Yahoo Finance Diane Francis: Provinces need more say over immigration
In Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Canada, politics outweigh good policies, especially when it comes to immigration. For instance, Trudeau has ratcheted immigration goals up to 400,000 a year, but hasn’t made a dent in terms of overcoming Canada’s skilled labour shortages.
Nearly 37 per cent of all businesses say they’re facing a shortage of skilled workers. This is because our immigration system has been skewed toward family reunification and other politically motivated goals, not toward helping this country meet its economic goals.
Worse, Quebec enjoys privileges above all the other provinces under a deal signed years ago, but now others want the same ability to set immigration targets and have a say over who is selected, and are petitioning Ottawa to give them commensurate privileges.
For instance, Ontario receives nearly half of new immigrants to Canada, yet has practically no say over who can migrate to the province. This is why Ontario and other provincial labour ministers officially asked for more control over immigration to combat severe labour shortages in their provinces and avert what Ontario Labour Minister Monte McNaughton calls a “looming skills crisis.”
In July, he and his counterparts from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba wrote a letter to federal Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, urging that they be allowed to choose skilled newcomers “with the greatest chance of success,” McNaughton explained in an interview with the Financial Post. “We need the ability to respond to the rapidly evolving needs of specific areas and communities, with a flexible system that we can adapt to changing economic and humanitarian needs.”
Last year, 198,085 people immigrated to Ontario, but only 9,000 — about 4.5 per cent — were chosen from the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program, which is designed to find and match people who have skills that are in demand. “We asked to double this allocation so we can choose 18,000 skilled immigrants out of the 211,000 coming here this year,” McNaughton said. “Instead, we got an increase of only 700.”
Alberta was allowed to select 15 per cent of its 39,950 immigrants, while British Columbia chose 9.3 per cent of the 69,270 people who immigrated there. But Quebec selected 55.8 per cent of its 50,170 immigrants, thanks to a privilege that has been in place since the province signed a deal with Ottawa in 1991 so it could make francophone immigrants a priority.
McNaughton said that one in three people with skilled trades in the province are over 55 years of age and Ontario’s biggest challenge is that there are 378,000 job vacancies in the skilled trades, technology and health-care sectors. “It makes more sense for the provinces, in particular Ontario, to have a say,” and Ontario can process applications within 90 days, while the federal government takes up to 42 months in some cases, he said.
To meet shortfalls, Ontario has become the first province to recognize international professional credentials to speed up migration decisions. Newcomers must be able to work in areas where they are skilled and have the greatest chance of success. This is good for them, their families, as well as for Canada, said McNaughton.
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All provinces want a greater say in the selection of immigrants and the federal government promised last year to accommodate this request, but did not, added McNaughton. “We’d like to have Quebec’s deal — choosing 50 per cent of their economic immigrants. We want their numbers, but want to focus on economic immigration. They focus on culture,” he said.
The current immigration system “holds back the economy and raises costs for families” due to labour shortages and immigrants who remain under-employed, he added. “Why not have more ‘economic’ immigrants to grow Canada’s economy?”
McNaughton contends that the flawed immigration system “is the country’s greatest economic challenge.” So, too, is the Trudeau government.
Financial Post
