Ontario Consultations on Proposed New Regional Immigration Pilot

19 Jul 2019

A recommended regional immigration pilot that would attract skilled international workers to smaller and rural communities in Ontario could become a reality in the year 2020, the government of Ontario says. 

In an update announced this week, Ontario’s Economic Development Ministry, Job Creation and Trade told its staff would work with stakeholders in chosen communities to evaluate interest in the recommended Ontario Regional Immigration Pilot and to collect information about current community immigrant attraction and holding efforts.

The update doesn’t mention the communities included in the consultations. The communities are defined as a culturally and geographically diverse sample, and the government states they were aimed for their population of 20,000 to 200,000 individuals, the presence of immigrant settlement infrastructures such as settlement and language services, and unnamed economic aspects.

The government states the consultations will enable it to determine both capacity and local interest for cooperation in the pilot, which would be regulated by the Ontario PNP. The final choice of pilot communities would depend on the analysis of data, along with the consequences of engagement with communities.

Regional Immigration Pilots

The Ontario government says it would perform a supporting role in the community-led attempts to bring skilled labor.

An Ontario pilot would particularly target the requirements of Ontario communities and investigate how to regionalize the Ontario PNP in a better way and to support Ontario firms in smaller communities in a better way, the government stated, adding the suggested pilot would not replicate the federal government’s current Northern and Rural Immigration Pilot.

Six communities in Ontario Northern region have been chosen to take part in the federal pilot, which operates with smaller rural and isolated communities in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Alberta to attract international workers from several skill levels and provide them with Canada PR.

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