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On one of the coldest days of the winter, 50 immigrants from 18 countries were granted Canadian citizenship during a ceremony at the University of Ottawa on January 14.
The event also saw the launch of the Standards linguistiques canadiens, Français langue seconde – adultes that were were developed by the University of Ottawa’s Second Language Institute, a world leader in second-language assessment and teaching. Citizenship and Immigration Canada provided funding for the project, in which the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks was also involved. The Centre is a national not-for-profit organization that seeks to establish a framework serving all the stakeholders in English and French as a second language instruction.
The Standards linguistiques canadiens and its English counterpart, the Canadian Language Benchmarks, are framework documents for assessing proficiency in English and French.
Citizenship Judge Suzanne Pinel warmly welcomed the group of new Canadians. “Every time we have a citizenship ceremony, the Canadian family rejoices,” she said.
Pinel, who is an alumna and former faculty member of the University, noted that she spent almost all her life in Ottawa. She thanked the group of new Canadians for enriching her life with the traditions and culture that they brought with them from their country of origin.
