On July 28, the Saskatchewan government declared that it wanted more control over its immigration policy.
The announcement was made on the same day Jeremy Harrison, the immigration minister for Saskatchewan, joined Sean Fraser and the other immigration ministers from across Canada for a meeting in New Brunswick.
The ministers’ agreement to create a multi-year full structure for the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) by March 31, 2023, is the committee’s most significant result. It will also give every province and territory PNP amounts for a three-year period, enabling them to prepare ahead in support of their economic development objectives.
According to numerous provinces, these initiatives still fall short of what is needed to foster regional economic growth.
Similar to the federal government that Quebec has, Saskatchewan is asking for a new international immigration agreement. Quebec has the most authority over its immigration policy among all 10 provinces and three territories in Canada due to the country’s distinct francophone culture in accordance with the 1991 Canada-Quebec Agreement, the province has the authority to determine its own immigration policy, including the selection of immigrants from each of its economic groups, manage entry for temporary residence, and have its say on family and refugee classes. Additionally, it has full responsibility for the federal government’s settlement funds to support it with a range of services such as language learning and on-the-job training for newcomers, among other things.
There are bilateral immigration agreements between the federal government and each of Canada’s other nine provinces, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. The primary advantage of these agreements would be that they empower the provinces and territories to manage the PNP. Additionally, they offer information on a wide range of topics, for instance how the two tiers of government would collaborate to provide services for immigrant settlement. However, these accords only provide the provinces and territories with limited jurisdiction outside of what they can do with their particular PNPs.
As a result, Saskatchewan desires whatever Quebec possesses. As part of its “Canada-Saskatchewan Immigration Agreement,” the province demands exclusive power on family- and economic-class immigration, federal settlement financing, and a PNP distribution that is assured to reflect Saskatchewan’s population importance in Canada. In spite of the fact that Saskatchewan’s PNP allotment for 2022 is 6,000 principal applicants, the province feels that 13,000 seats would be more equitable because they would represent Saskatchewan’s considerable proportion of all Canadian immigrants.
Harrison, along with his provincial colleagues from Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario, sent a memorandum to minister Fraser the day before the meeting on June 28 asking for more autonomy over their local immigration systems. Monte McNaughton, the minister of immigration for Ontario, stated in a media release that he was requesting the federal government to give Ontario more discretion over choosing economic classes.
Francois Legault, the governor of Quebec, has additionally stated that if he wins again the parliamentary majority in the upcoming provincial elections, which are expected to occur in October, he will seek complete immigration regulation into the province. The federal government was under a lot of pressure as a result of the demands made by Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba. The provinces contend that providing them with additional selection authority would help alleviate IRCC’s ongoing problem with application backlogs.
While the Constitution explicitly specifies that the federal government has jurisdiction over immigrant entries, it still identifies immigration as one of the limited policy areas of the country that are subject to divided government oversight. In order to achieve regional economic and social goals, the federal government is required to collaborate closely with the provinces and territories under Canada’s most important immigration statute, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Furthermore, the federal government is in an increasingly challenging position because Quebec has strong immigration control but the rest of the country does not.
In contrast to when the Canada-Quebec Agreement was formed in 1991, provincial and territorial governments across Canada are now experiencing historic labor shortages as a result of the rapidly aging population of the nation. The PNP is more necessary for territories and provinces to maintain their demographic, labor force, and economic expansion as more baby boomers retire.
It seems as though the provinces will eventually demand additional authority. Some provinces approached the federal government seeking comparable immigration authority after the Canada-Quebec Accord was signed. The federal government came up with the concept of the PNP because of a fear that it would lose control over the immigration system if it signed similar agreements with the rest of the nation. When the provinces and territories joined in, the PNP saw a huge increase, going from admitting 400 immigrants in 1999 to aiming for more than 80,000 immigrants each year and 90,000 immigrants by 2024.
The allocation of 80,000 immigrants among the eleven provinces and territories that administer the PNP, despite the fact that Canada’s PNP targets are at all-time highs, is unfair, according to certain provinces. The PNP is inadequate in light of the severe labor shortages those regions currently experience and are anticipated to continue to experience as all nine million Canadians in the baby boomer generation reach retirement age within the next ten years.
One cannot exaggerate the significance of these recent occurrences. When Quebec took control of its immigration, the federal previous government had determined all immigrants to Canada. Because the PNP was implemented in 1998, the balance has gradually shifted, and the two levels of government currently share an approximately equal distribution of economic class immigrant selection. The family and refugee admissions categories are still under the control of the federal government. In essence, the provinces are expressing their desire to control the majority of the selection process.
The choice to give up even more control would ultimately be made by the federal government. This could easily change the number of immigrants accepted through PNP while reducing the proportion to be accepted through a federal route such as Express Entry. However, the federal government’s willingness to loosen its grip on things is still up in the air.
In any case, the provinces’ more assertive stance heralds a new phase in Canada’s immigration process, one in which they are no longer satisfied with merely influencing selection through the PNP; somewhat more, the accomplishment for any of these provinces seems to be characterized by subordinating the federal government to the role of junior partner in their immigration partnership.
