Council looking to boost immigration in West Nipissing

Federal pilot programs will be selecting 15 communities across Canada to participate.

At their last meeting, council discussed two recently announced federal initiatives that could bring more immigration to West Nipissing.

In March the federal government announced two new programs to increase immigration to Canada. These are the Rural Community Immigration Pilot and the Francophone Community Immigration Pilot. The pilot programs will be selecting 15 communities across Canada to participate and hopes to process up to 5,500 permanent resident applications per year to join these communities (approx. 366 per community).

One pilot will focus on boosting immigrants in rural communities, while the second will focus on attracting french-speaking immigrants. West Nipissing is looking to benefit from both.

Mayor Kathleen Thorne-Rochon brought a motion forward to get West Nipissing to apply for the Francophone Community Immigration Pilot. The Director of Economic Development, Stephan Poulin, advised council that the city cannot apply directly but can encourage or support a local not-for-profit group in doing so. He suggested that they could reach out the local chamber of commerce or Economic Partners Sudbury East / West Nipissing to see if they would apply.

Thorne-Rochon said that it was “encouraging to see the federal government coming up with these types of programs and recognizing the needs of our community and communities like us.”.

But Councillor Fern Pellerin wondered if the city would have to show that it actually has housing to accommodate immigrants. He was obviously alluding to the severe lack of housing options even for the local population. Poulin confirmed that, while not a deal breaker, one of the criteria to be assessed to qualify for this program would be lodging.

After the discussion, council agreed to direct staff to help a local organization apply for the Francophone pilot program.

Later in the evening, council passed a separate resolution to support the North Bay Chamber of Commerce in their bid to apply for Rural Community Immigration Pilot for the Nipissing district.

The rural pilot program was also supported by North Bay city council last month but only after a lively debate on the matter. When seeking North Bay council support, the chamber of commerce outlined that they would need a commitment of $12,500 per year from the municipality if they were successful. They indicated that, should the North Bay region be selected for the program, the city would pay 50 percent of the required project contribution while the remaining 50 per cent would be “attributed to the Chamber and other partner communities”. It’s not clear if West Nipissing has agreed to any funding commitment as a partner community.

When the topic was discussed at North Bay city council, Mark King who is also the chair of DNSSAB, was critical of the idea of boosting local immigration. He asked council "Can we support more people in the province of Ontario — and North Bay, for that matter?” He went on “If you want more immigration, if you want to bring more people to these communities, you need to step up to the table and figure out how we provide housing. How we provide doctors. Quite frankly, the situation is in a crisis mode”.

Despite unanswered questions, North Bay offered their support. Now West Nipissing has as well.

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