By Matt Prokopchuk, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Via TBnewswatch.com
NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO — Hearing that Canada plans to reduce immigration targets nationally as smaller Northwestern communities continue to need workers “dismayed” at least one local leader.
Rick Dumas, who is the mayor of Marathon and the president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, said the region continues to need foreign-born workers to move into smaller communities and stay.
“All northern rural parts of Canada need immigration,” Dumas said. “We need immigrants to come to our communities, to fill some of the economic voids that we have for job opportunities in the communities.”
“So, we’ll continue to focus and work with the government, both provincially and federally, on the immigration opportunities and how do we attract those to the northern, rural parts of our country.”
While cities like Thunder Bay have had access to dedicated streams that make it easier to attract foreign-born workers, officials in places like Terrace Bay, Atikokan and Fort Frances have told Newswatch they want to see more move to their municipalities and stay.
“It’s been first and foremost on my agenda,” Fort Frances Mayor Andrew Hallikas said in October and prior to the release of Tuesday’s budget and updated immigration levels. “We depend on immigrant workers for our economy and for our small businesses.”
“Most of the immigrants were going to large urban centres where there isn’t housing available and there aren’t jobs available, but we have jobs and we have housing, and we need these workers.”
Canada’s 2026-2028 immigration levels plan, announced as part of the federal budget, calls for the freezing of new permanent residents at 380,000 per year for three years. That’s down from the 395,000 target in 2025. The number of temporary residents is being reduced to 385,000 in 2026 and 370,000 in 2027 and 2028 — the budget document says that’s down from 673,650 in 2025.
Federal Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu told Newswatch the new targets are to “rightsize” immigration numbers after she said there was a “significant labour crunch” through the COVID-19 pandemic years and a subsequent rise in bringing in foreign-born workers.
“Oftentimes there were challenges with large-scale employers finding the kinds of people they needed to keep running and, of course, in some communities that created a surge of population,” she said. “Many municipal leaders called for a reduction in immigration numbers.”
“Of course, in northern Ontario … we have the opposite problem.”
Hajdu said the new numbers are about ensuring Canada’s ability to take in newcomers in a “humane” and a “fair and reasonable” way, adding that, specifically to the north, the focus needs to be on “transitioning people who have been longtime temporary residents into permanent residents.”
The federal targets are designed to have no more than five per cent of Canada’s population as temporary residents.
“We’re looking for more permanent solutions to attract people, keep people, and make sure that companies have the talent they need to grow,” Hajdu said.
Dumas said immigration, how it will look in the north and in smaller communities — including how they can better access immigration streams — will be a topic of conversation when representatives from NOMA and its northeastern Ontario counterpart meet with federal officials in Ottawa at the beginning of December.
The Local Journalism Initiative supports the creation of original civic journalism that is relevant to the diverse needs of underserved communities across Canada, broadening availability and consumption of local and regional news on matters of civic governance. Launched by the Government of Canada in 2019, the Local Journalism Initiative provides news organizations with funding to hire reporters to cover underserved communities.