Province Building and the Federalization of immigration in Canada by Mireille Paquet

Author:Mireille Paquet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

The government also emphasized the importance of sharing responsibilities among communities, employers, and the government to ensure the integration of new arrivals.

The consensus continued to spread after the departure of Ralph Klein as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta. During his campaign for the party’s leadership, Ed Stelmach announced that increased powers in immigration, obtained through an agreement similar to that of Quebec and through an expansion of powers in the selection of immigrants, were necessary for sustainable growth in the province (CBC Edmonton 2006; Canadian Press 2006a). The same year, addressing the legislature, Stelmach made an evocative parallel between immigration and natural resources: “Another important area, Mr. Speaker, is gaining control of the tools to manage immigration policy. It could be as fundamental to Alberta’s future prosperity as the affirmation in 1929 of constitutional jurisdiction over natural resources has been to our present prosperity” (L.A., AL, 27 February 2006, 72).

Immigration was given a full role in the second strategy for managing and developing human resources, titled Building and Educating Tomorrow’s Workforce (2006). Written following public hearings, the document named the attraction and retention of new immigrants as two of the four themes of the provincial strategy to meet human resource needs. The document identified clear targets: the reception of 24,000 newcomers in 2009 and the reception of 10 per cent of Canada’s total immigration until 2016. These targets were seen as serving the general objective of increasing the “supply of appropriately skilled, knowledgeable workers in the province” (Alberta 2006b, 21). In 2007, in the Speech from the Throne, the government identified intervention in immigration as a tool to address the pressures created by an increased rate of growth. In this context, the government committed itself to supporting recruitment and to helping immigrants to integrate into provincial society:

Despite so many people moving to Alberta each year, our economy is in dire need of people to answer the calls for “help wanted” across the province. To help meet this demand, your government will focus on better co-ordination of economic development, immigration, and labour force planning. It will craft a made-in-Alberta solution to labour needs. Like the early settlers who helped build our province, immigrants today come here with hopes of creating a better life for themselves and a better future for their children. The Alberta government will help new Albertans realize their dreams. It will encourage them to put down roots, raise their families here, and contribute to and share in Alberta’s prosperity. (L.A., AL, 7 March 2007, 2)

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