Immigrants need a home, Atlantic Canada needs people: McKenna

Former New Brunswick Premier McKenna advocates for an Atlantic specific immigration program. Not sure that immigration is a panacea for Atlantic Canada’s demographic problem, and retention may also be an issue as immigrants will follow opportunities.

The above table compares unemployment rates between visible minorities and non-visible minorities in the Atlantic provides (2011 NHS):

We do not need more federal programs or federal money. We need people! But the status quo immigration system won’t get the job done.

Immigrants generally go where immigrants are. More than 70 per cent of new Canadians settle in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Atlantic Canada receives only about 2.5 per cent of immigrants. Without a larger base, it’s impossible to attract an immigrant population. It’s a continually reinforcing negative cycle.

The Provincial Nominee Program has had some uptake; yet, it has not moved the dial for Atlantic Canada. Again, immigrants go where immigrants are.

We need a new program dedicated to the needs of Atlantic Canada.

We do not have to reinvent the wheel. As far back as 2002, the immigration minister, Denis Coderre, floated the idea of a “social contract” whereby immigrants would be required to live in a community specified by the government for a period of at least three years, as part of the conditions for citizenship.

Allowing immigrants to convert a temporary visa into permanent status, once all conditions have been fulfilled, could pre-empt any legal arguments related to the mobility rights of individuals.

Critics will question why we should bring people to areas of high unemployment. But that is precisely where immigrants are needed. We need their entrepreneurship, their worldliness, their drive, their consumption and even their desperation. All of these attributes would be highly additive to the small communities across our region.

This model is not complicated or expensive. Ottawa could easily design a program unique for Atlantic Canada that could become a pilot for other regions depending on its success. It would be incumbent on provinces and communities to put together programs that would retain immigrants after they arrive.

Atlantic Canada is a warm and welcoming place to live. I’m confident that large numbers of immigrants would stay, refreshing our population base and providing a new energy to our economy.

My hope is the government of Canada understands it is facing a major collapse in the Atlantic region. If not this idea, what else might work? As for the Atlantic premiers, they need to make population growth their number-one priority and work together to create a new demographic destiny for Atlantic Canada.