Our situation, except for the fact that we have the devolved settlement agreement, is similar, in that our agreement places a priority on the francophone immigration strategy.
But absolutely, the provincial nominee program is a key pillar of our economic development strategy in Manitoba, and it has increased both in terms of success and in terms of resources incrementally every year. For a while there, I was the envy of a number of other departments. When freezes were in place, I was getting new staff and we were expanding our programs.
That was simply because the record was showing that all of our achievements in population growth, in labour market stability--I shouldn't say “all”, but a significant proportion of those achievements--were related to the successes through economic immigration that we'd experienced. That was through all categories of immigration, really.
We continue to see the PNP as a stabilizing part of our present, in many ways, a key piece of our economic future, and, in fact, a major reason why we've weathered some of the economic turbulence recently, with more economic or labour market stability than other jurisdictions. We feel it's because of that labour market growth that we sustained over a decade.