The Canadian province of Ontario has always accepted the largest percentage of immigrants
In the near future, changes should be expected in the immigration programs of the Canadian province of Ontario – primarily those aimed at skilled professionals and businesspeople. As noted by the publication "Russian Toronto", the changes are being implemented as part of Ontario's new strategy.
Ontario and Immigration
Ontario has always been the province where the largest percentage of immigrants settled. This is explained quite simply – it is the most developed province in every respect, it is easier to find a job here, easier to do business, and incomes are traditionally higher.
To this it should be added that it is easier to be an immigrant in Ontario, especially within Greater Toronto – it is the most multinational metropolis on the planet, where more than half of the residents were born outside Canada.
However, the fact that Ontario has always been a magnet for immigrants has led to the province lacking good immigration programs. The government did not see the need to attract quality immigration here, relying on natural inflow and natural selection. In addition, the Liberals, who were in power for more than 15 years, had their main priority in immigration as helping refugees, while economic immigration did not particularly interest them.
This contrasted sharply with the fact that over the past 10-15 years, all other provinces have been actively working to attract skilled professionals, offering one immigration program after another. As a result, Ontario began to lag noticeably in this matter, although the need for skilled workers in Ontario is very high.
The situation changed with the coming to power in the province in 2018 of the Conservative Party, which immediately made boosting the economy its priority and chose the motto "Ontario Open for Business." Changing immigration policy and implementing new immigration programs is precisely in line with this new economic strategy.
It should also be noted that the new programs fully comply with the trends that have become common for all of Canada's immigration policy, so they align well with and compete with the programs of other provinces.
Main Trends in Canada's Immigration Policy
Over the past few years, trends have emerged that shape the entire immigration policy of Canada. The most important of these has been the transfer of authority for selecting immigrants to the provinces. Of course, the process of delegating to provinces the ability to select the categories of immigrants they need began about 15 years ago, but the final formalization of this trend occurred only quite recently.
Until that point, immigration was the exclusive prerogative of the federal government. Now the functions have been divided – provinces take on the task of selecting immigrants, while the federal government focuses on security checks and the actual issuance of immigration visas, retaining only a small set of immigration programs under its purview.
The second trend is the intention to attract as many specialists in information technology and digital communications as possible. There is a rational explanation for this – these are the fastest-growing sectors of the economy in Canada, and Canadian metropolises, especially Toronto, are becoming major global technology centers with a constantly growing need for specialists.
Finally, another important trend that has been gaining momentum recently is attracting workers to remote regions where immigrants usually do not go and from which there is an outflow of population. This primarily refers to areas with poor climates and depressed economies that they want to revive through an influx of immigrants. In particular, as part of this trend, a pilot project for the Atlantic provinces was introduced in 2017, which performed very well. Another example is the program to attract immigrants to the small town of Morden in Manitoba, which also became very successful.
All these trends are reflected in the new programs of the province of Ontario, which are planned to be introduced in the near future.
What is the Essence of the New Programs of the Province of Ontario
Before talking about the new programs, it is worth paying special attention to the following – the programs have not yet been implemented. This is only a draft of programs that have been prepared, approved, and are in the final stages of refinement. They were announced as part of the presentation of the province's budget for 2019, which took place in April of this year. According to preliminary information, the programs are scheduled to be implemented in June-July 2019.
Therefore, it will be possible to talk definitively about the details of these programs and the application procedure, as well as how these programs will work in practice, only after the official implementation of these programs. For now, let's discuss only what is known today.
1. Radical changes have been made to the Entrepreneur Stream program for business immigrants. In particular, the requirements for the amount of personal savings and required investments have been significantly lowered, especially for high-tech businesses.
2. A new stream has been created to attract specialists in information technology.
3. New occupations have been added to the list of in-demand professions under the Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skill Stream program.
4. A new pilot program has been announced to attract highly skilled workers to remote regions of the province.
5. Ontario plans to request from federal authorities an increase in the quota for the total number of immigrants accepted under provincial programs. In particular, for 2019, Ontario has been allocated a quota of 6,900 people, while the province wants to increase the quota to at least 7,600 people.
Information Technology Specialists
It is planned to increase the intake of such specialists and even create a separate stream for them. This is due to the fact that the high-tech sector of the economy in the province is developing rapidly and there is a need for such specialists.
In general, in recent years Toronto has become one of the main high-tech centers in North America, standing alongside leading innovation hubs such as San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Washington. Moreover, in 2017, more high-tech jobs were created in Toronto than in New York, Seattle, and Washington combined.
In addition to Toronto, important high-tech centers in the province are Ottawa and Waterloo, which also need an influx of highly qualified specialists.
There is no detailed information about this new program yet, only the intention to create it has been announced. Accordingly, we do not yet know what quota will be allocated for it and what the passing requirements will be. But the very fact of creating such a program can only be assessed positively.
Attracting Skilled Workers to Remote Regions
This is the first program of its kind for the province of Ontario. While the province's territory is very large, the majority of the population lives in a narrow strip along the southern border, while the northern part, rich in minerals, is virtually uninhabited.
Immigrants in Ontario mostly settle either in Toronto and its surroundings or in Ottawa; no one goes to remote areas. Moreover, educated Canadian youth also tend to move from small towns to Toronto, where their chances of finding a job and building a successful career are much higher.
It must be said that this is a common picture for Canada, so in recent years programs have been created to attract immigrants to depressed areas where there is a need for labor. In particular, in 2017, such a program was created for the Atlantic provinces, the Atlantic Immigration Pilot, and in January 2019, a new program, the Northern and Rural Immigration Pilot, was announced, which is based on the same principles and is aimed at Canada's northern territories.
Ontario also has many underdeveloped regions, especially in the northern part of the province, and introducing such a pilot program is a reasonable step to stimulate their economic development.
New Occupations Added to the List of In-Demand Professions
As for the planned addition of new occupations to the list of in-demand professions in the Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skill Stream program, this innovation will affect a fairly limited circle of people. It involves adding only two categories of workers to the list, which currently consists of 7 occupations. These are truck drivers and personal support workers.
Given that the quotas for these occupations are very small, and that one of the main requirements is having a job offer from a Canadian company, this innovation is unlikely to be of great practical value for the majority of those wishing to immigrate to Canada.
Changes to the Entrepreneur Stream Program
Perhaps the most useful and interesting changes in the entire immigration package proposed by the new provincial government concern the business program. The essence of the changes is that the amounts that an immigrant must show as personal savings and invest in a business have been significantly reduced.
In particular, the minimum amount of personal savings has been reduced to 400,000 Canadian dollars (CAD), and the business investment requirements have been reduced to 200,000 CAD. The conditions for hiring employees have also been relaxed – under the new rules, it will be enough to hire just one employee for a period of at least 10 months.
We will discuss this program in more detail in our next review; it is worth it. Here we only want to note that the program promises to become very popular, and its quotas will be taken up very quickly. Nevertheless, the existence of this program opens up additional opportunities for those who would like to immigrate to Canada for business.
Once again, we remind you that we are still talking about draft programs. After these programs are implemented, we will prepare a detailed review of them.