Ottawa Announces Plan to Fill Labour Shortages With Refugees

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Sean Fraser speaks during a news conference with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, April 6, 2022 in Ottawa. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

With labour shortages nationwide, particularly in the health sector, Canada’s immigration minister has announced a new pathway for skilled refugees to connect with employers.

Starting this summer, the government will process each refugee case in the new pathway from start to finish within six months, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said during a keynote speech to the Empire Club in Toronto on March 27.

“If we do the right thing, we’re able to also serve our self-interest,” he said.

He gave the example of the Hadhad family whose chocolate factory in Syria was destroyed in a bombing. When they settled in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, community members helped them build a shed in their backyard to start making chocolate again. The Hadhad family’s Peace by Chocolate factory now employs about 50 locals.

The new initiative expands the scope of the existing Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP). Its goal is to settle 2,000 refugees in the next few years in high-demand sectors such as health care, skilled trades, and information technology, according to a government release.

Employers can now go through the new federal pathway to connect with skilled refugees; provincial pathways are already overwhelmed with demand, Fraser said.

The new initiative streamlines the application process for refugees, waives some fees, and includes “a more flexible approach to eligibility,” says the government release.

‘For Economic Reasons, for Demographic Reasons’

“We are now dealing with virtually the lowest rate of unemployment we’ve ever seen. ... We’ve actually seen about 830,000 jobs created since before the pandemic,” Fraser said.

“Canada needs more people for economic reasons, for demographic reasons,” he said. “The reality is across Canada, we may only have three workers for every retiree. In my region [in Nova Scotia], we’re down to about two.”

He said he has seen the impacts of this demographic and labour-shortage problem. He gave the example of the Aberdeen Hospital in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, having to close down its mental health unit because a single psychiatrist moved away and the unit could no longer operate safely.

Canada resettled more refugees in 2020 and 2021 than any country in the world, Fraser said. Canada admitted almost 220,000 refugees as permanent residents between 2016 and 2021, with more than 60,000 from Syria, according to the 2021 Census.

“We all take for granted there’s a hundred million displaced people in this world,” Fraser said. “We had almost a million jobs available in this country this past summer and there’s a hundred million people who have skills to offer.”