Thank you.
Madam Chair, we're happy to share things.
Yes, some provinces do better than others. When we start with the provincial nominee program, I think—if I may make a suggestion, Madam Chair—that it would be worth looking at what Manitoba has done under its provincial nominee program. Manitoba was, more or less, first off the mark on the provincial nominee program. It created some strong anchor communities. When the Alberta and Saskatchewan economies were going absolutely full bore and attracting Canadians from all over the country, Manitoba managed to keep its base, to keep good retention around newcomers who had come into the province. I think it's worth a look at some of the successes that Manitoba had and why it had those successes. That's part of what we've tried to pick up in other places.
I'll come back to Atlantic Canada. With the four Atlantic provinces, when we set up the program, retention was a real issue. I believe that in Prince Edward Island—and I'm happy to be corrected—the retention rate had dropped to as low as 30%, so seven out of 10 newcomers who were coming to P.E.I. were leaving the province. Nova Scotia, as I recall, was about the best. New Brunswick and Newfoundland were somewhere in the middle. None of it was great.
How could you set that up? What were the tricks to try to be able to do that? I have spoken to a bit of it.
I would say that the western provinces have had good success with the provincial nominee program and being able to distribute provincial nominee programs. However, all provinces struggle a little with the question of how we persuade immigrants to go further than Edmonton and Calgary. What are the other things we would want to look at?