Manitoba Mineral Exploration Tax Credit: Fill & Download for Free

Rural Immigration in CanadaAs a matter of fact, most immigrants tend to settle in Canada’s major cities, like Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Winnipeg. However, the prevailing urban immigration has a huge drag on the remote regions with smaller cities.As a result, these regions face serious challenges, both demographic as well as economic. It looks like, the Government of Canada and provinces have to think of the ways to change the situation, attract more immigrants to the rural areas of the country.Main urban regions have less than 15% of their population living in a rural community. Sadly, the connection between the city and a country has increased. While originally cities were built to protect a country from barbarian savages, today it is important to encourage city contacts with rural areas. Apart from preserving Canadian values and traditions, it will serve for the benefit of the economic development.How to define Rural Canada? In fact, it has many faces, but most commonly rural areas are defined by population size and distance from major urban centers.The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development divides the population into predominantly rural regions and census rural.Predominantly rural regions are classified as rural metro-adjacent, rural non-metro adjacent and rural northern. Rural northern regions are found either entirely or mostly above the following lines of parallel in each province: Newfoundland and Labrador, 50th; Quebec and Ontario, 54th; Manitoba, 53rd; Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, 54th; Yukon, Northwest, and Nunavut.The rural definition is a settlement with fewer than 1,000 or more residents with a population below 400 inhabitants per square.When it comes to immigration, many federal programs break communities into small, medium and large. Based on the Statistics Canada, there are so-called metropolitan influenced zones where 30 percent of the population has access to a larger urban center for work.On the contrary, a large number of communities are far away from having 100,000 people. For example, in Ontario’s northern regions, the communities consist of about 15,000 people, excluding North Bay, Sudbury, Timmins, Thunder Bay, and Sault Ste. Marie.A little bit of the background: Settlement patternsWhen Europeans came to Canada, they started to use its resources on the vast territory sparsely populated by many different Indian peoples in the south and the Inuit in the north. The native peoples couldn’t explore the countries' resources as they lived in small settlements. Nomadic tribes hunted and gathered field crops only for their own consumption.Only Europeans from different countries began to sell out fish, furs, forests, and minerals outside of Canada. New settlements appeared with the development of a new resource. As time passed, the resources exhausted and some settlements disappeared. Several port cities along with St. John’s, Newfoundland; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Saint John, New Brunswick – kept on growing as they benefited from the export of popular resources. Montreal developed due to its fur trade and export of raw materials. Likewise, Toronto and Vancouver grew rapidly. Winnipeg and Manitoba served as a gateway to the agricultural growth of the interior plains*.Canada’s most densely settled areas and largest cities established in the areas with good agricultural land. Great Lakes – St. Lawrence valleys evolved into villages, towns, and cities. The manufacturing and service sectors didn't develop to the full extent, so those areas were less urbanized. However, the petroleum industry gave rise to two large cities, Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta.At the beginning of the 20th century, approximately 1/3 of Canadians lived in urban areas, but by the end of the century, 3/5 of the population resided in metropolitan areas of 100,000 or more.The growth of most of Canada’s large cities on good farmland reduced Canada’s agricultural resources. In the Niagara Peninsula of southern Ontario, the land with the best climate in Canada for producing soft fruits and grapes, but the establishment of cities has destroyed one-third of the fruit land. Hence, by the end of the 20th century, the government prohibited urban activities in the fruit-growing areas.A period after 1867 saw an increase of international immigration. Sir Clifford Sifton, Minister of the Interior from 1896 to 1905, was convinced that European immigrants were the best settlers for the uncultivated land of the Prairie because they knew how to survive in harsh climates, and they were familiar with a rural lifestyle. Sifton didn’t encourage the urban immigrant population to settle in the Prairies as he thought that they would rather want to reside in cities. As a result, the foreign population began to settle the Prairies. Immigrants created diverse industries in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Winnipeg’s population augmented from a city of 20,000 in 1886 to 150,000 in 1911.*This is a large region that covers parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, including parts of the Northwest Territories and Yukon Territory. First nations, such as the Blackfoot, Cree, and the Dene have lived here. Different countries settled here. Natural resources, such as coal, oil, gas and forests resulted in a growth of communities across the regionImportance of rural immigration today and in the futureWell, Canada today is facing serious challenges in rural regions. When talking about rural Canada, we refer to the following provinces: British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador, Ontario, and Saskatchewan. All rural communities there share these common problems:The population is aging: Low fertility and a higher life expectancy are resulting in the average age of these rural regions to rise;Young adults are leaving and not returning;Rural regions in the provinces are not attracting immigrants: Most immigrants prefer to settle in urban areas.This is the present situation, and as for the future of the rural provinces, the outlook is also gloomy. Experts project that by 2025 the rural population in those provinces will decline by 13% in British Columbia, 19% in Newfoundland and Labrador. Ontario and Saskatchewan have the same tendency.This means that something has to be done for the success of these rural communities. It is important that the issues they encounter are put on a top priority list. More job opportunities have to be created in order to keep youth, more education and training opportunities need to be provided in these areas. Efforts have to be made to address skill shortage, and more has to be done