Newcomers want more reliable information about new lives in Canada - RBC research

TORONTO — Despite having access to multiple sources of information, many newcomers to Canada feel that they lack relevant and trustworthy information to help with decisions on their new lives in Canada, according to RBC research conducted recently in China and India with individuals poised to immigrate to Canada.

"The people we spoke with in India and China indicated that they were often faced with conflicting and out of date information when researching for their move to Canada, which made them feel anxious," said Andrea Metrick, head, Client Strategy and Multicultural Markets at RBC Royal Bank.

To help alleviate these concerns, RBC Royal Bank today released a new guidebook "Understanding banking in Canada" to provide practical financial information for new immigrants at key stages of their move to Canada. The new guidebook helps newcomers make important financial decisions upon arrival, as they get settled and when they start planning for the future.

"We undertook this research before new immigrants arrive in the country to understand what more we could do to help make their move to Canada easier," Metrick added. "As part of our RBC Welcome to Canada banking package, the new guidebook will help newcomers better organize their financial priorities and is designed to complement the financial advice that a newcomer receives from their RBC advisor."

The RBC Welcome to Canada banking package includes a suite of banking products and services, coupled with financial advice, fee-waivers, discounts and interest rate bonuses, tailored to meet the needs of newcomers who have been in Canada for less than three years.

Information on moving to Canada, including financial advice and solutions can be found at RBC's comprehensive web site for new Canadians at www.rbc.com/canada, accessible to consumers around the world. Details on the RBC Welcome to Canada banking package, the new "Understanding banking in Canada" guidebook, and branch locator that identifies representatives who speak a variety of languages, can be found at www.rbc.com/welcome. Telephone banking service is available in 150+ languages when calling 1-800 ROYAL 1-1 or dedicated service is available in Mandarin and Cantonese at 1-888 ROYAL 9-8.

These are some of the findings of qualitative research conducted by Environics Research Group on behalf of RBC Royal Bank in March 2009. Eight groups were consulted - two each in Shanghai and Beijing in China, and Delhi and Ludhiana in India. The cities were chosen based on immigration trends and RBC's presence in China and India, the top two source countries of immigration to Canada in recent years. All group participants were those who had applied for immigration to Canada. There were seven to eight respondents participating in each group and each group was two hours in length.

For more information, contact:
Linda Sadlowski, RBC, 416-974-1754
Matt Gierasimczuk, RBC, 416-974-2124

Mother tongue dear to Canadian Punjabis, says study

Edmonton: Punjabis living in Canada may be far away from their homeland but they have preserved their roots and identity - their mother tongue.

A study conducted by Statistics Canada, the national statistical agency of that country, has revealed that the Punjabi community living there is one of the very few groups which have managed to preserve the Punjabi language.

The study titled 'Evolution of immigrant-language transmission in Canada' says that Punjabis under the age of 18 and born in Canada were the highest who used their mother tongue in 2006.

The study, which has been prepared on the basis of research done on language transmission in immigrant communities between 1981 and 2006, reveals that 80% of the Punjabis under the age of 18 spoke Punjabi at home and 89% had some knowledge of the mother tongue.

The youths of other immigrant communities, which speak Armenian, Urdu and Bengali, have also managed to retain their language as over 70% of them under the age of 18 are using their mother tongue at home. As per the study, groups, including Italian, Czech, German, Dutch and Portuguese, have witnessed a decline in language transmission from one generation to another. The study further indicates that the language transmission of second-generation women to their children is the strongest (53%) for those whose mother tongue is Punjabi followed by Greek (41%) and Spanish (30%).

When it comes to language transmission from 1981 to 2006, Punjabis again top the list of immigrant communities in Canada. There were 64% Punjabi children speaking their mother tongue in 1981 in Canada and by 2006 the percentage had grown to 81%. Punjabis are also the only ones whose third generation living in Canada has the most number of children who speak Punjabi among all the immigrant communities there.