Rural and northern immigration pilot moves forward in Greater Sudbury

The City of Greater Sudbury is taking the next steps in the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot Program (RNIP.)

The program is part of the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and modeled on the Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program.

RNIP will help qualified newcomers with confirmed job offers with another option for permanent residency for them and their families.

The goal is to bring in immigrants who are committed to living in Sudbury, which will help address some of the challenges the city is facing — finding qualified people to fill jobs and keeping them here.

"We want newcomers to come to our community and we want them to stay and settle and integrate into the community,"  Meredith Armstrong, the city's director of economic development said.

"This is also seen as a way of starting to address the labour shortage that so many of our businesses and agencies are facing right now."

In the pilot year of the program, the city will focus on bringing in newcomers to fill positions in the mining supply sector as well as services and tourism, including restaurants and hospitality.

Armstrong said for the first year, Sudbury will be able to bring in 100 candidates and their families.

"There is absolutely room for a candidate with a job offer to bring family members," she said. "We're going to make sure that we have a strong network to support the spouses finding jobs, to getting the kids into schools."

She said that overall RNIP is a community effort and it will take the whole city to help newcomers with settling and finding the supports they need.

"I think it's worth emphasizing that the immigration pilot is going to take a whole network of organizations and agencies and city departments and individuals in the community to help make the city a welcoming place for newcomers," said Armstrong.

Applications will open in December and the city and the Community Selection Committee will being processing the them in January 2020.