Slippery slope. Would be helpful to see more solid evidence behind the selection of the countries.
But more fundamentally, goes against more than 50 years since race-based criteria were abandoned (7 of the 8 countries are in Europe) and other country-based programs generally are for refugees or leaving for political reasons (e.g., Ukraine, Hong Kong).
No real issue with recruitment missions and events in specific countries as that has been a long-time practice in Canada. The issue is limiting access to draws:
In a first-of-its-kind pilot project, Saskatchewan is picking skilled immigrants based on their country of residence, raising eyebrows for deviating from Canada’s selection system that has otherwise been open to all regardless of race and nationality.
In August, the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program created six draws with the goal of inviting 542 skilled immigrants in dozens of occupational backgrounds to settle in the province as permanent residents.
The catch is only those who are living in one of these eight countries can qualify: Czechia, Germany, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.
While officials say the draws are designed to target immigrants based on their likelihood to succeed and stay in the province, experts fear this might mark the beginning of a return to Canada’s ethnocentric immigration selection approach of the past.
“This is a slippery slope that undoes the progress we’ve had with bringing in a points system,” says University of Western Ontario political sociologist Howard Ramos, who studies social justice and equity.
“What is very unique here is they’re being as explicit as they are in terms of saying, ‘We want people from these countries.’”
Until the late 1960s, said Ramos, Canada had an immigration system that welcomed immigrants from countries that were “culturally similar” to Canada, to exclude Chinese, South Asian and non-European migrants.
Then the so-called points system was introduced in 1967, awarding points to immigration applicants based on objective and measurable attributes such as educational achievements, work experience, language proficiency and employment skills.
“Canada was a world leader at bringing in a points system, a merit-based, human-capital, skills-based system,” said Ramos. “And the slippery slope of these kinds of draws goes again to pricing specific countries over skills alone.”
The most populous provinces — Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta — all enjoy an immigrant retention rate of higher than 80 per cent. However, the rest of Canada struggles to keep their newcomers despite the provincial nominee program meant to let them pick their own.
The country-specific pilot is an attempt by Saskatchewan to devote its limited resources to target newcomers who are most likely to stay, provincial officials say.
According to Statistics Canada, only 64 per cent of newcomers who settled in Saskatchewan between 2016 and 2020 ended up staying. Among those who came under the skilled workers and skilled trades categories in 2019, only 43 per cent of them remained.
Inspired by the settlement success of the five flights of displaced Ukrainians who arrived in the province in the past year, officials came up with the pilot project with employers, professional regulators, industry associations and community-based partners.
In picking the select countries, they looked at labour-pool characteristics, language ability, history of successful recruitment and retention of newcomers from different countries, as well as the job opportunities available in the province.
One other key element they considered was the credential compatibility of migrants from those countries. For instance, long-haul truck drivers in Poland, Ukraine and Germany are quickly recognized by provincial officials to work in Saskatchewan.
“We want to ensure that they remain in Saskatchewan and that the program is being used for genuine intent to contribute to the community growth that we’re experiencing in this province,” said the province’s deputy immigration minister, Richelle Bourgoin.
“We want to ensure that the very precious nominations that we have under our provincial nominee program are allocated to individuals who want to live and work in Saskatchewan.”
The federal government sets quotas for the number of provincial nomination spots each year and Saskatchewan is eligible to submit up to 7,250 in 2023.
Normally, provincial immigration officials will create a draw and invite applicants from a pool of existing candidates — who have expressed interest in permanent residence in the province and meet the relevant points thresholds — to apply for permanent residence.
However, in this pilot, Saskatchewan officials have created the draws before they have the talent pool. They expect to find their applicants in recruitment missions in Europe in late September and in India in October, where employers will meet candidates and invite them to enter the pool.
Bourgoin said employers have expressed the value of face-to-face recruitment opportunities, where provincial immigration officials, industry leaders and community partners can also be on hand to address questions and make personalized support for prospects.
Twenty employers have signed up for the mission in Poland, with more than 200 jobs to fill in 40-plus occupations including agriculture, construction, transportation, industrial manufacturing, engineering, project management and hospitality.
The intent to create the draws in advance, said Bourgoin, is to let potential applicants start preparing for an application and compiling all the necessary documents, and perhaps initiating the credential-assessment process from abroad.
While the approach may help build a stronger attachment between the newcomers and the local community, and meet the need for immigrant retention, Saskatoon immigration lawyer Chris Veeman said that’s a departure from the objective of the points system.
“It appears that there’s a preference for certain countries and there’s the question of an appearance of bias in terms of European countries,” he said.
“When you’re looking at, ‘Oh, who is going to stay in Saskatchewan? Who’s more likely to fit in here?’ Maybe that makes sense. But I don’t know that was the way the program was originally set up.”
Veeman assumed the province has already had the federal immigration department’s blessing in adopting country of residence as a criterion.
“They’re OK with provinces doing recruiting missions to meet their specific needs,” he said. “The fact that there’s these missions to certain countries is already a preference on the part of the province. They’re not going everywhere to look for people. They’re only going to certain places.”
Ramos suggested that giving this extra opportunity to European immigrants whose countries have bigger and deeper-rooted communities in Saskatchewan might help sustain those communities, while denying less-established and smaller African and Asian communities the same support.
In an email to the Star, the federal immigration department said provinces and territories are responsible for the design, management and evaluation of their respective provincial nominee programs, though Ottawa does review new streams to ensure they align with national policy and the law.
Bourgoin said the country-specific draws are by no means exclusionary because there are other draws that are open to all candidates. This year alone, the province has nominated applicants from 116 countries.
“This is one tool in a very large tool box. And we are in a position with a growing economy, a very low unemployment rate (so we use) all of the tools we have available to us,” she explained.
“In this case, we are looking to test a theory that we think might yield positive results for not only our communities but our labour market.”
The province will evaluate the pilot upon its completion in December. Successful recruits will be issued a work permit to come here while their permanent residence applications are in process.
Multicultural Meanderings 