Chapter 3 – Provincial Nominee Programs
Page 18 of 26
One initiative in which minority communities should actively participate is the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). Citizenship and Immigration Canada has signed agreements with nine provinces and territories:11 Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, the Yukon and Alberta. The most recent one was signed in August 2002, with Nova Scotia.
These agreements allow the provinces flexibility in selecting immigrants according to each province's needs and interests.12 While these interests have been defined as primarily economic, Canada's new immigration legislation specifies that immigration policy must benefit official language minority communities. Both the federal and provincial governments need to ensure that a fair number of candidates selected under the Provincial Nominee Program are Francophones. What is more, official language minority communities should themselves become active and propose candidates for immigration who may be able to fill labour shortages and whose linguistic profile is such that they are likely to become a productive member of the linguistic minority community.
The Provincial Nominee Program is an excellent opportunity for communities to avail themselves of a more targeted recruitment mechanism. However, greater efforts are required as the current reality in two provinces shows.
The New Brunswick Government signed its agreement for provincial nominees with Citizenship and Immigration Canada in February 1999, giving the province for the first time the power to establish its own selection criteria and identify qualified candidates. According to information from New Brunswick's Ministry of Immigration, Multiculturalism and Advocacy Services, the province is eager to attract immigrants through this new program and has even taken out advertising in various countries, including France, to promote it. 93 applicants were approved in 2000 and 2001. Among these only nine were Francophones, and thus less than one third of the number that should have been achieved if the Francophone percentage of New Brunswick's population is taken as the objective. Interestingly, five of these were already in New Brunswick as students.
Manitoba is currently the leader in attracting provincial nominees. More than three quarters of all provincial nominees who come to Canada every year are nominated by this province. In 2000 and 2001, approximately one thousand provincial nominees (including family members) arrived in Manitoba, and the province is negotiating for an increase in these figures.13 The success of this program has not, however, reached the Francophone community yet. While Manitoba's Jewish community has sponsored Jewish immigrants to settle mainly in the Winnipeg area, Manitoba's Mennonites have sponsored provincial nominees in their mostly rural settlement areas. But according to the Manitoba Government, the Francophone community is now actively considering their own involvement in the Provincial Nominee Program. It is an opportunity that needs to be explored with some urgency: less than one percent of the more than 2,500 provincial nominees that have settled in Manitoba since the start of the program are Francophones (Canada 2002b; Manitoba 2002).
Provincial nominees differ from other immigrants as the community commits itself to assisting the immigrant during settlement, which often includes having a job ready for nominees as soon as they arrive. Usually, interested individuals who have secured the assistance of an employer or a community will contact the provincial government which will then evaluate the request and, if approved, transmit the names to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The selection procedure is, in fact, slightly less demanding than the regular CIC process. The reason is that immigrants have very clear support structures and settlement plans in place when they arrive in the country. This translates not only into an easier settlement process but also means much greater long-term retention of provincial nominees in the province where they first arrived.
Particularly promising is the latest PNP agreement with Nova Scotia. It specifies that the Francophone minority community is to be actively consulted as the agreement is being put in place in order to ensure that the Francophone community is a dynamic participant in the recruitment process. In addition, new immigrants are to be monitored for a period of five years after their arrival in Nova Scotia in order to evaluate the efficiency of the program with regard to integration success and the retention of immigrants in Nova Scotia. Francophone communities, in particular, will benefit by finding out how many immigrants have joined their ranks and with what degree of success.14
Provincial Nominees and Minority Communities (Recommendation 4)
The Federal Government should ensure that any existing and/or future agreements regarding Provincial Nominees are executed in ways that safeguard and strengthen the vitality of official language minority communities. Representatives from these communities must participate actively in the annual recruitment process so that an equitable number of Provincial Nominees settle into official language minority communities.
11 Under Quebec's agreement with the Federal Government on immigration, the province already selects most of its own immigrants.
12 "Provincial nominees allow the provinces and territories to select immigrants for specific skills that will contribute to the local economy. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations establish a provincial nominee class, allowing provinces and territories that have agreements with CIC to nominate a certain number of workers. Nominees must meet federal admissibility requirements, such as those related to health and security." [http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/publications/you-asked/index.asp
]
13 News release, Canada and Manitoba discuss immigration issues and expand the provincial immigrant nominee program, March 11, 2002. [http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/press/02/0204-pre.html]
14 Canada-Nova Scotia Agreement on Provincial Nominees (2002).
