The impact of of Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s 2024-25 department plan, released about a year ago, are only now starting to become clear in cities across Canada.
Whether it’s colleges in Vancouver, Lethbridge or Toronto, many federally funded English-language training programs are experiencing crushing funding cuts resulting in closures, layoffs and fewer classes available.
At risk is the future of Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) — a federally funded program that has been running since 1992. Instead of further cutting funding to LINC, the government should expand the programming in recognition that learning a language is about much more than acquiring a discrete set of skills.