In his first major policy speech, Canada’s new Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marco Mendicino set out the current government’s priorities on immigration.
He began by saying that Canada’s future is dependent on immigration. The demographic reasons for this are many, including the country’s aging population and low replacement birth rate.
A direct consequence of this is the increasing pressure on the Canadian economy. With fewer workers, the tax base shrinks. And this impacts the services that all Canadian expect from the government – healthcare, education, infrastructure, and so on.
Minister Mendicino said a major part of the solution is to welcome immigrants to Canada. Some estimates suggest that 100 per cent of Canada’s population growth will come from immigration by 2030. Currently, it’s close to 80%.
Canada will welcome over one million immigrants over the next three years. Minister Mendicino will formally table Canada’s 2020-2022 Immigration Levels Plan before Parliament in March.
It is expected that Express Entry will continue to remain the flagship program for new immigrants. In addition, the Global Talent Stream has been a great success and has firmly established itself as the preferred route for technical talent – a win-win for both employers and immigrants.
Minister Mendicino observed that Canada’s immigration system has been lauded by the OECD as the international standard on how to effectively manage an immigration system, and he concluded by stating that Canada is built on the strength of immigration.
This is extremely heartening news for us – at VanHack, we built a company based on the core value of “We have no borders”. We’ve helped over 800 talented developers find a new job (and a new home) in Canada as well as Europe.
The Canadian government’s strong support for skilled immigration is a welcome trend that we hope other countries will follow.
If you’re interested in what VanHack has to offer, check out https://vanhack.com. We are absolutely FREE for job-seekers, and have over 120,000 candidates available for companies seeking to hire tech talent.