The federal Conservative government has acquiesced to provincial demands -- including from Alberta -- to ease its restrictions on the number of immigrants that can permanently reside in the provinces each year.
Ottawa controls the number of permanent immigrants that can annually settle across Canada through the provincial nominee program, with the current cap at 4,400 in Alberta -- well short of the 5,000 Alberta had requested this year.
Wild Rose Country and other western provinces have been lobbying the Harper government for months to scrap its plans to impose a lower cap on the number of immigrants arriving through the nominee program. Rather, the provinces have been urging Ottawa to ratchet up the number of workers they can nominate to the federal government to bring to their jurisdictions to fill permanent jobs.
Federal officials initially indicated in June the provinces wouldn't receive as many nominees as hoped, but announced Tuesday they will increase the numbers after reviewing their case loads and immigration targets for the year.
The additional nominees are critical to sustaining the short-term economic turnaround as well as long-term growth, said Alberta Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.
" It would be a move in the right direction," Lukaszuk said about the federal decision. "We will be seeing more and more permanent labour shortages. We have to look to immigration towards solving this problem."
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