Despite pilot program numbers, immigration rising in N.S.
Nova Scotia is lagging behind the other Atlantic provinces when it comes to attracting immigrants under a federal-provincial program designed to attract skilled labourers, but slow uptake is to be expected in the first year of a new program, a legislative committee was told.
Despite this, immigration numbers are higher than ever, thanks to a suite of programs used to attract newcomers, said Suzanne Ley, executive director of the province’s Office of Immigration.
“We are seeing incredible results from our hard work,” she said. “We’ve seen growth in provincial immigration selection from 2013, where we nominated 600 individuals to come to Nova Scotia. In 2017, we supported 1,652 people and their families to make their life in Nova Scotia.”
All told, 2,529 immigrants came to the province under various programs in 2013. As of last November, 4,135 had come to Nova Scotia, Ley said.
“We’re also keeping more people,” she said. “We’ve got about 71-78 per cent retention rate, depending on how you measure it, which is up from about 48 per cent a decade ago.”
Under the Atlantic Immigration Pilot Project, which was designed Suzanne Ley, executive director of Nova Scotia’s office of immigration, told the legislative committee on economic development on Thursday that the Atlantic Immigration Pilot Project is working as well as can be expected for a new program. to attract about 2,000 immigrants to the four Atlantic provinces, Prince Edward Island has reportedly filled its quota, New Brunswick has reached about three-quarters of its target, while Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have only found about 25 per cent of the workers needed to fill specific jobs.
Nova Scotia’s share was 792 slots last year and the province attracted only 201 immigrants. New Brunswick’s allocation was 646, and a government spokeswoman said 487 foreign workers had received job offers from local businesses by the end of December.
“I want you to know that it’s common in year one for low uptake for immigration programs,” Ley told the committee. “It’s important to understand that it can often take several years for a new immigration program to fully ramp up.
“Just for instance, one of the federal skilled trades programs, there were only 100 applications nationally from the new federal program. By year four it had received 3,500 applications.”
The immigration office is working to promote the Atlantic pilot project with chambers of commerce across the province, the YMCA and the Immigration Services Association of Nova Scotia, the Halifax and Cape Breton business partnerships, and the Western Regional Enterprise Network based in Yarmouth.
John Lohr, the Progressive Conservative MLA for Kings North and a member of the committee, asked Ley what other provinces are doing to get such good results from the Atlantic pilot project, especially given the good results from Nova Scotia’s provincial nominee program.
“Presumably it’s a start-up year for all four Atlantic provinces, so I guess the question is what do you see your office doing differently in the coming year to address that shortfall and is there things you can learn from how the other provinces have addressed it and been more successful,” he said.
Ley declined to comment on other provinces but said Nova Scotia officials have held several talks with counterparts in Atlantic Canada and it doesn’t seem like others are doing anything differently, despite getting better results.
Clyde – Carleton Charge Churches
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Christ Anglican Church
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