Ontario needs to fill the shortage of labour; makes an appeal to the government to double the nominations for permanent residence by 2021.

The scarcity of labour in Canada is not a new thing. However, the problem of shortage of skilled workers is very grave in Ontario. Currently, Ontario’s labour market is going through a tough phase. Labour shortages are mainly due to high demand of workers which, in turn, is generated by strong economic growth. Ontario is the heavily populated province of Canada with a robust economy. Nonetheless, the shortage of labour is holding its small and medium-sized businesses back. Consequently, in order to sustain its economy, Ontario needs immigrant skilled workers. As a result, Vic Fedeli, the Immigration Minister of Ontario has recently requested to increase the quota of Ontario under the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) from 6,650 to 13,300 in 2022. The province of Ontario is seeking to double the count of immigrants it can nominate through its Provincial Nominee Program to grant them the status of permanent residents.

Provincial Nominee Programs: A boon to Canada’s Immigration System.

Provincial Nominee Programs are the pillars of the immigration policy of Canada. These programs are designed to help the provinces and territories of Canada to meet their specific market needs. It is expected that by 2021 more than 200,000 individuals are going to secure permanent residence through PNPs. The importance of the PNPs can be judged by the government’s efforts to steadily increase the annual allocations of provinces for their respective PNPs.

Ontario Immigration Nominee program requires more allocations:

The Ontario Immigration Nominee Program (OINP) is the most popular among all the PNPs. Statistics show that OINP has the largest allocation provided by the federal government to nominate candidates for Canadian permanent residence. Despite the large number of allocations, Ontario falls short of skilled workers. Due to increased economic activities, actual labour needs are high in Ontario. The growth of the businesses is largely affected due to labour shortages. Because of confined number of nominations, employers are not able to hire the required foreign talent. Therefore, it is crucial that Ontario gets more allocations from the federal government to have an influx of skilled workers.

More Power over Immigration program:

For now, Quebec is the only province in Canada which has power over the Nominee Program. It can choose economic class immigrants to nominate for permanent residence. In addition to that, Quebec can set immigration levels as per the labour needs. Lately, the province of Saskatchewan also has written to the federal government to give it control over the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program. Apart from Quebec, all other provinces of Canada do not have the power to set the number of nomination allocations. These provinces are awarded only with the responsibility of creating the immigration streams that are required for the economic development of that particular province. Therefore, several times, the number of nominations allocated to a province by the federal government are not as per the market needs. It results in an acute shortage of labour which ultimately impact the businesses. Thus, Ontario is pushing for the immigration powers so that it can set the immigration levels according to the requirement of skilled workers in the province.

Can new pilots be a good option?

Mathieu Genest, press secretary of Marco Mendicino, has said that the government will ensure that the immigration levels plan is in sync with the requirements to fill the gap of labour shortages. He has also hinted to look outside of the larger cities and establish a new immigration pilot that can help in attracting immigrants to the rural areas of Ontario. The Rural and Northern Immigration pilot currently has five communities of Ontario under its ambit. This program needs to be promoted by the province so as to fill the shortage of labour in the rural provinces as well. To put it briefly, without the right immigration levels, there will be a stagnation of workers in Canada. Therefore, it becomes imperative that the provinces set the immigration levels accordingly so that the economic growth is not hindered.