This guidebook was inspired by the challenges faced by those who immigrate to Canada. When newcomers arrive to Canada, they often feel confused, uncertain, and helpless. The have a lot of questions and they are looking to find reliable answers. The main goal of this book is to help newcomers find reliable answers to the most frequently asked questions. Finding employment, social programs, access to education, housing and health care are important parts of the settlement process. Sometimes this can be difficult to navigate for newcomers as they are coming into a country with different rules, culture and possibly language, so this book seeks to ease the transition to living in Canada both initially and well after arrival.

Today, Canadian immigrants speak more than 150 languages and it is for this reason that we have tried wherever possible to collect available information in many languages, which will help immigrants quickly find useful information in their native language.

A feature of modern immigration policy in Canada is the active assistance of the government and public organizations of new immigrants in their settlement in Canada. For this purpose, a lot of programs and benefits were made available to newcomers. We have devoted a significant portion of our book to the description of these resources and provide information on how they can be accessed.

The book is designed for all classes of immigrants: skilled workers and professionals and their spouses, Canadian experience class and family class immigrants, entrepreneurs and self-employed persons, international graduates from Canadian institutions and refugees. The book can also be useful to those who are just thinking about immigration, or simply want to learn more about Canada to make a decision.

A lot of information in this book will focus on the province of Ontario, where more than half of all immigrants coming to Canada choose to settle, but information on all provinces and territories is also provided. In the way that people use travel guidebooks to help them navigate new places when they are travelling, this book aims to help immigrants navigate their new home, where they are planning to settle permanently.

While there are some challenges that most newcomers will face, such as applying for provincial health insurance, SIN, maybe LINC program and finding place to live, etc., each newcomer’s path is different and this book contains information on a wide variety of topics, in order to prepare newcomers for what they come across in Canada. For this reason, we feel that this book will be of great benefit to all immigrants to Canada.

We include questions and answers connected to such issues as settlement, housing, medical services, family life, the job market, employment, education, transportation, Canadian law, etc. Also, newcomers will learn from this book about government and publicly-funded immigrant-serving organizations, and programs and benefits that are available to newcomers.

The book is divided into 9 volumes, beginning with a volume "Arrival to Canada” which helps newcomers to navigate the initial stages of their immigration to Canada. The other volumes group together information on topics of interest to newcomers such as "Your First Year in Canada”, "Family Life”, "Health Care”, "Education”, "Preparing for Job Search”, "The Job Search”, "Recreation, Entertainment and Sport”. The final volume "Finding a Place to Live” provides information about specific regions and cities within Canada and the services available there for newcomers.

We felt that it was essential for newcomers to have a reference that provided a wide range of easily accessible answers to their questions about settlement. It is in this spirit that we have created our guidebook. Based on our personal experience, (Efim Cheinis is an immigrant who has lived in Canada 20 years, and Canadian Nicholas Marlin has met and worked with a great number of immigrants), we collected all of the important information available to newcomers that will assist them with their settlement to Canada into one place. We wanted to make the information easy to find and accessible, so this is why the book is written in Question and Answer format.

If you do a Google search for "Immigration to Canada" you will get half a million results! In this context it is possible to drown in an ocean of information. Therefore, we believe the vast majority of immigrants will benefit from such a book, because using our book's table of contents they are able to find credible answers to their questions quickly, easily and without a strong knowledge of English, advanced internet research skills or prior experience related to their topic of inquiry.

This book is not meant to be read from cover-to-cover, but exists as a reference guide for newcomers, which they can turn to again and again for solutions to problems that they face as they arise. By looking at parts discussing topics relevant to the challenges they are facing, each newcomer can easily find questions and answers related to his particular situation and find information that will help him to navigate those challenges.

Answers in this book have been made as short as possible, which is convenient for immigrants with limited English skills; the book is written in simple language, and the questions and answers are focused on the immigrants' needs. If any answers require additional information, such as the names, addresses, phone numbers and websites of organizations, the book provides links to the appropriate sources. The sources are selected with preference given to those where it is possible to read the information in several languages. Exploring these resources, most readers will be able to immediately read the answers in their native languages.

We sincerely hope that with this guidebook we are able to help create a smoother transition for newcomers as they adapt to their new life in Canada and that as they settle into it, the book will continue to help make their life here easier. With this book, we hope that we will have a long and prosperous life in Canada and to provide a bright future for their children.

Electronic version of the book is available at https://www.smashwords.com for $9.99 USD only or single volumes $1.99 USD each, also you can contact 

Efim Cheinis by email workvision@sympatico.ca 

or

Nicholas Marlin by email namarlin@gmail.com.