Obtaining permanent residence status in Canada has become a challenge for many newcomers. Now, more are opting for a route to help their chances: learning French.
The process for permanent residence is competitive. As of January, Canada is estimated to have 3.02 million temporary residents, but there are only 395,000 permanent residence spots available this year.
Lou Janssen Dangzalan, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer, said he has been advising his clients for the past two years to learn French as one of their backup plans to improve their Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) scores. CRS is a ranking system used by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for immigrants applying for permanent residency, using factors such as age, level of education, English proficiency, and work experience. Every two weeks, IRCC draws a CRS rank, and applicants with that score or higher are invited to submit documents to receive a permanent residency card.
“If you pursue French as a second language, essentially you stand to increase your CRS points, and that increases your chances to get drawn,” Dangzalan said. “The other thing is that you receive the possibility of being classified as a Francophone under Express Entry, and that means you could benefit from Francophone category-based selection, which has a lower cutoff score.” Dangzalan said many international students holding postgraduate work permits, which have a limited validity maximum of three years, are opting for this route.
Simon Goulet, campus director at Windsor – Collège Boréal, said their seven campuses across the province have been feeling the increasing demand for French programs for newcomers. Goulet said many newcomers are realizing that being fluent in French is an advantage in Canada. “We are seeing an increase right now in international students registering for our French as second language program,” he said.
Province-wide, Goulet said there is a “222% increase” in registrations of international students in the program. “That’s good news. There’s a lot of interest in learning French for many reasons. Immigration is one, but also there’s a curiosity for official languages as well and a desire to partake in that.”
CBC News (Canada) (5/5/25) By Pratyush Dayal