Immigrants Looking Beyond Big City Living – New Canadian Media – NCM

Let’s not exaggerate: the numbers are still small, both in Saskatchewan as a whole and the communities listed, but it is part of a trend, helped by the growth of provincial nomination programs, towards more dispersion of immigration across the country:

The research, based on the 2011 National Household Survey, revealed the top five non-metropolitan towns with the highest number of immigrants as a per cent of total population were all in Saskatchewan. Although the number of immigrants moving to rural areas are smaller, the impact on the local population is significant. For example, topping the list was the town of Englefeld, Saskatchewan, with a total population of 225 people, 80 of them being immigrants – about 35.6 per cent of the population.

“Over time, the labour markets in the larger centres become particularly saturated, so immigrants will perceive more opportunities in smaller jurisdictions and that will bring them outward.” – Dr. Michael Haan

Ontario still attracts the most in sheer numbers, but the prairie provinces rank higher per capita for several reasons says Dr. Michael Haan, the Canada research chair in population and social policy at the University of New Brunswick. He describes the recent trend to rural Canada as a natural progression of a country’s immigration movement.

“When a country initially welcomes immigrants, they tend to cluster in particular regions, here the largest cities received the most,” he explains. “Over time, the labour markets in the larger centres become particularly saturated, so immigrants will perceive more opportunities in smaller jurisdictions and that will bring them outward.”

Immigrants Looking Beyond Big City Living – New Canadian Media – NCM.