The Atlantic immigration pilot is a significant driver in the immigration efforts of our region. We greatly applaud the government for continuing to extend it and for implementing that program.
I will agree with you. I will not dispute your dispute that you're seeing a lot of folks within our region move to the more urban centres, but there is a lot of rural population across the region too, so it's important to find balance.
In terms of labour retention, with the immigration process as we're seeing it right now, as I mentioned, some of these wait times are between 12 and 18 months for some employers seeking entry-level workers. A lot of times, those newcomers who are coming to Canada are often also applying for their permanent residency.
It's become very hard to convince entry-level workers who go to a rural part of Canada to stay there after they are 12 months into their PR process and are no longer tied to the employer. If they have obtained permanent residency, they may be taking off to Toronto or to a larger urban centre, as you can imagine. It is greatly hurting some of our rural employers, for sure. There are issues around retention.