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Metropolitan and provincial Canada both seek to benefit from immigration
A review of the efforts made by Canada to settle immigrants in areas other than the metropolitan centres of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver
By The Immigrant Times
In 2025, Ontario, with its capital Toronto, welcomed more than 190,000 immigrants. Some 55,000 immigrants settled in each of Alberta, Quebec and British Columbia. By comparison, the four Atlantic Canada provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador received only 32,000 immigrants in total.
Executive summary
August 2026: For decades, Canada has used immigration to increase its population and meet economic and labour-market needs, with economic immigrants selected partly on criteria including education, language skills, and age.
Yet the millions of newcomers it attracts settle unevenly. They gravitate to a handful of global cities, leaving much of the country's periphery to grapple with an ageing, shrinking workforce, even as Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal strain under housing shortages and clogged transport networks.
The scale of Canadian immigration changed markedly over the past decade. Canada admitted 271,845 permanent residents in 2015. By 2019, the number had risen to 341,175. After a sharp decline during the COVID pandemic, admissions reached 406,055 in 2021, 437,635 in 2022, 471,820 in 2023 and 483,665 in 2024.. In October 2024, the federal government reversed the previous upward trajectory, reducing planned admissions amid concerns about housing, infrastructure and services. The subsequent 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan stabilised the annual permanent-resident target at 380,000 for each of those three years.
In 2021, 92.2 per cent of Canada’s immigrants lived in one of the country’s census metropolitan areas, compared with 67.7 per cent of people born in Canada. Of the more than 1.3 million immigrants admitted between 2016 and 2021, 29.5 per cent settled in Toronto, 12.2 per cent in Montreal and 11.7 per cent in Vancouver.
Together, the three metropolitan areas attracted more than half of recent immigrants. At the same time, many smaller communities have been grappling with ageing populations, out-migration of young people, labour shortages and, in some cases, population decline.
This asymmetry has caused problems at both ends. In the big three, rapid population growth contributed to pressure on housing, infrastructure and services.
In peripheral regions, from the resource towns of Northern Ontario to the fishing and manufacturing communities of Atlantic Canada, fertility rates sit well below the 2.1-births-per-woman replacement level, and businesses are increasingly threatening to cut hours, defer investment, or close altogether for want of workers. In these places, immigration has ceased to be a growth strategy and has become, in effect, a condition of economic development.
(Across the country, fertility rate fell to a record 1.25 children per woman in 2024.)
That divergence has, over the past two decades, led Canadian policymakers to attempt something unusual for a liberal democracy with constitutionally guaranteed freedom of internal movement: steering migrants towards smaller cities and rural towns through policy design rather than compulsion.
Programs like the Provincial Nominee Program, the Atlantic Immigration Pilot, the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot, and the Rural Community Immigration Pilot aim to disperse immigrants beyond big cities, showing promise and encouraging stakeholders to support regional development efforts.
Redirecting settlement patterns in a market democracy requires coordination across jurisdictions. Under Section 95 of the Constitution Act, 1867, immigration is a concurrent power shared between the federal Parliament and the provinces, with federal law prevailing in any conflict. Over the past 25 years, that shared mandate has evolved into a network involving federal, provincial and local authorities, employers and settlement organisations.
Ottawa's Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) sets national admissions targets, retains sole authority to grant permanent residency, and oversees security and medical vetting.
The provinces and territories administer their own economic streams under the Provincial Nominee Program, issuing nomination certificates to address local labour shortages and funding integration services.
Municipalities and local economic-development bodies identify specific occupational gaps, convene community selection committees, and issue the endorsements required by rural pilot schemes.
Employers handle the operational work of extending verified job offers, onboarding and language accommodation, while settlement charities deliver federally funded language instruction, help with housing searches and school registration, and provide the cultural groundwork to prevent newcomers from feeling isolated in smaller towns.
Canada's provinces develop their own immigration strategies
The Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) was an important step towards regionalising Canadian immigration.
Under the system, participating provinces and territories can nominate individuals for permanent residence in line with their economic and labour-market requirements. The federal government retains responsibility for granting permanent residence. The programme expanded significantly. In 2015, 44,533 immigrants were admitted as provincial nominees. By 2022, the number had reached 88,257.
Its effect on settlement patterns has been substantial. Statistics Canada researchers concluded that the expansion of the PNP played the primary role in increasing the number of immigrants to Manitoba and Saskatchewan during an earlier period of immigration redistribution.
But attracting an immigrant to a province at the point of admission does not ensure that the person will remain there. Statistics Canada examined this question in detail in 2023. Researchers Garnett Picot, Eden Crossman and Feng Hou linked immigrant landing records to tax records to determine whether provincial nominees stayed in their original province.
