On January 24, 2019, IRCC Minister Hussen announced the creation of the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot, a five-year federal immigration pilot program aimed at “providing smaller communities with tools to attract and retain skilled workers in order to support community economic development.”
Through this pilot program, the Government of Canada hopes to test new, community-driven approaches to address the diverse labour market needs of smaller communities. The program is currently accepting applications from communities across Ontario, the Western provinces, and the territories. Selected communities will be announced in the Spring of 2019.
IRCC will work with selected communities to position them to begin identifying candidates for permanent residence in Summer 2019.
Once chosen, selected communities would need to identify their immigration needs based on the economic requirements of the community, recommend their chosen candidates for permanent residence, prepare their community for the arrival of new immigrants and help the integration of new immigrants into their community.
We will be following developments for this pilot program with great interest and look forward to seeing the opportunities that this will bring to involved communities and permanent residence candidates.
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