Thank you to the committee for the kind invitation to address an issue profoundly important to me and to my region. As a disclaimer, for the record, I work for an independent, non-partisan think tank, a charity. I don't speak for any government and may not speak for my board or our members.
As a starting point—and we've heard a lot about it—the overarching imperative for the Atlantic region with respect to immigration is that we need more of it.
In the Atlantic region, natural population growth slowed a lot in the early 1990s and turned negative during 2012. Since 1991, the Atlantic provinces' annual population growth rate has averaged 0%, and the total population growth has necessarily been zero over that period. Together with demographic aging, this makes sustaining public finances, pensions, and services very difficult for all of us.
The natural rate of population increase depends on the lifetime fertility rate of provincial residents. Because the Atlantic provinces' total fertility rate is lower than the Canadian average—and trends in fertility don't shift easily—immigration is tremendously more important to future population growth in the region than it is elsewhere.
Immigration, even many levels higher than Canada has seen in recent decades, cannot meaningfully change the age structure of the Canadian population. In the Atlantic, however, even a small number of immigrants who are attracted and retained can make an important difference to population growth trends.
In 2014-2015, Atlantic Canada accounted for 6.6% of the total Canadian population, but only 3.2% of new immigrants. Were Atlantic Canada to have matched the Canadian average for immigrant attraction and retention relative to the resident population over any sustained period in recent decades, the region's population growth rate would be trending upward, rather than flat or down.
In other words, a few thousand people goes a long way in the region, and the Atlantic immigration pilot program the federal government announced earlier this year is indeed welcome.
What's the catch?
Mr. Campbell touched on it. It's not news that economic growth in the region has been sluggish. Among Canada's 10 provinces, for instance, the Atlantic four have recently had the highest unemployment rates, above 8%, and they typically have the lowest employment-to-population ratios overall, including urban and rural areas.
Rural residents in the region, like many in the rest of Canada, tend to look at the levels of unemployment and underemployment, and wonder, “Where is the case for more bodies?” I've had federal officials say the same thing to me. Implicitly or even explicitly, the story is that more immigrants must equal more unemployment and a higher employment insurance bill or a higher provincial social assistance bill.
Employers see this rather differently. They search everywhere for skilled bodies, for the knowledge and experience they need, and they routinely find themselves looking outside. This scenario plays itself out across the region, urban and rural, for large and small businesses, and it plays out across the full range of skills, from the low end of the skill range to the high end.
The role of the labour market impact assessment with respect to temporary foreign workers remains dubious. Where required, the LMIA requires potential employers to prove a negative—that no Canadian worker is available to do the job. This is a rather pedantic bureaucratic exercise, and this policy prescription is past its expiry date. Efforts instead should go to developing routes to permanent residency and eventual citizenship, and the Atlantic pilot is an example of how to test approaches to this issue.
Meanwhile, for many employers and in many communities, access to fresh bodies is their number one concern. When I talk to small businesses and large businesses, and I say, “What's your issue?”, it's absolutely universal: it's getting bodies. This does speak to the likely success of the immigration pilot from a hiring perspective.
As indicated in the background material, which you may have, prepared by our director of research, David Chaundy, early data indicate that people are showing up. As I said, a few thousand people in the Atlantic provinces goes a long way in percentage terms. It takes surprisingly few of them to offset the decline in the fertility rates, especially in P.E.I. That's good news.
Our report also indicates that the provinces have had success in taking up most of the available slots within the provincial nominee program, through 2016 at least, with solid numbers for the Maritimes through the first seven months of 2017—in other words, through July. That's good, even if it raises a question this committee might like to ponder: why are there numeric limits on the PNP, the provincial nominee program? I can't come up with any answers that make economic sense to me.
There is more on the good news front. A decade ago I would have been quite concerned that successive waves of immigrants were not catching up economically at the pace they had previously to be on an employment par with native-born Canadians or prior immigrants. Recent data suggests that while this remains a concern, it may not be a growing one. It's looking better. Immigrants find work, or they create it. They start businesses; it's natural. They pay taxes. For many of us from immigrant families, and that includes me, nothing seems more natural than to seek to create something in a new country, something that wasn't there before. That is good for all of us.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I think my time is up. I thank you for yours.