At a three-day Western Premiers’ Conference in Yellowknife, Premiers from the seven western provinces and territories pressured the federal government to immediately boost immigration. West Canada may need more than a million new workers in the near future.
As reported in Calgary Herald, Premier Ed Stelmach of Alberta noted that workers will be in such short supply that western provinces may find themselves competing with one another for both skilled and unskilled labour. “We’ll be robbing from each other,” he said.
“In Alberta alone, the predicted shortfall is about 77,000 positions in about five years.”
Stelmach further noted that the shortages will “reduce our competitiveness and reduce our exports to other countries . . . Whether its developing oil and gas, agricultural activity or food processing -all of those things will go up in price because we’ll be competing for labour.”
In a joint statement, the premiers also blamed the federal government’s measure to limit the number of applicants under the Provincial Nominee Program.
“Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s decision in 2010 to cap the number of nominees per year is detrimental to economic growth in the West and in Canada and a reversal on previous commitments provinces and territories,” they wrote.