News

Oct 25, 2024 The Mystery of Halloween Explained

Welcome to the Spooky Season, Canadian Newcomers! If this is your first October in Canada, you might be wondering why your neighbours are decorating their homes with skulls, ghosts and giant spider webs. This is for one of Canada’s favourite holidays: Halloween, celebrated on October 31st every year. And what does “Spooky” mean? It is a playful slang word for “scary” which suggests that it really is not scary at all.

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Oct 10, 2024 Thanksgiving in Canada -Pumpkins are Optional

As October unfolds in Canada, you will see pots of colourful asters and pumpkins of all sizes decorating front porches, cafe’s, stores and even workplaces. These represent the last harvest before winter arrives as we prepare for Thanksgiving and Halloween. Many newcomers are familiar with pumpkins as vegetables in savoury dishes, but not as decor, let alone a flavour in lattes and an ingredient in sweet foods like muffins and pie! But as an immigrant’s daughter, I assure you, Thanksgiving is an easy holiday to adapt to, and you don’t have to drink pumpkin spice lattes or decorate with pumpkins to celebrate, but your kids will likely beg you to. 

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Sep 11, 2023 Welcoming Week 2023

This week, Centre for Skills celebrates Welcoming Week by hosting an online event on Friday, September 15th at 10:00 am. 

Welcoming Week is an annual opportunity to recognize and celebrate the people, places and values that help everyone feel welcome and give them a sense of belonging in their local community, no matter where they come from. 

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Jun 14, 2023 Steps after you arrive in Canada: advice from my personal experience 

I came to Canada 10 years ago as an immigrant from Pakistan. I know first-hand the kind of struggles and challenges newcomers face such as learning the local language, and how to adapt to all the little things that are so different in Canada, such as writing a Canadian styled resume! If you are a newcomer looking for some tips, I will give you some from my personal experience.

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Jan 31, 2022 A Newcomer's Journey to Calling Canada Home

Newcomers arrive in Canada every day. Canada aims to welcome 421,000 new permanent residents in 2023. Some are fleeing for their lives, some are re-uniting with their families, some come temporarily to work and some immigrate for business. No matter where they are from or how and why they came to Canada, newcomers all share a somewhat universal immigrant experience.  

Here’s a story about Katarzyna and her family's journey to calling Canada home. 

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