Ontario’s Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development is calling on the federal government to double the number of newcomers Ontario can select in 2022.
Monte McNaughton announced the Ontario government is an additional $15.1 million over three years to improve and expand the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP).
The province expects the program to help attract the skilled immigrants needed to fill labour gaps when local workers are not available.
The Minister says newcomers are crucial to Ontario’s growing economy.
While almost 120,000 economic class immigrants to Canada arrived in 2021, only 9,000 newcomers were nominated through the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program in that year. An increased nomination allocation would allow Ontario to fill targeted labour market gaps across the province and drive overall economic growth.
McNaughton added, “We’re lowering the barriers they face and have called on our partners in. By investing in the future success of this program, we’re not resting until everyone in Ontario who wants to earn a paycheque is able to do so.”
He said the new investment will allow the program to grow, enhance security and fraud detection and other IT updates to ensure the system can handle increased capacity now and in the future.
Nominating newcomers to work in Ontario helps meet the needs of our growing economy, by filling jobs in health care, computer programming, web development and trucking.
