Canada offers free settlement services for all its immigrants

Even before arriving in Canada, there are settlement services that can help immigrants funded by various levels of the government. On the website of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, an immigrant can find a list of newcomer services that could help them even prior to their arrival to Canada. Note that these pre-arrival services are only available for all approved permanent residents who are outside Canada and not for the people who will come to Canada temporarily.

In connection to this, IRCC provides services that help immigrants prepare to live in Canada. Also, through these services, you’ll be able to receive help on getting information with regards to life in Canada, specifically, housing, healthcare, and transport. Another good thing about these services is that they’ll be able to endorse you to a more specific community service depending on what are your needs.  In-person services were previously offered in the Philippines, China, and India; however, due to the global pandemic that we are facing, most of the in-person services were moved online.

Recently, the Canadian government conducted a survey and learned that there are immigrants that do not know anything about the settlement services that they offer and even a quarter of the number does not know how to access the service.  This settlement service was funded by the Canadian government and confirmed to be of help to most of the newcomers they accommodate, however, there are some who do not know how to make the most out of it.

Canada’s settlement services can be accessed through the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI) for all Quebec-bound newcomers; while Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for the rest of the newcomers in Canada. According to the Settlement Outcomes report of the IRCC, wherein a total of 120,897 newcomers were asked, specifically, 55,370 were a client of the settlement program and 65,527 were not.

As what most of the recipient of the said service says, the settlement services are really helpful and also mentioned that they were also helped to really settle in Canada through these services. However, there is still a huge number of immigrants who were not able to receive settlement services because they are not aware of them and some of the immigrants who knew about the services do not know how to use them.