Immigrant pilot deemed a success locally, organizers advocating for federal funding

“Asian and South Asian countries are making up a bulk of it, but we’re also seeing a lot of folks come from Germany, from Ireland, from Australia, from New Zealand, from the U.S. that are participating and being successful in this program.”

Community Futures conducted a survey on the 253 RNIP participants who have earned permanent residency and are no longer tied to an employer and could leave the region and find work elsewhere in the country, and have found that a vast majority of them remain and continue to work and contribute to the local economy.

“So we surveyed 253 permanent residents, we got 159 responses, so about 63 per cent, and the numbers were pretty overwhelming. We have an 89 per cent retention rate of individuals in rural communities which is huge,” Horsfield said.

“Most people who come to other countries go to urban centres. So what we can demonstrate is that this pilot project is working and has been very successful.”

Horsfield added the current demographics for Vernon with so many people nearing or already past retirement age, means the workforce cannot be replaced domestically and the immigrants participating in RNIP fill vital roles in the community.

“We have to look to immigration to fill these gaps in order to have services in healthcare, child care, and really any services that exist,” Horsfield stated, adding immigrants also fills positions in trades, hospitality and more.

“With what we know about our local economy, which is that we have a lower workforce participation rate, it sits at about 50 per cent, so about 50 per cent of people who live here work, we have to look to more programs around immigration.”

Following the presentation, Councillor Akbal Mund, who runs a local Triple O’s restaurant, expressed his support for RNIP.

“For all those employers out there who have been struggling, this has helped. I actually joined the program myself, even though I didn’t hire anyone, but it’s amazing how many employees applied with us,” Mund said.

“The applications, [we had] five, six a week, and if we’re getting that many, somebody else has got to be getting some too. So it’s working and that’s the key and I hope the federal government realizes it’s working for rural communities and continue the program because that’s what we need.”

The program ends in February of 2024, and as it was a pilot and not an official program, the federal government was not funding it, but Community Futures and the organizations running RNIP in the 10 other participating communities want that to change.

“We do have some meetings set up with the federal government starting on Monday [Sept. 18] to talk about what this might look like. We do have a new federal minister for immigration and I know that this is definitely on his docket,” Horsfield said.

“We’ve been doing advocacy. We sent them 37 letters of support from various community stakeholders, employers, et cetera, et cetera, and we’ve mobilized as a group of 11 [participating] communities across the country to advocate for this program and our hope is that they come up with something.”

Horsfield added since it was a pilot, RNIP was not federally funded and instead was supported through provincial, municipal and community grants, but she hopes it does become an official federal program so it can be funded from the Canadian government.

She also asked Vernon council to take the results of the program to meetings with other levels of government to advocate on Community Futures’ behalf.

After giving her presentation, Horsfield told Vernon Matters she was “thrilled” with the results of RNIP.

“We are certainly overrun with applications from individuals that want to be a part of this pilot, so we had to put a pause on the pilot early on to get through the backlog, but I think that we’re really happy with the way that this has filled critical, imminent labour shortages in the community in healthcare, trades, childcare and social services,” Horsfield said.

“We’ve been able to support those sectors fairly significantly along with all other sectors including hospitality and accommodation services.”

She added the pilot was a “creative way” to draw newcomers to rural communities where they can work and contribute to the economy, and hopes the federal government does decide to support it as a permanent program and properly fund it into the future.

Horsfield said the federal government has not made any indication that they will support RNIP moving forward, but added “I think they will have seen the success nationally of this and we’re hopeful that they continue it in some form.”

The presentation was received for information at the regular meeting Monday.

by Liam Verster

Immigrant pilot deemed a success locally, organizers advocating for federal funding

What Matters