Alberta rolled out its long-awaited immigrant-nominee program (AINP) Thursday, the latest in its broader strategy to attract skilled foreign workers as many Canadian businesses face hiring challenges.
The program, unveiled by Labour Minister Tyler Shandro and Innovation Minister Doug Schweitzer, effectively provides technology companies with a new avenue to recruit foreign workers on a fast-tracked basis.
Why it matters: Alberta’s growing tech sector faces a major labour crunch, particularly for skilled workers like engineers. Deborah Yedlin, president of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, called the program a “critical step” in filling that gap. Alberta is now home to 3,000 tech companies, she said, up from 1,200 companies in 2018.
“With that kind of growth, it’s easy to imagine the opportunity and the challenge of ensuring we attract and keep the skills we need and the talent to maintain this promising momentum,” she told reporters.
Slowing your rollout: AINP’s unveiling comes after months of delay, as the tech industry expected the program to be introduced last summer. That has put Alberta at a disadvantage to other provinces, some observers say. Quebec, Ontario and B.C. have all implemented similar programs already, some with a specific emphasis on artificial intelligence or other sectors.
Bronté Valk, an Alberta representative at the Council of Canadian Innovators, said in a statement that the business group has been calling for a provincial nominee program for “more than a year.” She called the announcement “very good news” for Alberta’s tech industry, where she said the unemployment rate for computer-science and engineering professionals currently is about zero per cent.
Does Alberta need its own foreign-nominee program?: After all, the federal government’s fast-track foreign-worker program, the Global Talent Stream, has already been in place since 2017, and has been tapped by Canadian firms to fill thousands of positions.
But employers say the GTS has been somewhat restrictive, placing limitations on the types of roles that can be filled using the program, for example. Those issues have been particularly acute in Alberta, according to Irfhan Rawji, founder and CEO of Calgary-based MobSquad.
“We’ve been frustrated by the fact that interprovincially, it’s been harder with the federal programs to get technology, skills, [and] immigrants to Alberta than any other province,” he said. (Rawji, who spoke at Thursday’s announcement, is also a managing partner at Relay Ventures, which is an investor in The Logic, and is chair of The Logic’s board.)
Rawji, who worked directly with provincial ministers to craft the AINP, said the program comes amid great demand for foriegn workers.
He said Alberta is currently “one of the harder places to bring skilled professionals,” but the new program will make it “the easiest place.”
