{"id":229980,"date":"2019-09-08T21:06:36","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T01:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=229980"},"modified":"2019-09-08T21:06:36","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T01:06:36","slug":"nova-scotia-billboards-aim-to-set-the-record-straight-on-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/09\/08\/nova-scotia-billboards-aim-to-set-the-record-straight-on-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"Nova Scotia billboards aim to \u2018set the record straight\u2019 on immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
New billboards around Halifax, Nova Scotia, are touting the benefits of immigration and international students in a bid to \u201cget the facts out and set the record straight,\u201d the city\u2019s chamber of commerce says.\u00a0 (File Photo<\/a>: Doug Kerr\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New billboards around Halifax, Nova Scotia, are touting the benefits of immigration and international students in a bid to \u201cget the facts out and set the record straight,\u201d the city\u2019s chamber of commerce says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The initiative comes just two weeks after billboards reading \u201cSay NO to mass immigration\u201d appeared in Halifax, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Regina.<\/p>\n

Those ads were promptly removed by the company that owns the signs in response to what it called \u201coverwhelming\u201d public criticism.<\/p>\n

The nine digital billboards that appeared this week are co-sponsored by the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia and EduNova, a provincial association of education and training providers.<\/p>\n

The new ads alternate between five messages:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • \u201cImmigration Grows the economy, jobs and diversity.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201c15,000 international students add over $400,000,000 to Nova Scotia\u2019s Economy.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201cNova Scotia is Growing Thanks to Immigration.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201cImmigration Brings a World of Experience.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u201cImmigration \u2026 It\u2019s our Strength, It\u2019s our Story.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    \u2018We need people to come to Nova Scotia\u2019<\/h3>\n

    Patrick Sullivan, president and CEO of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, told CIC News that the new billboards weren\u2019t necessarily a response to the earlier anti-immigration ads, which he deemed \u201cfalse advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cThere is no \u2018mass immigration\u2019 to Canada,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

    Sullivan said immigration is essential to the economies of Halifax and Nova Scotia and the Halifax Chamber of Commerce has supported it for \u201cwell over\u201d a decade.<\/p>\n

    The billboards are an extension of that ongoing strategy.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe felt it was important to get the facts out and set the record straight,\u201d he said. \u201cIn a non-political way, we wanted to inform residents of Halifax and Nova Scotia how important immigration is to our economic story and how important immigration is to our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Nova Scotia\u2019s population is ageing, Sullivan noted, and immigration is needed to ensure employers in the province have the employees they require to stay in business and contribute to the economy.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe need new people to come to Nova Scotia,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re enthusiastic about welcoming them and we see it as a problem for the economy if they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    The public response to the new billboards has been \u201coverwhelmingly positive,\u201d Sullivan said, noting that was not the case for the earlier anti-immigration ads.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of folks congratulate us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had very positive responses from the majority of folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Sullivan spoke to CIC News from the sidelines of an event at the Canadian Museum of Immigration, known as Pier 21.<\/p>\n

    The building housing the museum is located at Halifax Habour and was previously a processing centre for immigrants arriving by ship from Europe.<\/p>\n

    \u201cHundreds of thousands if not millions of Canadians can trace their lineage to Pier 21,\u201d Sullivan noted, \u201cso it seems like an appropriate place to talk about the positive benefits of immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Raising immigration to Nova Scotia is a key focus of the province\u2019s government, which considers it crucial to revitalizing communities and filling persistent labour gaps.<\/p>\n

    Last year those efforts resulted in a record 5,970 new permanent residents to Nova Scotia, which the province\u2019s Office of Immigration says it is likely to surpass this year.<\/p>\n

    \u00a9 2019 CIC News All Rights Reserved<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    New billboards around Halifax, Nova Scotia, are touting the benefits of immigration and international students in a bid to \u201cget …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":229982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-immigration","mauthors-stephen-smith","mauthors-cic-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229983,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229980\/revisions\/229983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}