Canada is weighing steps to settle refugees in parts of the country with low unemployment levels, signaling the government’s effort to use immigration policy to support economic growth—without alienating voters.
Canada has one of the highest per capita immigration rates in the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations, and just over half of immigrants and nearly half of refugees to Canada settle in Ontario, the country’s largest province, which has a higher unemployment rate than faster-growing Alberta, which attracts a much smaller share of newcomers.
Refugees deemed by immigration officials to have been forced to flee their homeland are accepted into Canada as asylum seekers under a United Nations convention to which Canada and the U.S. are both signatories. Unlike most other classes of would-be immigrants to Canada, who are rated on a point system to evaluate their ability to find work here, refugees don’t face any labor-force tests.
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| The energy sector’s strength has attracted workers from elsewhere in Canada to Alberta, which has the country’s lowest unemployment rate |
Refugees could help meet demand for unskilled labor by settling in the resource-rich Alberta, and help to avoid concentrations of unemployed immigrants in central Canada, Minister of Employment Jason Kenney said in an interview.
“The immigration department is now looking at how we might locate more [refugees] in Alberta as opposed to spreading them all across the country,“ he said. “Why would we not locate government-resettled refugees in regions with tight labor markets and more employment opportunities?”Read the rest of the story HERE.
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