Liberals face fears over more rural office closures amid Alberta backlash
Consolidation of immigration branches
OTTAWA • The Liberal government is trying to quell fears over the possible relocation of more immigration offices after facing major blowback for a decision to move one out of rural Alberta.
Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs, whose constituents in Vegreville, Alta., are angry about a 280-employee branch getting moved to Edmonton, worries the same kind of upheaval could face other communities.
A document she provided to the Post shows that in the spring of 2016, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada was looking at whether to relocate or renew leases for about 20 federal offices, including in places such as Fredericton, N.B., and Windsor, Ont.
For now, immigration spokeswoman Julie Lafortune said major moves are on hold. “These relocations will not affect the employment status of staff,” she said. Decisions are based on “organizational needs” and on factors including “more cost-effective locations” and “more space for employees.”
But Stubbs told the Post she is worried the government is making administrative decisions without consulting communities, and on bad advice — another document she provided shows the department would actually spend millions more moving the Vegreville office to Edmonton, rather than saving money.
“If this can be done to Vegreville, it can happen anywhere in Canada,” she said. “And it seems to be all driven by this aim to centralize offices in urban areas, and the impact is to remove them from rural communities.”
Stubbs added she has received support from Liberal MPs, especially in Atlantic Canada. She said it would be “interesting” to see what kinds of decisions the Liberal government makes when its own MPs’ ridings could be affected by closures.
A government response to a petition asking for the Vegreville office to stay says IRCC had a “difficult” time making the decision and “it is recognized that the staff in Vegreville are doing great work.” Still, the relocation is going ahead at the end of 2018.
Employees aren’t being fired but many of them won’t be able to move away or make the commute, Stubbs said, so they’ll be forced to resign. The office employs about five per cent of the community of 6,000 people.
British Columbia MP Jenny Kwan, the immigration critic for the New Democrats, visited Vegreville this summer. She called the government’s decision “unilateral,” criticized a lack of consultation with townspeople, the mayor or city council, and labelled the office closure a “colossally disastrous move.”
“If they don’t think that (the job loss) would have economic impacts, they’ve got another thing coming,” she said. “Maybe they don’t care. But I would argue that the government needs to care. Those small towns are part of Canada and … you cannot make a decision that would devastate a community and just walk away from it.”
Stubbs said she would like to see the government consider putting more — not fewer — federal offices in rural areas. A 2008 Senate report had recommended at least 10 per cent of urban jobs could be moved to rural Canada. “We see call centres coming to rural Canada but do not see our governments bringing public service jobs to rural Canada,” said the agriculture and forestry committee’s report.
The immigration case processing Vegreville employees do is “exactly the kind of administrative work that is sustainable in rural communities, which is sometimes rare in federal public service jobs,” Stubbs said.
“In Vegreville, 76 per cent of the employees in that office are women. And you know, these are jobs that are sustainable, reliable, predictable employment for their families, which are farm families or oil and gas workers. And they are struggling now.
“So these kinds of jobs are very important to small towns and local communities.”