Manitoba announces new council to help support immigration

The Manitoba government announced a new council on Monday that will help to improve the province’s immigration policies and programs.

Twenty Manitobans have been appointed to the Immigration Advisory Council, which will be co-chaired by Lloyd Axworthy, who served as the minister of foreign affairs during the Jean Chrétien administration, and Jon Reyes, Manitoba’s minister of advanced education, skills and immigration.

“This new advisory council is very important to me for a number of reasons,” the minister said at a news conference on Monday.

“Many of my constituents have come to Canada recently, and I have heard from them how complex and complicated a process it can be. More recently, my role in supporting economic development in Manitoba showed me that we need immigration to help grow our labour market and diversify our economy.”

According to Reyes, the council will review Manitoba’s “entire continuum of immigration.”

This work will include building on promotion to attract more immigrants and business investors, streamline the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program, and fostering Manitoba’s settlement and integration services and foreign credential recognition programs.

Axworthy described Monday’s announcement as a “watershed moment.”

“This is an important juncture point for the province in terms of resupply and reinvesting in (the) workforce, training, and skills, which are the backbone of the province and where it goes,” he said.

“There’s been a lot of resets going on because of COVID. There have been impacts on a whole variety of relationships in the labour market, training and education. Through this advisory council, I believe that the premier and the minister see an opportunity to do some of that realignment and refreshing where we’re going.”

Axworthy said one of the most important things about the council is that it will allow people from different sectors of the province to have their voices heard.

The Immigration Advisory Council will begin work immediately, and will release a final report at the end of the year.