Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Jose Rivera]

There is a program going on. There is the local immigration partnership with a number of organizations, but the focus of that particular group is more about welcoming communities and how to make people's lives easy in their day-to-day life. There is no specific focus on issues such as mental health and education at that table. It is something that is really sorely needed.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

I think it would be very helpful for our committee, if you don't have this information right now, to provide us with a list of organizations in your region that do resettlement services work and what programs are within it, so that we can get a glimpse of it.

[Jose Rivera]

There are only three of us. There's the Association for New Canadians, which is federally funded; us, the Refugee and Immigrant Advisory Council, which depends only on donations; and the Multicultural Women's Organization of Newfoundland and Labrador, which focuses mostly on women's issues. That's it.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

That's it? Okay. There's a lack of infrastructure, to be sure.

Mr. Martel, I wonder if, from a StatsCan point of view, you would have that information available as well for all the different regions in the Atlantic provinces in terms of what sorts of resettlement services are available and provided in those regions. Again, it's just so we can get a glimpse of it, of what that situation is. If we're going to be talking about the lack of infrastructure, we need to know what the baseline is and then build on that, both to attract and to retain new arrivals.

[Laurent Martel]

I will follow up, yes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

On the question around tourism opportunities or economic opportunities, I know that the government is aiming to make 2018 the year of tourism, so there's a lot of effort going on around that initiative. With respect to that, do you think there are actions the government could take to help further advance that tourism opportunity for the Atlantic provinces, Mr. Rivera?

[Jose Rivera]

We have seen individuals coming to our door and asking how to establish businesses, including tourism. There are individuals coming to us about tourist activities that are not regular here in Newfoundland. They have new ideas and new concepts to develop, but again the lack of a central hub of information is often what prevents us from helping them to find information to be able to develop those ideas.

The provincial government, I know, is making a big effort to develop tourism, but there is still a lack of connection between the street level and the planning and execution of things around here. Not only tourism but very many other fronts could be developed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Mr. Rivera.

We will go back to Mr. Tabbara for seven minutes, and then we'll be able to have one more Conservative question.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

My first question will be to Mr. Martel and Mr. Rivera.

I'm looking specifically at the numbers in Newfoundland and Labrador. In 1995 they had a population of roughly 567,000. I also want to compare that to investments and sales of goods manufactured. The population was roughly 567,000, and it was at roughly 530,000 in 2016. The investments in 1995 were $3 million, and in 2016 they were $12 million. Sales of manufactured goods in 1995 were $1.6 million. That had increased in 2016 to $4.7 million.

Mr. Martel, you mentioned previously when you were speaking to another colleague that there's a link between immigration and economic growth. Considering those numbers that I provided, can you elaborate on the link there? We see that there is potential for investments and manufactured goods; however, the population is still a force that's kind of hindering that advancement.

[Laurent Martel]

That's a good question, actually. I haven't really looked at numbers for investments and goods. I'm more familiar, I would say, with numbers related to the population. One thing I could say is that obviously the population in Newfoundland and Labrador, like the populations of Canada and the other provinces and territories, has changed over the last 25 years. The age structure, in particular, is not the same anymore, and having different people means that they also consume different goods.

The consumption habits—what people are consuming as goods and services now in the Atlantic and elsewhere—are different from what they were 25 or 30 years ago when, for example, a larger share of the population was made up of young children. Young families don't consume the same goods as households in which there are seniors. There's definitely this to keep in mind, I would say. I'm not sure if I can say more about that, but there's definitely....

As the population gets older in the coming years, again, we expect to see shifts in how people consume goods.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Rivera, I'd like you to comment on the link between immigration and economic growth, as I stated earlier.

[Jose Rivera]

We have seen an increase in newcomer businesses here in the province. That is a visible trend. The more we have access to information and the more we have access to clear rules and clear regulations, the more chances there are that new start-ups, new businesses, and new productions will flourish here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I want to go back to a meeting we had in the spring. On June 19, Mr. Adam Mugridge, from Louisbourg Seafoods Limited, testified that the labour shortage in rural communities persists because of people leaving the regions. What attempts have been made to make jobs for temporary foreign workers in seasonal industries into permanent jobs?

Mr. Martel, you can start off, and then I'll hand it over to Mr. Rivera.

[Laurent Martel]

I can only confirm as a demographer that in the Atlantic region we do see a greater proportion of young adults leaving these rural areas than we see elsewhere. One of my slides compares the rural areas of the Atlantic region to those located in the prairie provinces, and you obviously can see that the rates of out-migration are way higher in the Atlantic region.

That raises questions, I would say. Is this happening because there's a mismatch between the skills of the young adults and the labour market? It may be. I as a demographer don't have the answer, but definitely there's a different pattern in the Atlantic region than there is, for example, in the prairie provinces. Our numbers at Statistics Canada do confirm that.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I'll get Mr. Rivera to answer this question.

In terms of retention of young international students, what measures have been taken by universities and colleges in partnership with provincial governments to keep their graduates within the region?

Mr. Rivera, could you comment on that?

[Jose Rivera]

We don't have very much access to that kind of legislation. It is brought up between provincial programming and Memorial University, but we see that the trend in the 1,000 people who come to us looking for help is that the transition from international student to permanent resident is really hard for them to pinpoint. Again, the three reasons that drive people out are lack of employment, lack of information, and lack of transportation. These same issues that apply to international students apply to many others.

As for temporary foreign workers in the rural areas, if we have still a big gap in services here in the capital city, you can imagine how it would be out in the rural areas. There are a lot of needs out there, but there is a Catch-22. If we have services there and there are no people, or we have more people and there are no services, where do we start? How do we break that Catch-22?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You have 20 seconds.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Martel, can you send to the committee a list of how many students graduated in the Atlantic provinces, how many students stay within the region for one year, five years, 10 years, etc.? AS well, could you compare that to other provinces in Canada?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Do you mean international students?

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Students in general, both international and....

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you. If you have that information, it would be helpful.

[Laurent Martel]

I'll follow up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Saroya, you have about four and a half minutes.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Rivera and Mr. Martel, for coming.

Having more deaths than births is a concern in the Atlantic provinces. We know that part. Now the population is aging. From 2008, a number of immigrants came to Atlantic Canada, and then they left. This is an issue. What can we do? What can be done as a group, as parliamentarians, to retain them in the Atlantic provinces? Do you have anything, any strong suggestion as to what can we do to keep them in Atlantic Canada?

[Laurent Martel]

I can answer that from my perspective as a demographer. Immigrants in Canada settle mostly in large urban areas of the country. Previous studies have shown that part of the reason they are settling more into these large urban areas is the presence of an already existing community of immigrants in these areas. The immigrants are attracted by a community that already exists in these urban areas, so this is something to consider, for sure.

Then again I re-emphasize the fact that very often we see links between movements of population and movements in the economy. Again, Alberta is a good example. Fewer in-migrants are going to Alberta recently, and that's very likely related to the decline in oil prices and the slowing of the economy in Alberta over the last few months.

Those are definitely two trends to take into account in the consideration of your work.