The Forum of Ministers Responsible for Immigration (FMRI), which consists of Canada’s federal, provincial, and territorial immigration (FPT) ministers, met in Saint John, New Brunswick, on July 28th to discuss improvements to existing immigration programs and address labor shortages.
The ministers discussed various subjects ranging from express entry modernization, increased PNP (Provincial Nominee Program) allocations, increased collaboration between FPT for new immigrants’ integration into Canadian society, settlement and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and Afghanistan, and resettling those affected in Canada.
Ministers reviewed the progress toward FPT Strategic Plan for Immigration 2020-2023 (SPI) and agreed that the immigration system is an essential tool for economic recovery, helping and protecting the vulnerable and newcomers integrating well into Canadian society.
Provincial and territorial ministers also agreed to have greater involvement in the selection process and input into Express Entry modernization and increase the number of allocations of PNPs to meet recent labor shortages across multiple industries. The Federal minister will provide multi-year allocation numbers to each province before March 31st, 2023, which is different from those previously provided yearly. This will help provinces plan ahead and effectively use available resources to achieve their economic goals and process PNP much more efficiently.
The current processing time of immigration applications was also discussed in the meeting. As of June 2022, there are approximately 2.4 million immigration applications in Canada’s backlog (CBC news); therefore, improving the current processing time is crucial for Canada’s immigration system to cope with the even higher number of immigration goals set for upcoming years. In its 2022‒2024 Immigration Levels Plan – Canada is set welcome 431,645 permanent residents in 2022, 447,055 in 2023, and 451,000 in 2024.
Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration of the Federal government, acknowledged that there is a shortage of labor across the country along with increased demand to live and work in Canada. The government will collaborate at a greater level with provinces and territories to address these concerns to deliver the benefits from coast to coast.
