Saskatchewan’s government demands more control over the immigration system. The province released a statement regarding the same on July 28, 2022. Saskatchewan’s immigration minister Jeremy Harrison recently attended a meeting in New Brunswick in the presence of Mr. Sean Fraser and other provincial immigration ministers.
The meeting in New Brunswick resulted in a multi-year PNP plan to be executed by March 2023. The plan will provide all the provinces and territories with PNP allocations for the next three years. This plan will help them schedule in advance to meet the various economic development goals.
However, the provinces believe that these initiatives won’t help them much, and they need more than these.
Saskatchewan has requested the federal government to have an immigration deal similar to Quebec. It wants a bilateral agreement. Quebec comprises a unique Francophone character due to which Quebec has gained more control over the immigration system compared to the rest of the provinces and territories. The accord signed between Canada and Quebec in 1991 made Quebec powerful enough to decide its immigration levels. The province has the authority to choose the economic class immigrants, have more control over temporary class immigrants, and decide on the refugees and family class. It plays a substantial role in the context of settlement funds for the new immigrants with language and job training. The federal government provides the settlement funds. Other provinces and Yukon and Norwest territories have signed bilateral agreements with the federal government. However, these agreements are not sufficient for provinces and territories as they don’t give them complete authority outside PNP. The agreement mainly focuses on the functioning of PNP. The two government levels work on providing settlement services to immigrants.
According to the Canada-Saskatchewan accord, Saskatchewan is seeking similar authority as the Quebec province. The province is looking forward to gaining individual power over the immigration system of the economic class immigrants. It requires more control settlement funding through the federal government and an absolute PNP allocation system well-aligned with Saskatchewan’s demography in Canada.
The current figure allocated to Saskatchewan is 6000 main applicants, but the province demands 13,000 would be a fair deal because it would be in proportion to Canadian immigration.
The meeting, which was held on June 28, had provinces such as Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario requesting more immigration control through a signed letter. Later, Ontario asked for more authority in selecting its economic class immigrants.
Quebec’s immigration minister also seeks complete authority over its immigration system, provided he emerges victorious in the provincial elections most likely to be held in October.
These provinces have in a way pressurized the federal government. The provinces have even supported their requests by stating that the IRCCs application backlog issue could be addressed if provinces get more authority and say in selecting the immigrants.
According to the Canadian constitution, provinces also have the right to ask for more control over immigration. Even though the federal government has been authorized to make the final decisions on the admission of immigrants, the constitution regards immigration as a major area that is to be shared between provinces and the federal government.
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act also supports the close partnership between the federal government and the Canadian provinces and territories. This partnership implies that the federal government will have to work closely with the territories and provinces to ensure meeting the regional and social-economic goals. Since the federal government has authorized Quebec with more control than any other province, the situation has caused havoc for the government.
Currently, the provinces and territories are stuck in a labor shortage crossing all historic records. The historic labor shortages are a result of the fat-growing aging population which is nearing its retirement. At the time when the Canada-Quebec accord was signed in 1991, the situation was different. With the changing scenario, the demand and requirements also need to change.
Now, the aging population in the country has made it more dependent on immigration to help build the Canadian economy, population, and even labor force.
Few provinces felt insecure about losing their authority over the immigration system due to the agreement signed between Canada and Quebec. As a result, they too requested the government more autonomy. Hence, PNP was introduced, which eventually led to the completion of the 80,000-immigrant target. The future target is supposed to be 90,000 by 2024.
The targets are extremely high for PNP, but provinces have argued that the allocation of 80,000 immigrants for all the eleven provinces and territories won’t be adequate to cover up the major labor shortages currently. The labor shortage will only increase to a larger figure with more baby boomers going to meet their retirement age and the estimated figure is over 9 million.
Initially, the federal government had absolute control over the selection of the immigrants, but as of now, the two government levels share equal autonomy for economic class immigration. The federal government has a major say in the refugee and family class immigrant selection.
However, it completely depends upon the federal government to decide whether to decrease the immigrant’s selection through Express Entry and increase it through PNP. This will further give the provinces a significant role to play. The question here is whether the government can do this.
The bold steps taken by the Canadian provinces to demand their rights have marked the beginning of a new era in Canadian history.
