ONTARIO PROVINCIAL NOMINEE PROGRAM HIGHS AND LOWS

Ontario seems to be overstating the benefits of the PNP for political purposes. It is nonsensical to compare provincial nominees to federal skilled workers as they are admitted under different criteria and under different categories. Since nominees need a job offer, it stands to reason that they are in longer term employment. Also, the province seems to ignore the fact that most immigrants still come to Ontario, and leave other provinces, except in the West, for lack of economic opportunity.

Canada News: Ontario missing benefits of ‘nominee’ immigrants, report says - thestar.com

Ontario missing benefits of ‘nominee’ immigrants, report says

January 26, 2012
Nicholas Keung

Ontario Immigration Minister Charles Sousa.

Jim Wilkes/Toronto Star file photo

Ontario is lagging behind in reaping the benefits of a program that brings in skilled immigrants more quickly and more successfully, a new government report shows.
A review of the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), which allows provinces to select their own immigrants based on local economic needs, found that 80 per cent of the selected immigrants are employed in the first year — most of them in their area of expertise. The program fast-tracks immigrants with the right skills, bringing them to Canada in less than a year.
Their average income, depending on province, ranges from $29,600 to $41,700 in the first year, and rises to between $35,200 and $45,100 after three years.
Although newcomers selected through the standard federal skilled immigrant program have a similar employment rate initially, they lag behind the provincial nominees by a full 10 per cent after three years. About 87 per cent of the federal skilled immigrants are employed then, compared with 97 per cent among the nominees.
The federal immigrants tend to earn less than the provincial nominees for the first three years, but do catch up and surpass them after five years.
“PNP has grown a great deal, representing 20 per cent of the total economic class immigration in 2009,” says the Citizenship and Immigration Canada report released Thursday.
“For some provinces, such as Manitoba, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, the program is the primary vehicle through which they attract immigrants to their province.”
Ontario doesn’t benefit to the same extent, even though it’s still Canada’s top destination for immigrants with almost 120,000 — or 42 per cent of all immigrants — settling here in 2010.
The province was a late-comer to the program, launching its own nominee procedure only in 2007. Between 2005 and 2009, only 1,247 — or 1.2 per cent of the total nominees — came to Ontario.
Ontario Immigration Minister Charles Sousa said the evaluation report “does not fully capture our high retention rates or the high calibre of PNP immigrants coming to Ontario. This is because they used data predominantly from the years before our program was fully up and running.”
Sousa pointed out that the province’s nominee target of 1,000 is set by Ottawa and “has been unilaterally frozen for this year.”
“This is just another reason why Ontario needs a stronger say on immigration selection, to ensure we have the right immigration mix that continues to support our economic prosperity,” he said.
But the highly touted program isn’t without problems.
Thanks to the pre-screening done by the provinces, immigrants coming in through PNP get approved at a rate of 96 per cent, compared with just 50 per cent under the usual federal application program.
But the report raises concerns over the lack of “systematic collection and reporting” of program information and the need for a “strong emphasis on program integrity.”
Serious allegations of corruption and mismanagement have been raised about the program in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
“There are differing levels of rigour applied by provinces and territories when confirming applicants’ adherence to eligibility criteria and, as a result, fraud and misuse can occur,” said the report, which surveyed federal and provincial officials and external groups representing unions, employers and immigrant nominees.
“But the general perception was that it was no more likely that there would be fraud (mainly related to jobs) on PNP applications than on any other economic program applications.”
The report calls for the establishment of minimum language standards for all nominees and stronger links between their occupations and specific local labour market needs. It also recommends a monitoring and reporting mechanism to boost the program’s accountability and integrity.

ONTARIO FAILING ON IMMIGRATION

The article below from the Toronto Star makes some valid points, bu tit misses the main problem: governments should not try to force immigrants to set up in a specific province, but rather to create the economic conditions for them to come willingly. The article, in typical Toronto Star fashion, interviews a "community activist", but no business people. If he would have spoken to entrepreneurs or talented immigrants, I am sure that the reporter would have found that the market conditions in Ontario are very poor for new prospects, taxation is too high, and there are too many immigrants who have no skills or skills that do not match the employers' needs. Also, there is way too much emphasis on family class "reunification" and "refugees", and not enough on bringing know how and capital. Business immigrants are penalized with costly fees, long processing times, and are treated with suspicion by the authorities. It is no surprise that they choose Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C. over Ontario.

Cohn: Ontario’s missing the boat on recruiting immigrants - thestar.com

Cohn: Ontario’s missing the boat on recruiting immigrants
February 15, 2011

Martin Regg Cohn

Lost in this week’s news stories about record-high immigration to Canada is the story of how Ontario has been falling behind in the high stakes game of recruitment and resettlement.

You could call it, “While Ontario slept: How the rest of Canada is beating us at our own game.”

For years, Ontario rested on its laurels as a mecca for immigrants. Everyone knew that everyone wanted to beat a path to Toronto’s door.

But the Ontario hare, swelling with hubris and complacency, is being overtaken by the snapping tortoises of B.C., Alberta and Manitoba. Quebec and the West are scooping up the best and the brightest — and running their own immigration shows — while Ottawa continues to treat Queen’s Park as a junior partner.

Ontario’s bumbling became a talking point at the recent CivicAction summit, when former TD Bank economist Don Drummond went public with his withering critique. How can the province fire up its economic engine with new blood from talented immigrants, he asked, if the rest of Canada is getting the pick of the crop?

Ottawa long ago set up Provincial Nomination Programs allowing most other provinces to lure the workers their local economies need most. Meanwhile, Ontario fell further behind by relying too heavily on Ottawa to match — and ultimately mismatch — immigrants to local jobs.

Queen’s Park finally got in the game with a small pilot program in 2007, and by 2009 had attracted a mere 465 immigrants under the nominee program. Compare that to B.C., which attracted 2,225 people. Or Alberta’s 2,165 and Manitoba’s 3,730.

The virtue of the nomination programs is that workers are typically pre-screened for employment or have firm offers. That reduces the tragedy of wasted talent that can transform a healthy new arrival into an unemployed and depressed immigrant, Toronto community worker Jehad Aliweiwi told me.

Despite his bias toward a strong central government, Drummond’s experience as an economist tells him that provinces have a better feel for local labour markets, which often deviate from national trends. “It pains me to say that,” Drummond adds, but Queen’s Park should have seized control five years ago. “It was clear by then the federal government didn’t really know what it was doing on the selection process.”

Eric Hoskins, who took over Ontario’s immigration ministry a year ago, acknowledges the province’s federalist instincts prompted it to sit back while other provinces seized the initiative.

“Ontario never really saw that need,” he explained. “We didn’t see the utility of the PNP (nominations program) as others did, but as it grew in size, it more and more impacted on our ability to attract FSWs (skilled workers).”

Convinced that Ottawa has misdiagnosed the province’s labour market needs, Hoskins is negotiating for greater control. Belatedly, the province has also ramped up its nominees program, and is asking Ottawa to live up to its funding commitments.

Most of Canada’s population growth has come from immigrants, and most of it traditionally came to Ontario. But a recession, and a reconfiguration of the labour market, have changed the equation.

Quebec and the West are not only getting the best and the brightest, but the most badly needed — while Ontario is still getting too many of the unneeded, and jobs for skilled workers go unfilled.

That doesn’t add up. Unfulfilled immigrants, and society as a whole, are paying the price for that disconnect.