Four provinces said in a letter to Ottawa that they could select immigrants with the ‘greatest chance of success’.
Ontario’s Minister of Labour Monte McNaughton stated there is an issue rising in the country as one in three tradespeople in Canada is aged over 55.
Multiple provinces’ immigration ministers cited lack of labour as their justification for wanting more control over the immigration process and stated that they had written to their federal counterparts requesting changes. In a letter sent to Sean Fraser, Canada’s minister of Immigration, Refugees, And Citizenship, the ministers of Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba urged him to permit their provinces to select more immigrants with the talents they require the most.
According to the letter, the provinces require the ability to respond to the rapidly changing needs of specific locations and people with a flexible approach that will help adjust to changes in the economic and humanitarian needs. Prior to the meeting with Fraser and other immigration ministers in Saint John, New Brunswick, they stated that Canada needed to do more to entice and keep workers, particularly in skilled trades and also added that provinces should be permitted to hire employees and provide them with quality local jobs.
The letter also stated that provinces understand regional economies better and hence, can select newcomers who might have the highest likelihood of success. As people from all over the world look for better places to raise their families and develop successful careers, provinces are in a race for talent. The province of Ontario was permitted to choose over 8,900—or about 4.4%—of the more than 198,034 individuals who immigrated to Ontario last year through the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program, which acknowledged and nominated individuals for permanent residency according to the talents and expertise that Ontario economy needed.
In an interview with CBC Toronto, Ontario’s minister of labour, immigration, training, and skills development, Monte McNaughton stated that the province wanted the federal government to double its funding so that it could choose 18,000 skilled immigrants out of the 211,000 who will be arriving in Ontario this year.
It received an increase of 700. According to data released by the Ontario labour ministry, the four provinces with the highest immigration rates in 2021 had comparably low percentages of immigrants they were allowed to choose. British Columbia received 9.3% of its 69,270 immigrants, and Alberta received 15% of its 39,950 newcomers. Quebec was the only exception, selecting 55.8% of its 50,170 immigrants.
According to McNaughton, all provincial ministers were experiencing a labour crisis, but Ontario was facing the most difficulty because there were 378,000 open positions in the province. He mentioned that the province is concentrated on the health care and skilled trades industries and that it made more sense for the provinces to have a say in the skilled immigrants that they need to fill these jobs particularly in Ontario.
In the month of June, Fraser stated that the federal government attempted to develop a quicker route for temporary workers to achieve permanent resident status. 90,000 vital workers, front-line healthcare professionals, and overseas students received a faster route to permanent residency for eight months from the federal government amid COVID-19 restrictions last year.
The federal government provided several avenues to permanent residency, some of which are intended to draw in and keep skilled labour. One illustration is the Atlantic Immigration Program, which allows skilled workers and overseas graduates of Canadian universities to settle in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland and Labrador.
The test program began in 2017 and was made permanent this year as more than 1,500 new immigrants arrived in Nova Scotia, thanks to the Atlantic Immigration Program and its provincial nominee program but it is still facing a problem in finding skilled workers.
Several provincial counterparts have stated that Canada must do more to entice and retain talented workers ahead of a meeting with federal Immigration Minister Sean Fraser.
According to McNaughton the federal government sometimes takes up to 42 months to review applications under the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program while Ontario is processing them in just 90 days. He added that the province was the first to accept credentials from other countries for some professions.
He stated that the language testing criteria have been greatly streamlined and the necessity for Canadian work experience has been dropped if you are an engineer, an architect, or an individual in skilled trades. He added that they wanted to ensure the new Canadians in Ontario are already employed in their fields of study.
McNaughton promised to support immigrants who enter the country in various ways, such as through family reunification or as refugees, Ontario needed to make sure that the skill gap in the province are addressed. He also stated that while immigration is not a panacea it is a vital component of the answer to the labour deficit.
McNaughton mentioned that the labour scarcity is a factor in the high cost of living in Canada and given that one in three workers in the trades is over the age of 55 he raised caution about a “lurking problem.” He believes that this is the biggest economic problem that the nation and the province currently face.
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