How rural Canada is rethinking migration

As someone working on labour migration policy in the UK, I wanted to understand what lessons we might learn from Canada’s Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP) – and how it’s working in practice on the ground.

Over five weeks, I visited six RNIP communities across four Canadian provinces, meeting with settlement services, federal government agencies, and migrants who had settled in Canada using the route. It was an incredible experience – meeting communities in person meant I could form genuine connections and build relationships with the people I spoke to, while lending my research a sense of authenticity thanks to the individuals who very kindly gave up their time to help.

It also gave me a strong sense of place: seeing what participating communities looked and felt like, how they compared and contrasted, how easy they were to reach and navigate, and witnessing first-hand the challenges they faced and were seeking to address made it all the more tangible.

Natalia, from Colombia, had been studying in nearby Winnipeg and was looking at ways to settle in Canada permanently. Mohammad, originally from Syria, had been living in the United Arab Emirates before seeking fresh challenges in a new country.

“I’m very glad to be in Brandon,” Mohammad told me. “Life in Dubai was fine, but it wasn’t somewhere I wanted to live in the long-term. I hadn’t considered Canada before I saw the job vacancy, but it’s been very welcoming and the residency process has been quick and clear. Now, I’m very glad to be here.”

Natalia and Mohammad work in completely different fields – in law and technical manufacturing respectively – but what they share in common is their participation in the RNIP, an innovative Canadian migration programme that sees rural communities play a driving role in the recruitment of migrants into jobs that can’t be filled by domestic recruitment.

Newcomers, for their part, are rewarded with additional support and a fast track to permanent residency. Brandon – where I met them – is one of 11 Canadian communities to participate in RNIP, and what makes the programme unusual – and thus of interest to governments and policy makers around the world – is that it both seeks to attract migrants to areas that they might not otherwise have considered, and that the communities themselves play a key role in the process.

Historically migrants tend to be attracted to big cities, which isn’t all that surprising; cities tend to have the most and greatest diversity of jobs, the most services, are more accessible and often have pre-existing support networks in place. The same qualities can likewise be a pull for people within the country too, especially for young people in rural areas moving to cities to take up higher education or employment.

When combined with falling birth rates this can lead to a declining and ageing rural population, and the creation of a loop that reinforces itself; fewer people working means a reduction of tax intake and fewer available workers to provide services, driving more people to move to cities and thus creating a downward spiral of rural demographic decline.

Common themes emerged across these meetings; community RNIP co-ordinators reflected positively on the experience of attracting and selecting migrants that would help their communities thrive, whilst also acknowledging aspects of the scheme that could and should work better. And of course, the key question – that of long-term retention of newcomers – is something that will become more apparent in the months and years ahead, something that will likely need the ongoing support and engagement of communities.

Ali Hemmaway, RNIP co-ordinator at the smallest RNIP community of Claresholm, summed it up well: “An immigration programme without all the other aspects to support settlement, retention, and sustainability is worthless – you need the welcoming committees, and the settlement services, and the language classes and the community events and the housing and the funding and all of this to be a cohesive ecosystem.” Just before I’d met Ali, she’d hosted a Japanese delegation who had travelled all the way to Southern Alberta to learn about RNIP.

Since returning to the UK, I’ve continued to follow developments in Canada, where RNIP has now been superseded by two new programmes that will further test and refine how smaller communities attract and retain migrants: the Rural Community Immigration Pilot (RCIP) and the Francophone Community Immigration Pilot (FCIP). The UK conversation is evolving too, with the devolved governments in particular lobbying for a regionalised migration system that could give local communities more say in tackling rural depopulation.

My Fellowship report has contributed to that debate, with interest from researchers and policy makers across both countries. I’ve also built lasting relationships with Canadian officials, enabling us to share experience, data, and best practice on a number of labour migration routes which has been invaluable.

I should also add that the Fellowship was a lot of fun. I drove, flew, bussed, and hiked across a great swathe of Canada – from the foothills of the mighty Rocky Mountains, across the great plains of the prairies and deep into the Canadian Shield of Northern Ontario.

I made connections in towns and cities that many routine visitors never get to see, and I learned a lot about personal resolve, too: whether it was the flight cancellation on super-busy Canada Day, or the meeting no-show, or the 300 mile+ daily drives, I got the chance to learn, explore, and develop my own self-reliance all at the same time. Canada is a huge, stunning country and I’m incredibly grateful to the Fellowship for what truly was the experience of a lifetime.