The trend toward settlement of new immigrants in communities outside Canada’s major metropolitan centres is one increasingly being encouraged by senior levels of government.

Within the last two years, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador has undertaken an aggressive strategy to attract newcomers to that province, which has seen its population decline by more than 60,000 over the past two decades. That’s a period during which its labour force demands have actually grown significantly, thanks largely to a booming economy.

“We’re being very methodical in how we’re approaching this,” says Shawn Skinner. “We want to be sure we do it right.”

Skinner, as Newfoundland and Labrador’s minister of human resources, labour and employment, has established the province’s Office of Immigration and Multiculturalism. He recognizes that the demographics of his province “aren’t very pretty.” The population is rapidly aging and many of its younger people have left for opportunities in other parts of Canada, even though some have recently returned.

“The past two years, for the first time in our province’s history, we’ve had more deaths than births,” he reports. “So we, as a government, recognize just to be able to fill the jobs that are currently here – never mind any new jobs – jobs that people retire from and we need people. We need to attract more youth, we need to attract people from other parts of the country and we need to attract people from other parts of the world.”

There’s no question that the demand for labour in Newfoundland and Labrador is growing, much in the field of natural resources. The province’s offshore oil and gas sector is rapidly ramping up, its mining sector is growing, its forestry and aquaculture industries continue to place demands on the labour market. As a result, “all kinds of jobs” are being created in the service sector.

“Our economy is moving fast,” he says. “It’s a vibrant economy and we need people.”

The province last year allocated $6million to creation of an immigration and multiculturalism office to promote diversity. Since January, the office has 13 new employees with connections to 16 countries.

Fifty-seven percent of new immigrants to Newfoundland and Labrador move to smaller, rural centres in the province. Out of the 700 communities in the province, all but about 25 have populations over 10,000 and 90 percent of those smaller communities have populations of approximately 2,000, and many in the hundreds. One of Skinner’s first initiatives was to create traveling workshops to small municipalities called Welcoming Communities.

“The whole idea behind it is to let the people know that you’ve got a role to play in welcoming these newcomers, making them feel welcome, helping them adjust and adapt and they, in turn, have something to offer you,” Skinner says.

The response from the communities has been nothing but positive. He particularly likes to tell about e-mails he’s received from immigrant healthcare professionals already working in the province who contact relatives abroad encouraging them ‘to move to this beautiful province.’

“They’re reaching out to their families and their extended families and saying ‘I’m living in a great part of the world and you might want to come over and see what this is all about’,” he says. That wouldn’t be happening if they didn’t feel “it’s a warm, caring place they’re moving to,” he says.

The largest number of newcomers is in the healthcare professions, Skinner estimates, followed by the offshore oil sector, then Memorial University where a “top-notch” academic reputation and relatively low tuition fees attracted many international students.

With about 450 newcomers a year, the province’s numbers aren’t large in comparison with other provinces, but they’ve already grown by six percent this year. Skinner’s goal is to see a three-fold increase in immigration and the retention rate climb from 30 percent to at least 75 percent.

“We’re heading in the right direction,” Skinner says. “Small steps, but important steps.”

As a medium-sized city, Sudbury, Ontario, meanwhile, has recognized the need for diversification of its workforce for close to 20 years. But within the past four years, Greater Sudbury, 24th largest urban centre in Canada with a population of close to 160,000, has also become focused on meeting its labour force needs by attracting new immigrants, while also recognizing the potential offered by its aboriginal population.

“Our goal mainly is to create a welcoming community” says Scott Fisher, an employment counselor who chairs the city’s Diversity Advisory Panel. “It’s a culturally focused panel in that it concentrates on the Francophone, aboriginal and immigrant cultural groups.”

Although new immigrants now make up only about 2 percent of Sudbury’s total population, those numbers are changing, partly as a result of what Fisher says are “absolutely enormous” funding programs being poured into the city by federal and provincial governments. A portion of the funding is aimed at creating an economic climate that will attract immigrants to the area.

“I have concerns about that,” Fisher admits, explaining the need to create the right social atmosphere needed to welcome newcomers is essential. “That’s where we see that the (advisory) panel has a big role to play…the awareness part of it. It’s something that’s vital for any community and sometimes the social part of it can be overlooked by the economics of the situation.”

The city this summer is re-publishing a book, first written about 20 years ago, as A Resource Guide for Canadian Parents on Cultural Diversity. The book is broad-based, but has a large section on new immigrants. “We want to use it as a tool in the community,” Fisher says.

Because of the Sudbury area’s large aboriginal population, more than one dynamic is happening, however. “Sudbury is a little unique in terms of having such a high urban aboriginal population,” he says. “There’s a concern that with all the focus on immigration, that there may be an untapped (labour) pool that gets overlooked.”

He also notes that age demographics don’t apply to the aboriginal population. But Laurentian University has a major native studies program that helps promote dialogue.

The trend toward migration by newcomers to smaller centres from major metropolitan areas is a result of a number of factors, Fisher believes. “Many have moved to Sudbury for family reasons and a safer environment…they feel safer in a smaller area,” he says. “I also think that happens after they’ve landed in another centre for some time and have witnessed the cost of living being very high.”

Fisher’s diversity advisory panel expects to take on more of an advocacy role in support of diversity hiring with employers in the area. It’s working with the Sudbury Chamber of Commerce in organizing an immigration forum this fall that will carry a similar message.