Thunder Bay, Ont., selected for federal immigration pilot project

Thunder Bay has been selected to take part in a new immigration pilot project, which the federal government hopes will attract people who can offset a Canada-wide decrease in available workers.

The city is the only community in the northwest selected as part of the 11 for the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot. They'll receive a range of supports so they can help test the model, which, if successful, will then be rolled out to other Canadian cities.

Four other cities in the northeast were also named to the pilot, including Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay and Timmins.

Meeting criteria

Doug Murray, the CEO of the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission (CEDC), said anyone who comes to the region as part of the pilot will need to have a job offer from an employer first.

"Once they get the job offer from the employer, they will then come to the CEDC with the job offer, and we're going to review it, and make sure that it fits the criteria that we're going to put together with respect to 'is this job what we're looking for, does it fit into our economy,'" Murray said.

Murray added they also want to make sure they're bringing in people who will stay long-term.

"The federal government is going to measure how effective our program [is] to retain people," he said.

Successful candidates will have their applications then forwarded on to Ottawa, where the final decision over permanent residency will be made, Murray said.

The government said candidates for the pilot will be identified over the summer, and decisions on applications will start being made in 2020.

Aging workforce

In a media release issued Friday, Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Ahmed Hussen said the pilot is based on a similar program that was tested in Atlantic Canada.

"The equation is quite simple," Hussen said in a statement. "Attracting and retaining newcomers with the needed skills
equals a recipe for success for Canada's rural and northern communities."

In the release, the government said rural Canada's available workforce has decreased due to the country's aging population and drop in birth rates.

Murray said Thunder Bay is no exception. The pilot project, however, could certainly help fill those gaps.

"As an example, we're always talking about [personal support workers] ... or truck drivers," he said.

"If an employer goes down that path, and finds people that they're interested in and it fits with what we're trying to do here in Thunder Bay, then they can make a job offer ... and I think they'll have an easier time of retaining and getting somebody to come, because then there's permanent resident status that goes with that."