Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot
The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot is a community-driven program. It’s designed to spread the benefits of economic immigration to smaller communities by creating a path to permanent residence for skilled foreign workers who want to work and live in one of the participating communities.
The following communities are participating in the pilot.
- North Bay, Ontario
- Sudbury, Ontario
- Timmins, Ontario
- Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
- Thunder Bay, Ontario
- Brandon, Manitoba
- Altona/Rhineland, Manitoba
- Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
- Claresholm, Alberta
- Vernon, British Columbia
- West Kootenay (Trail, Castlegar, Rossland, Nelson), British Columbia
To be considered eligible to participate in the pilot, the community must:
- have a population of 50,000 people or less and be located at least 75 km from the core of a Census Metropolitan Area OR up to 200,000 people and be considered remote from other larger cities (using Statistics Canada’s index of remoteness)
- be located in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Yukon;
- have job opportunities;
- have an economic development plan;
- have a local economic development organization that can manage the pilot for your community;
- have the capacity to settle new immigrants in the community by having or developing:
- relationships with local or regional immigrant-serving organizations;
- opportunities to connect newcomers with established members of the community, such as through mentoring or networking;
- access to key services like education, housing, transportation, and health care.
