Ontario Seeks Federal Government’s Help To Address Labour Shortage

Due to the province’s labour shortage, Toronto, ON is asking for the Canadian government to increase the number of allowed immigrants into the province through a program that aims to boost the skilled workforce. As mentioned by Monte McNaughton, Labour Minister of Ontario, due to the impact of the global pandemic – COVID19, the province is currently facing a significant labour shortage and the additional number of allowed immigrants to enter under the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program a year will surely help address the said shortage. It is said that the province is asking for the numbers to be doubled, specifically increasing its number from 9,000 immigrants to 18,000.

According to Statistics Canada, the number of Ontario’s job vacancies has increased from 234,000 in October last year to almost 316,000 vacant jobs in October this year. With this being said, it is clear that all industries are currently experiencing manpower shortage, 21,000 in construction, 24,000 in manufacturing, 29,000 in food services and specifically 38,000 jobs in health care are unfilled in this year’s second quarter.

Recently, McNaughton said that he reached out to the newly appointed Federal Immigration Minister, Sean Fraser, to call his attention to the said number increase of the allowed skilled workers to enter Ontario province under the program. In connection to this, a spokesperson for the federal immigration minister mentioned that among all the provinces and territories in Canada, Ontario received the largest amount of economic immigrants.

In addition to this, McNaughton also said that Ontario ought to have more control over the province’s number of immigrants allowed under the program, as well as the selection process. Currently, The OINP allows skilled workers as well as international students to apply to the government of Ontario to receive a nomination for permanent residency in the province, however, it is the federal government that makes the final decision with regards to applications approval.