Immigrants

Posted March 11, 2016

On March 2nd, a family of seven Syrian refugees landed in Halifax and were met by a large contingent of their host group from Lunenburg. Housing had already been found and outfitted, plans made for the children’s schooling, and a job interview scheduled for the father, an engineer. A great story, oft-repeated over the last three months here and elsewhere.

The surge of refugees—which began in December and concluded at the end of February—saw immigrants arriving mainly on government-chartered aircraft. Canada has received more than 25,000 refugees since November 4th, of whom one-third were privately sponsored.

Now, on a slower pace, the government expects to get to its original goal of 25,000 total government-assisted refugees (GARs) by the end of 2016. The number of privately sponsored refugees (PSRs) will likely reach 10,000.

Nova Scotia has already received more than 900 Syrians and hopes to reach 1,500 by the end of this year. A thousand of them will be children. PSRs have been welcomed in 23 communities—from Amherst to North Sydney to Yarmouth.

So far, only Halifax is certified to have the necessary infrastructure to support GARs, but Sydney was among the first in Canada seeking to become eligible when a new opportunity was created in early February.

This will add to the success already being experienced with other immigrants. Not including Syrians, immigrants increased from 2,527 in 2013 to approximately 3,300 in 2015.

The province has been busy adding new provincial nominee streams to its roster, and is pressing the federal government to raise or eliminate the ceilings (regrettably reduced in 2016) on how many can come. Retention rates continue to improve, reaching 74% in the most recently available data.

All of this suggests an important shift in attitude by Nova Scotians who have historically been ambivalent about welcoming newcomers, particularly in rural areas. Perhaps the sight of empty chairs in classrooms and the consequent threat of losing schools accounts for some of the difference.

In some areas, jobs that are important to the economy are going unfilled. In New Brunswick, which has so far received 50% more refugees than Nova Scotia, processors have had to throw away thousands of pounds of lobster because of worker shortages.

The Ivany report called for immigrant levels to rise to 7,000 per year. We are part way there, and 2016 will be an excellent year because of the Syrian arrivals. But it is much too early to declare victory.

  1. The refugees will need far more financial and social support than other immigrants. They typically have few resources, often speak little English or French, and have no immediate job prospects. Many have lost or left behind family members and have their own physical or emotional scars.
  2. In and around Halifax there will be a critical mass of Syrians which will enable them to form their own cultural groups, as now exist (for example) with our Greek, Italian, and Lebanese communities. These groups can contribute to improving retention rates.
  3. Major influxes of refugees will be rare, so reaching the goal of 7,000 annually must be achieved with non-refugee immigrants. That is more than double the 2015 level.
  4. It is odd that the government does not have goals for how many total immigrants we should be attracting each year en route to achieving the target.
  5. More recent immigrants (of all kinds) have higher unemployment rates than other Canadians. Extra effort is needed to help them succeed.

The ultimate goal is population growth, and not only through immigrants. We should also examine ways to make it easy for Nova Scotians who have moved to other parts of Canada to come back—especially those with young families. No cultural adaption needed there.

Our population is on track to age rapidly and diminish. Unless we dramatically increase the number of families moving to Nova Scotia, we will have 100,000 fewer workers in ten years’ time. This is our most important challenge. We should consider every mechanism that will help make our population grow.

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  • Thank you for your cogent piece on immigration. We do pay lip service to Ivany, though the immigration file is one that at least the government is working on. They work on tourism, too, but the numbers never change much, partly because they do not put much money into tourism, and you must invest to reap the benefits. (The tourism budget for Toronto alone is 20 millions). I’ve been in an around tourism for years. Doubling it by 2024 is doable but it would need a huge effort.

    On the immigration file: All of the immigration workers are in Halifax. We are well organized in Cape Breton, but there is something wrong with a system that expects people traveling in the dark to find their way. We need people on the ground here, too.

    maps | March 15, 2016

  • In his column of March 12, Bill Black argued for the importance of population growth in Nova Scotia and speculated where that growth might come from. He mentioned that in addition to immigrants “we should also examine ways to make it easy for Nova Scotians who have moved to other parts of Canada to return.”
    I strongly agree with this position. I myself am a Nova Scotian who left 22 years ago, and has since lived in Ontario, the UK, and Australia, but who has just returned with my wife and 2-year-old son. I was able to return and continue the career I have developed because my job can be done from anywhere that has a phone signal and an internet connection.
    Many IT companies are increasingly comfortable with remote workers for certain roles. Many Nova Scotians left for jobs like these but may now be in positions where they can do those jobs from here. Raising awareness of this possibility might result in more folks like me returning to live, pay taxes, and raise children.

    maps | March 13, 2016

  • Bill B’s article and the comment by the other “Bill” are both well founded.
    We have a federal government, primarily PM Trudeau, which is founded on, and guided by concepts. A “simplistic” concept that is established and measured based solely on a number and a date is more likely to contribute to failure than success. My sense is that the government never had a plan beyond getting the people here, and even there they struggled. God only knows how many short cuts were taken to meet the concept.
    The federal government had the “easy” task– transport the people here, however as Bill B identifies there is still significant work to be undertaken to make this successful. The Federal Government is now ready to abandon these people, and the communities involved, and get on the their next easy task— transport more.
    A simple, narrowly defined concept might be useful for government propaganda purposes but we are talking about the lives of new and established Canadians. The federal Government is the only organization in Canada that has the resources to bring about a successful integration of these people into Canadian society. The Province of NS is, and really all the provinces are, struggling to cope with their current responsibilities. I think it is time the Feds came up with another concept—- establish programs that help the communities grow and which facilitate the integration of immigrants into Canadian society. However that might be beyond their capabilities. Besides there are not many photo ops in that kind of a program.

    maps | March 12, 2016

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