when such mortality can be avoided through better nutrition and medical treatment.

“This is simply not acceptable. The United Nations had hoped to reduce the number of deaths related to pregnancy by 75 per cent by 2015 as part of its Millennium Development Goals. It now appears this target will go unfulfilled,” Harper said.

“What makes it worse is that the bulk of the deaths during pregnancy — experts claim as many as 80 per cent — are easily preventable. There is a pressing need for global action on maternal and child health.”

As for the G20 summit, Harper plans to highlight the need for member countries to reform their banking systems in harmony and to continue with stimulus until worldwide labour markets have fully recovered from the global financial crisis.

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