to attract immigrants as well.Of course, each individual community is different, with its own challenges. Therefore, people in these communities will need to cooperate to overcome hurdles.Despite the challenges, there are a lot of opportunities because rural Canada represents a variety of diverse communities. These opportunities can significantly contribute to the economy and culture of the nation.Rural communities are rich in lumber, mining, and fishing. They support the extraction and processing industries.Rural communities should have close connections with urban areas. They can supply these communities with food, minerals, energy, lumber, and other resources.Rural communities play a vital role in preserving the country’s water, national parks, and wildlife.The cost of housing and land in rural communities in Canada is far more affordable than in cities. Therefore, they are the perfect location for launching small businesses.What can specifically be done to address existing issues?While the present situation in the rural areas of the aforementioned provinces is far from favorable, the opportunities are big. The Canadian Government made a few efforts in the past.From time to time, Atlantic provinces announce different pilot programs to attract more middle-skilled immigrants. The Atlantic Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador use the pilot program. It speeds up the settlement in Atlantic Canada with the purpose of boosting its declining population.A good example of that is a small city in southern Manitoba, Morden, with a population of just over 9,000. The Morden Community Driven Immigration Initiative (MCDI) was a great success. Launched more than ten years ago, it attracted immigrants to the Pembina Valley community, and the main reason why they came – was the quality of life and jobs.In 2006, Morden population was 6,571, since the launching of the program, it increased almost to 8,668 in 2016. This city targeted workers in specific occupations, like factory sewing machine operators, manufacturing, and heavy vehicle mechanics. Most important is that the city managed to retain these immigrants.Rural communities of British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador, Ontario and Saskatchewan have outlined strategies to improve demographic situation. The steps they supposed to undertake assumed the following measures:Developing more employment opportunities;Encouraging industry – small, medium, large;Improving transportation infrastructure;Keeping a balance between industry and the natural environment;Establishing farms;Enticing immigrants to move to the rural areas.These plans were outlined in 2016, but since that, I couldn't locate any report on the process and outcomes of these initiatives. It looks like the challenge is too big and so far, no significant improvement has been made to address these issues.In my opinion, the problem is that immigrants choose to settle in large urban areas. Even, when initially they come, for example, to Nova Scotia, in a year, two or three, once they become permanent residents they leave the province because they the constitutional to move freely within Canada. Perhaps, the federal government can come up with laws which will restrict immigrants to live in some specific areas, and in return, they can get permanent residency.On the other hand, the Canadian immigration system has to be changed. Currently, it gives priority to three things: refugees, family re-integration, and high-skill immigrants. I think it’s time to add a program which will specifically be looking for candidates ready to live and work in the rural communities. The fact, that Rural Canada is under threat, should steam the government to focus on middle-skilled workers, like truck drivers, personal support workers, etc.Another solution is to go back to the already pre-approved list of immigrants to Canada, reveal people who match the job and offer them to come to different parts of rural Canada.However, to do so, the federal government should create enough jobs, has to show that Canada’s rural communities have much to offer. What matters to people is a good quality of life. But too often immigrants arrive in big cities and they have to take the first jobs that come along while rural areas have a lack of labor force. Therefore, the government should create conditions and undertake a variety of measures for immigrants who choose to settle in rural areas. These measures might include:Middle-skill workers should be a priority;Short-term provincial tax-credits for new residents;Residential land purchases at below market prices;Conditional property tax exemptions.The steps should meet increasing demographic challenges. The federal government should provide a list of approved immigrants to the provinces and municipalities.Maybe Canada needs a person like Clifford Sifton. He knew that Canada needed immigrants. And as a man in charge of Canadian immigration, he wasn’t using a bit of false advertising to attract them.Immigration to English-speaking Canada had traditionally meant attracting people from Britain or the U.S. But by the mid-1890s not enough people were coming to fill the vast prairies of Canada. Sifton expanded his list of preferred immigrants to include eastern Europeans with an agricultural background.This is his famous quotation: “I think a stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat, born on the soil whose forefathers have been farmers for ten generations, with a stout wife and a half dozen children is good quality, I’m indifferent whether or not he is British born”. As a result of his campaign, more than a million immigrants came to Canada between 1896 and 1905. The population on the west increased from 300,000 to 1,5 million.What if this truth can be applied to solving the challenges rural Canada is facing today? Maybe it would be fair to say that one middle-skilled worker is worth dozens of high-skilled workers…References1 Rural Canada. August, 25, 2017. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Canada2 Settlement Patterns. Retrieved from www.britannica.com/place/Canada/Settlement-patterns3 Strengthening Rural Canada. Challenges. Retrieved from strengtheningruralcanada.ca/challenges/4 Match immigrants to jobs to boost North’s economy, workforce: Northern Policy Institute. May 07, 2018. Retrieved from www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/rural-immigration-1.46492915 Strengthening Rural Canada. Opportunities. Retrieved from strengtheningruralcanada.ca/opportunities/6 Canada opens its door. Retrieved from www.cbc.ca/history/EPISCONTENTSE1EP11CH3PA1LE.html7 Christine Burton. March 24, 2011 (Metropolis Conference March 24, 2011). Immigration and Canada’s rural communities (PDF). Retrieved from http://canada.metropolis.net