The province of Newfoundland and Labrador co
uld more than double its immigration target if cabinet members agree with Seamus O’Regan proposal on this issue. O’Regan, who serves as Canada’s Minister of Veterans Affairs and the Member of Parliament for a riding in Newfoundland’s capital city St. John’s, says he has buy-in from Canada’s Immigration Minister, Ahmed Hussen, to increase the province’s current immigration target of 1,700 newcomers by 2022 to at least 4,000.
Given the combination of outmigration and a population that is aging “at an incredible rate,” O’Regan said 4,000 new immigrants is the baseline for keeping the social effects of Newfoundland and Labrador’s shrinking tax base from getting worse.
The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador projects that by 2025, the province will experience a 10 percent decline in its working-age population, resulting in 35,000 fewer people in the provincial labour market.
The province has been welcoming a steadily increasing number of newcomers in recent years, increasing from a total of 546 in 2007 to 1,122 in 2015.
O’Regan said he plans to assemble representatives of labour, business and government in Newfoundland and Labrador to look at ways they can make the increase he is proposing a reality.
“I believe that doom is not inevitable and that there exists the opportunity for our province to succeed and to thrive, but we’ve got to take bold action and we’ve got to strike out in new directions,” he said
O’Regan said Newfoundlanders have everything to gain from a new wave of immigration to the province.
“They don’t take our jobs, they create them,” he said. “Immigrants send more of their children to college and university; they use less social services than we do. And they are far more likely to start their own businesses and create jobs than we are.”
Currently most of immigrant populations are living in 3 major cities in Canada. The government would like to make sure that the population is divided throughout the country therefore the minister is planning to focus on revising provincial nominee programs to attract more new immigrants.
