New immigration minister must address low Atlantic Canada retention rates, expert says

An economist in New Brunswick says Canada’s new immigration minister needs to consider how to keep immigrants in Atlantic Canada, a region that has historically struggled to convince newcomers they should stay for more than a year or two.

Lena Metlege Diab, a member of Parliament from Nova Scotia, was recently appointed as Canada’s minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship.

Herb Emery, who holds the Vaughan Chair in regional economics at the University of New Brunswick, said Diab’s Atlantic roots mean she is likely to have a better understanding of the challenges the region faces, especially its difficulty retaining immigrants.

Atlantic Canada has lower retention rates for immigrants than the rest of the country, with a Statistics Canada report in December 2024 noting: Immigrants who left their intended Atlantic provinces were increasingly likely to settle in Ontario.

P.E.I. specifically has the lowest retention rate in Canada, though the situation is slightly improving, according to the province’s population framework released last year. The three-year retention rate for immigrants to P.E.I. rose from 33.3 per cent in 2017 to 43 per cent in 2021.

Better pay key to retaining newcomers

Emery said the solution to improving these numbers is straightforward: create better economic opportunities.

You need to provide opportunities to earn a good living. When you look at the wages and median incomes of newcomers, they’re quite low in the region, Emery told CBC’s Island Morning.

What we’ve tried to prioritize is filling the lower-wage jobs that Canadians don’t want to fill, and if you want to be a professional after a couple of years, the opportunities to integrate are better in other provinces, where they have better resources for settlement, they have more opportunities for working in your profession.

He said the region has relied on immigration to address immediate labour shortages, particularly due to its aging population and high youth out-migration to other provinces like Alberta and Ontario, but it hasn’t focused enough on building a long-term sustainable workforce.

A lot of that reflects the industries we have in the region, which is seasonal, and in a lot of cases, they don’t have high margins and they are labour-intensive.

Support for existing immigrants

Emery added that during the pandemic, there was a complete lack of control over the number of immigrants coming into the country.

We weren’t doing a good job of integrating the newcomers into our labour market and our wider society, he said.

Atlantic Canada has been struggling with lower immigrant retention rates than the rest of the country, and P.E.I. specifically has Canada’s lowest rate, though recent data indicates a slight improvement. Photo: CBC / Stephen Lubig

He said the region has relied on immigration to address immediate labour shortages, particularly due to its aging population and high youth out-migration to other provinces like Alberta and Ontario, but it hasn’t focused enough on building a long-term sustainable workforce.

A lot of that reflects the industries we have in the region, which is seasonal, and in a lot of cases, they don’t have high margins and they are labour-intensive.

Support for existing immigrants

Emery added that during the pandemic, there was a complete lack of control over the number of immigrants coming into the country.

We weren’t doing a good job of integrating the newcomers into our labour market and our wider society, he said.

with files from Island Morning

This article is republished from RCI.