Cuba, Canada to hold second round of talks on migration

The governments of Cuba and Canada will hold the second round of talks on migration in Ottawa on June 1-2, the island's Ministry of Foreign Affairs disclosed on Monday.

The Cuban delegation will be headed by Ernesto Soberon Guzman, director of Consular Affairs and Cubans Residing Overseas of the foreign ministry. The Canadian party will be led by Jacques Cloutier, vice president of the Canada Border Service Agency.

"The occasion will be proper to assess the migratory flow between the two countries, so as to continue the exchange on a memorandum project on migratory issues as an effective mechanism to guarantee a regular, ordered and safe migratory flow, and to increase the cooperation against the human trafficking," said the statement.

Canada is home to the third largest Cuban immigrant community in the world after the United States and Spain.

According to the 2011 census undertaken in the nation, there were 21,440 Canadians claiming to be full or partial Cuban descendant, according to data from the government agency Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), which recorded the presence of Cubans permanently residing in Canada since mid-1970s. The number of the group increased after the mid-1990s, when an economic crisis struck the Caribbean nation.

One feature of the Cuban immigration to Canada has been the presence of relatively young and well-educated immigrants, especially in the field of technical science, due to Ottawa's migration program for skilled workers.

Data from the CIC Facts and Figures 2002-2011 indicated that about 1,000 Cubans came to reside in Canada every year with the highest peak in 2009, with over 1,400 new permanent residents from the Caribbean nation.

Canada is also a source of tourists to Cuba with over 1 million visitors every year.