Mendicino: Immigration, the key to Canada’s success in the 21st century

“The progressive immigration policies that we continue to pursue lay the foundation for Canada’s success in the 21st century.”

These are the words of two Canadian ministers who recently wrote about the importance of immigration to the economy of the country.

Marco Mendicino is the Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship while Navdeep Bains is the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry.

Mendicino’s family arrived in Canada from Italy after the Second World War while the Bains family arrived from India. Today, ministers represent two of the countless success stories of immigrants to Canada as they oversee portfolios that are essential to the country’s economic development.

In their article, Mendicino and Bains explain that while starting out as new immigrants to Canada can be difficult at first, the country offers newcomers many opportunities to succeed, which enriches Canada in the process.

Today, the two ministers are responsible for enacting policies that help maintain Canada’s positive immigration cycle: Canada provides immigrants with opportunities and immigrants reimburse Canada economically and socially.

The two ministers share a mandate to attract immigrants, foreign workers, and international students to Canada. To support this mandate, the federal government launched the Global Talent Stream in 2017, which has since attracted tens of thousands of tech workers to Canada and has also created tens of thousands of additional jobs during the process.

Canada was on the verge of hosting higher levels of global talent in 2020 after the strong year it had in 2019.

Earlier this year, Mendicino announced Canada’s new immigration levels plan, which would support higher levels of attraction for newcomers.

The coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on these plans, but Mendicino has always said that immigration will remain a priority for Canada.

This was emphasized once again by him in his recent article.

“We know that our objective must remain to attract high-level talent to Canada,” write Mendicino and Bains.

This is evidenced by the fact that foreign workers are largely exempt from Canada’s current COVID-19 travel restrictions.

In addition, the Express Entry and Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) draws are still in progress. In fact, Express Entry is experiencing its fastest start-up since 2017. Once the pandemic is over, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) expect an upsurge of new talent in Canada.

Reference is taken from CIC News