The provincial nominee program is a program whereby the provinces can set the criteria for bringing people to their province to ultimately become permanent residents. The federal government still maintains a role. We still have a role to make sure that people meet the standards with regard to criminality, security, and health, but beyond that, the provinces really get to set the criteria.
The most successful province so far in employing the provincial nominee program is Manitoba. Manitoba last year brought in 4,600 people under their provincial nominee program, versus my province of Alberta at 611, and I think B.C. had 800. So Manitoba is very aggressive, and they do a number of things with it. They use it to target a couple of specific groups that are already established in Manitoba, in particular the Filipino community. They have a population in Winnipeg, in particular, so they reach out to the Philippines and say, “Come here. We'll find you a job. We have a welcoming community you can step right into.”
Also, there's a large Mennonite community, of course, in Manitoba, so they use that to reach out to Germany, particularly, and bring people very often into rural communities in Manitoba--Steinbach, and places like this.
They have different streams. They have a family stream, a community stream, and a business stream. If you have family members you want to bring in, or a particular community needs someone--maybe it's a doctor, for instance--or there are business people looking for employees of a type, then they can nominate these people, and then once they are approved by the province, they come in and away they go.
It's been extraordinarily successful, and we're hoping that other provinces use it more aggressively.