Immigration cut exposes outmigration challenge

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/01/2025 (241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The government of Canada has cut the number of provincial nominee positions available for Manitoba this year by 50 per cent. It is a decision that could adversely impact our province’s economy for years into the future, but it should also spur an earnest discussion about our chronic outmigration problem.

Last Thursday, the Manitoba government learned that its annual allocation of slots under the provincial nominee program has been cut to just 4,750 slots. That is one-half of the amount that was allocated last year.

The reduction is part of the federal government’s plan to reduce immigration levels in order to stabilize Canada’s population growth and relieve pressure on the nation’s housing market. The feds had previously announced that they intended to lower the target numbers under Canada’s provincial nominee programs from a total of 110,000 nominations in 2024 to just 55,000 annually.

The cut to Manitoba’s allotment is consistent with the national plan, but it is inconsistent with the Manitoba government’s request that our allotment be increased to 12,000 nominations. That would have been a 26 per cent jump compared to last year’s allotment, and almost double the number of nominees allocated to Manitoba just three years ago.

Provincial Immigration Minister Malaya Marcelino is critical of the reduced PNP allotment for Manitoba. She told reporters earlier this month that more immigrants are needed in order to fill “deep and persisting labour shortages” in our province, emphasizing that “We need as many folks as we can get.”

Beyond that, she says that cuts in the federal immigration quota reductions are intended to solve problems that are happening in large cities such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, where housing supply issues are most serious. She argues that the housing shortages occurring in those cities aren’t happening here in Manitoba, and that by attempting to fix a problem that doesn’t exist here, the feds are creating a different challenge for this province.

It is a compelling argument that implicitly recognizes that since the creation of the provincial nominee program in 1998, many Manitoba businesses have grown to rely upon the program to supply the volume of workers needed for those businesses to thrive and grow.

It is fair to ask, however, if the program was ever intended to be relied upon to such an extent, and for so many years, in order to satisfy a growing demand for workers.

The reality is that our province’s need for workers, and our reliance on programs such as the provincial nominee program, is connected to the fact Manitoba continues to lose thousands of workers each year to other provinces.

A report prepared by the Manitoba government in 2021 estimated that the province will lose 24,000 more workers to other provinces between 2022 and 2026 than it will gain from other parts of Canada. It further estimated that an additional 78,100 workers would leave the workforce by 2026 due to death or retirement.

In 2023, this newspaper reported (“Manitoba Exodus Largest in Decades: Stats,” Feb. 4, 2023) that Statistics Canada data indicated that Manitoba’s cities had experienced their largest exodus of people to other provinces in at least two decades.

Similarly, a report prepared last year by the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce revealed that “Over the past decade, Manitoba has experienced a net loss of 23,140 young people aged 15 to 34 due to interprovincial migration (more people leaving than arriving).” That is more than the entire population of Manitoba’s third-largest city, Steinbach.

With all of that data and analysis in mind, it is easy to understand why the Manitoba government is so concerned about reductions in our immigration quotas, but what is it doing to retain the thousands of workers who leave our province’s workforce each year?

What is it doing to convince those workers to stay here in Manitoba? What is it doing to attract workers from other provinces? What steps is it taking to encourage older workers to remain in the workplace? What is it doing to persuade our youth to remain here after graduation, or return here after attending universities and colleges elsewhere?

Not enough, it appears, and that is why our province’s employers have become so dependent upon ever-increasing immigration levels.

We cannot continue to export our best and brightest, year after year, and hope to continually patch over the problem with higher immigration levels. Such a strategy is unsustainable and, as we are seeing, it is vulnerable to the whims of the federal government.

Manitoba will always welcome those who are seeking a better, more prosperous life for themselves and their families. It is time, however, for our government to do more to convince Manitobans to stay here and continue to build a stronger economy.