Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I mentioned during my remarks, 1,700 jobs have been identified by employers who have completed expressions of interest in the pilot to date.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Those are full-time jobs. They qualify under the pilot. That's within three months of that stream opening up. I think what we have here is a disconnect, in that certain sectors are having trouble finding workers in New Brunswick. Our chief economist in New Brunswick, David Ca

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I explained, 1,700 jobs have been identified as unfilled—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Employers will seek people who have the skills. They'll screen for employees, just as any employer would, and hire and recruit employees who meet the qualifications for that job. These employers are doing that process internationally.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's the premise behind the Atlantic pilot: that they're coming to address an immediate labour market need.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee members. As a relatively young New Brunswicker, this is an issue that is very important to me. I believe deeply in our region's capacity to turn our demographics around. We have proven our ability to innovate and think outside

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm working from research done by Professor Yoko Yoshida from Dalhousie University that indicates that the economic immigrants coming to New Brunswick report roughly 74% employment after year one and that family-class immigrants are on a par with the economic immigrants who come

Citizenship and Immigration committee  When we looked at the percentage of overall immigrants coming to New Brunswick through the family-class streams, it was roughly 10% in 2014. Contrast that to 25% of overall immigration to Canada. Proportionally, a smaller percentage of our overall immigration in New Brunswick is

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In various sectors, certainly from my perspective, the best and brightest doesn't necessarily mean that they're the highest educated. In some cases it could be skilled tradespeople. Recently we've opened up streams in New Brunswick hoping to facilitate entry into more semi-skille

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, as well. We'd be in favour of a lock-in date, providing that there would be some planning around that and defining what the lock-in date is. We believe, and it's been raised in our organization several times, that not allowing dependents who are within one or two years of th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think I would echo that question. The question this committee has to look at very seriously is whether a quota is an appropriate measure or a system to facilitate family-class immigration or family reunification. I don't believe it's consistent. It's arbitrary. It's an arbitrar

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, our organization would support opening up some options for sibling reunification and there was also some discussion about cut-off ages. In many cases the families are coming and somebody is going to be 18 years old and they're still a university student or college-age studen

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In my experience, it doesn't prevent people from wanting to come to Canada. It just creates hardship, in terms of separation, for them once they are here. There are 13 settlement agencies across New Brunswick. They work with economic immigrants, family-class immigrants, and refug

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Again, I would say it needs to be guided less on a predetermined number but more on how many eligible applicants we are seeing come through, and how we facilitate that. Especially given the 25,000 to 30,000 Syrian refugees we've recently welcomed, and the increased focus on now h