The Atlantic Immigration Pilot is officially becoming a permanent program starting January 1st, 2022, as announced by Canada’s Immigration minister Sean Fraser. This new program will allow 6000 newcomers to come and live in Atlantic Canada each year.
The Atlantic Immigration Pilot was initially launched in 2017 and brought almost 10,000 newcomers. The statistics tell us that almost more than 90% of these newcomers that arrived in the province under this program are still living there. This number is much higher than any other program in the region. This pilot is officially closing on December 31st, 2021 and will be replaced by the Atlantic Immigration Program.
What Provinces benefit from AIP?
AIP covers the four east-coast provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The demographic and the economic challenges of these provinces result in low population in these regions, but this challenge was well tackled by the Pilot as the immigrants came with a job and a settlement plan that helped them to work and stay in these provinces.
Atlantic Immigration Program, the Road Ahead
While the official launch of this new program is on January 1st 2022, it will start accepting applications on March 6th, 2022. The primary goal of this program will be to attract skilled workers and drive economic growth in the Atlantic region.
This new program will retain the following 3 key features from the decommissioned pilot program:
- Keep the focus on Employers
- Provide enhanced settlement support
- Collaboration among the Atlantic Provinces
The new program is designed to draw more clarity between the role of partners, providing training to the prospective employers who then, can provide more support to the newcomers throughout their settlement process. This program will certainly give a boost to the economy of these provinces as they look to benefit from the skills of the new immigrants that will arrive, work, and live here.
More details would emerge when the program will officially take off.
Note: If you have a valid Provincial Endorsement Certificate, you can still apply for permanent residency under the pilot until March 5th, 2022.
