Manitoba Parkland pilot project targets skilled immigrants

Seven municipalities in the Parkland region are working together to bring skilled immigrants to the region to address the current labour shortage facing the area.

The City of Dauphin, located 166 kilometres north of Brandon, along with the Rural Municipality of Dauphin and the Municipalities of Grandview, Gilbert Plains, Mossy River, Ste. Rose and Roblin have collaborated on “Immigrate Parkland,” a one-year pilot project that brings skilled immigrants into the region and helps them find meaningful employment.

Martijn van Lujn, the City of Dauphin’s economic development manager, worked with a team that includes representatives from local communities and the Parkland Chamber of Commerce to create the strategic initiative over the last few years.

It follows a similar program in Morden and Winkler, where the province signed agreements that allow those communities to do their own immigration recruitment.

“As far as I know, we are the first multi-municipality region that has now signed a contract with the province where we can do our own recruitment, match [immigrants] with labour, and hopefully with a job offer from an employer,” van Lujn said of he Parkland program. “These people are sort of guaranteed to our region, as opposed to going somewhere else.”

Rural regions can be left behind when it comes to initiatives like this, van Lujn said, so he’s happy the province has recognized the value of bringing skilled immigrants into the area through programs like Immigrate Parkland. However, the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program will also still function in the area, and it’s ultimately up to immigration officers to make any final decisions, he added.

“But we have a very good chance that these people are actually coming to the Parkland,” van Lujn said.

Immigrants can also bring their families, which will encourage newcomers to stay in the area.

“They can bring their families under this program, because the person will have a work permit specifically for that employer, but the families will have open work permits,” van Lujn said. “They can work anywhere.”

Parkland has seen an increase in newcomers in the past few years, especially since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, escalating the Russo-Ukrainian war that began in 2014. Since then, over 60 families fleeing the war have relocated to the area, van Lujn said. Other immigrants have come from over 70 different countries, providing a much-needed boost the effort to address the labour shortage.

“We have a decreasing labour population, and the only way for us to fill that is by attracting immigrants,” Van Lujn said. “We want to do that based on their skills and, if possible, based on a family connection because there’s a lot of value for people to stay here if they already have a connection to the region.”

According to The Manitoba Bureau of Statistics, the number of immigrants to Manitoba jumped from 10,197 in 2020-21 to 21,340 in 2021-22. The province also had a total net inflow of 11,607 migrants during the first quarter of 2023, with a 12 month total net inflow of 38,966 migrants, 3.8 times more than in the previous year.

People overseas can apply to the Parkland program online, while applying for jobs in the area at the same time. Then, organizers look over their documents to see if they can find a potential employment match. This streamlined way of doing things is proving helpful, van Lujn said.

“We really have an opportunity to be in control of [immigration] ourselves as opposed to just waiting and seeing. That, for me, is the most exciting part.”

Faisal Anwar has been Chief Administrative officer of the Municipality of Grandview, located 211 km northwest of Brandon, since October. He said the Immigrate Parkland program helps to meet the needs of the Grandview area in the same way it is for the Dauphin community.

“Our businesses are feeling a shortage of workers, and this strategy, or this program, will help them to tap into those resources and get a skilled workforce of internationally trained professionals,” he said.

With an increase in economic development in the Parkland area, and Manitoba’s shortage of healthcare workers affecting every community across the province, Mayor Robert Brunel of Ste. Rose, located 164 km northeast of Brandon, says it’s been a challenge to find skilled employees. The Immigrate Parkland pilot project, which he helped organize, should help fix that issue, he said.

“It’s a way to improve targeted immigration strategy to look for skilled labourers to fill that void within the Parkland region.”

The recent wave of Ukrainian newcomers to the region, most of whom have found gainful employment, illustrates why skilled immigrants are such a boon to the communities they settle in, Brunel said.

“There’s a lot of Ukrainian refugee immigrants that have come in, and the surrounding communities have done a great job of welcoming them and finding them jobs. It just shows there is a need for skilled labour in the area, so this kind of just adds to it.”

The communities taking part in the Immigrate Parkland pilot project hope they will recruit 40 to 50 skilled immigrants during the program’s first year, Brunel added.

This story was originally published in The Brandon Sun. It is republished under a Creative Commons license as part of the Local Journalism Initiative.