How To Manage Your Money In Canada

By Zhu

Money is always a bit tight for newcomers to Canada. Settling in a new country is expensive, especially between the immigration fees, the settling expenses and the fact you may not get a good job right away. So here are a few tips on managing your money in Canada. First thing you need to remember, is that the prices you see in stores are before tax. This is very important because it adds up and makes a difference on the final price you pay! In Canada there are three types of sales taxes:

Helping New Canadians Get Jobs

A new project funded by the Government of Canada will allow skilled workers who are new to Canada with the help they need to integrate into the workforce and their communities. Senator Hugh Segal announced recently on behalf of the Honourable Monte Solberg, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, funding for the Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies (ALLIES) project in partnership with the Maytree Foundation with investment of over $800,000. "The Government of Canada is creating the best educated, most skilled and most flexible workforce in the world," said Senator Segal. "This project will help employers better integrate skilled new Canadians into the workforce and their local communities." The Maytree Foundation will receive funding through the federal government's Foreign Credential Recognition Program (FCRP), to develop a comprehensive set of online tools on immigration to enable employers and community groups to better integrate skilled immigrant workers into the Canadian workforce, enabling them to better contribute to Canada's economic and social development.

Immigrants Flocking to Canada's Smaller Cities

New statistics from Citizenship and Immigration Canada suggests that mid-sized cities are beginning to attract an increasing number of immigrants due in large part to shifting economic and employment prospects. Government initiatives such as the provincial nominee program that allows provinces to select immigrants to fill specific labour needs; and the development of tools that help smaller centres draw and retain immigrants are some of the reasons attributed to his recent shift. In addition, a booming economy in Western Canada has lead to a surge of newcomers migrating to more rural areas thanks to the provincial nominee and family nominee programs enacted by the Government.

Assistance 2 Internationally-trained Engineers

Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning is launching a program to assist internationally-trained engineers to find work in their field in Canada. The program, which will receive more than $1 million in funding from the Ontario government, will begin in September 2008. The project will have four pilot intakes which will be completed by December 2009.

Engineering Connections: Software Skills Enhancement is the engineering software training and job search program Humber has created for internationally-trained engineers. "The aim of the program is to ensure that newcomers have the core engineering and software skills Canadian employers are demanding," said David Alcock, associate dean, School of Applied Technology at Humber.

Wireless 2 influence Canada's prosperity - FaQ

The federal government's auction of wireless airwaves — which will usher in new cellphone providers — kicked off on March 10, when bid applications were due. While wireless spectrum is a highly technical issue that makes most people's eyes glaze over, it is extremely important to Canada's future prosperity. With only about 60 per cent of Canadians subscribing to a cellphone service, Canada is well behind the rest of the industrialized world in adopting mobile communications. That means we are missing out on numerous business, educational, entertainment and cultural advances that are happening elsewhere. In other countries, more workers are experiencing the benefits of being freed from their desks. People are saving time by shopping or banking on their cellphones while taking public transit to and from work. Some are catching up on their television shows by watching episodes on their phones. Lives are also being saved through medical information transmitted over wireless networks. The government has blamed this lag on the lack of competition in Canada's cellphone market. The upcoming spectrum auction, beginning on May 27, is its effort to correct the problem.