New immigration minister must address low Atlantic Canada retention rates, expert says
Lena Metlege Diab, a member of Parliament from Nova Scotia, was recently appointed as Canada's minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship.
Herb Emery, who holds the Vaughan Chair in regional economics at the University of New Brunswick, said Diab's Atlantic roots mean she is likely to have a better understanding of the challenges the region faces, especially its difficulty retaining immigrants.
Atlantic Canada has lower retention rates for immigrants than the rest of the country, with a Statistics Canada report in December 2024 noting: "Immigrants who left their intended Atlantic provinces were increasingly likely to settle in Ontario."
P.E.I. specifically has the lowest retention rate in Canada, though the situation is slightly improving, according to the province's population framework released last year. The three-year retention rate for immigrants to P.E.I. rose from 33.3 per cent in 2017 to 43 per cent in 2021.
Emery said the solution to improving these numbers is straightforward: create better economic opportunities.
"You need to provide opportunities to earn a good living. When you look at the wages and median incomes of newcomers, they're quite low in the region," Emery told CBC's Island Morning.
"What we've tried to prioritize is filling the lower-wage jobs that Canadians don't want to fill, and if you want to be a professional after a couple of years, the opportunities to integrate are better in other provinces, where they have better resources for settlement, they have more opportunities for working in your profession."
He said the region has relied on immigration to address immediate labour shortages, particularly due to its aging population and high youth out-migration to other provinces like Alberta and Ontario, but it hasn't focused enough on building a long-term sustainable workforce.
"A lot of that reflects the industries we have in the region, which is seasonal, and in a lot of cases, they don't have high margins and they are labour-intensive."
Emery added that during the pandemic, there was "a complete lack of control" over the number of immigrants coming into the country.
"We weren't doing a good job of integrating the newcomers into our labour market and our wider society," he said.
That's why he thinks more effort should be placed on supporting immigrants who are already in the region by helping them get their credentials recognized, so they can work in their professions.
He also mentioned the idea of tax policies designed to encourage long-term settlement.
"Do you give them a bonus tax break if they remain in that region for longer?
"Now, if you put them in low-skilled jobs, there's no advantages to tax breaks. If you create the conditions that somebody can work as a physician, and they start earning a high income, you may give them an advantage to staying if you give them some kind of credit if they remain in the region for five, six, seven years," Emery said.
The Atlantic provinces should also focus on keeping international students in the region after they graduate, he said.
As Canada explores ways to strengthen its economy in the face of U.S. tariff threats, there's been growing discussion around removing interprovincial trade barriers.
But Emery cautioned that when it comes to immigration and economic growth, eliminating these barriers could be "a dangerous gamble for a small region."
He said the barriers exist in part to give smaller provinces like those in Atlantic Canada an incentive for businesses to locate there, countering the "economic gravity" that naturally pulls enterprise toward larger provinces.
As we start to drop those trade barriers, there's two ways this can go. One is we're really competitive, and we get more jobs and more GDP. The other is, it hollows us out, and we wind up with a health-care system and an education system and not much else. — Economist Herb Emery
"When you have thicker labour markets, like in Ontario, it's much easier for an employer that's manufacturing to set up there than in our region, where it may be a tough thing to bring in more labour to fill those jobs that are hard to do," he said.
"So as we start to drop those trade barriers, there's two ways this can go. One is we're really competitive, and we get more jobs and more GDP. The other is, it hollows us out, and we wind up with a health-care system and an education system and not much else."
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