Among provincial nominees admitted in 2019, 89 per cent remained in their intended province or territory by the end of their landing year. The figure ranged from 69 per cent in Prince Edward Island to 97 per cent in Ontario.
The differences grew considerably over time. For immigrants admitted through the PNP between 2010 and 2015, five-year retention was about 94 per cent in Ontario and Alberta, but only 61 per cent in New Brunswick and 39 per cent in Prince Edward Island.
Later Statistics Canada data show that this was not merely an anomaly affecting a single cohort. Among provincial nominees admitted in 2017, five-year retention was 91.4 per cent in Ontario and 88.4 per cent in Alberta, compared with 47.1 per cent in New Brunswick, 47.2 per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador, and just 21.6 per cent in Prince Edward Island.
The movement was not random. A survey of provincial nominees who moved to another province found that 69 per cent did so primarily for economic reasons, usually because they or their spouse had secured employment.
Ontario benefited particularly from this secondary migration. Among the 2010–2015 PNP cohorts, Statistics Canada calculated that after five years Ontario had 56 per cent more provincial nominees than had originally settled there, because immigrants nominated by other provinces subsequently moved to Ontario, while comparatively few Ontario nominees left.
The figures exposed a fundamental weakness in simply directing immigrants towards places that need them. Smaller provinces could recruit newcomers successfully but could not prevent them from subsequently responding to the same economic and personal incentives that influence other Canadians.
INFO BOX: Provincial Nominee Program (PNP)
Introduced: Beginning in the late 1990s; Manitoba established the first PNP in 1998.
Purpose: To allow provinces and territories to select immigrants according to regional economic and labour-market needs and to distribute immigration more widely across Canada.
How it works: Provinces and territories nominate suitable candidates; the federal government makes the final permanent-residence decision.
Scale: 44,533 provincial nominees were admitted in 2015 and 88,257 in 2022.
Retention: Among 2010–2015 cohorts, five-year retention varied from approximately 94 per cent in Ontario and Alberta to 39 per cent in Prince Edward Island.
Important finding: Among nominees who moved province, 69 per cent cited economic reasons, generally employment for themselves or their spouse.
Canada's Atlantic provinces offer employers key partnerships
The Atlantic provinces face a particularly difficult retention challenge. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador experienced ageing populations, labour shortages and the departure of younger residents. They also competed with larger Canadian provinces for immigrants.
The Atlantic Immigration Pilot, launched in March 2017, took a different approach. Rather than concentrating primarily on selecting immigrants, it brought employers and settlement organisations directly into the process.
Employers could recruit candidates for vacancies they could not fill locally. Newcomers were required to have individual settlement plans, while designated employers worked with settlement organisations to help employees and their families settle. The programme's design explicitly built in retention.
An Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada evaluation published in October 2020 examined the pilot from its introduction in March 2017 to the end of the 2019–2020 financial year. It drew on administrative data, document and literature reviews, interviews, focus groups, and surveys of employers and immigrants.
By December 2019, 5,590 newcomers had arrived through the programme. New Brunswick received 45 per cent, Nova Scotia 34 per cent, and Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador about 10 per cent each. Almost three-quarters of participants had arrived in 2019, so the evaluation could provide only early evidence on retention.
Among 1,089 surveyed participants, 89 per cent reported still living in their intended province. The government cautioned that most respondents had arrived only recently. Nevertheless, the early results were sufficiently encouraging for the pilot to be made permanent as the Atlantic Immigration Program in 2022. By 2023, more than 17,100 principal applicants and family members had been admitted through the pilot and the permanent programme combined.
The Atlantic experiment introduced a principle that would become more prominent in subsequent Canadian programmes: selecting the immigrant was only one part of the intervention. Employers and local organisations were expected to participate in settlement and retention efforts.
INFO BOX: Atlantic Immigration Pilot/Program
Pilot launched: March 2017.
Made permanent: 2022 as the Atlantic Immigration Program.
Area covered: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Purpose: To fill labour shortages while increasing immigrant retention in Atlantic Canada.
Distinctive features: Employer-led recruitment, mandatory settlement planning and cooperation between federal and provincial governments, employers and settlement organisations.
Early scale: 5,590 newcomers by December 2019.
Early retention evidence: 89 per cent of 1,089 surveyed participants said they were still living in their intended province, although most had arrived recently.
Why it matters: The programme treated settlement support as part of labour recruitment rather than as an entirely separate service.
The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP)
The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP), introduced in 2019, took regionalisation further. Eleven communities across northern Ontario and western Canada participated. Rather than leaving immigrant selection primarily to federal or provincial authorities, local economic development organisations helped identify priority occupations and assess candidates against local needs.
The participating communities included North Bay, Sudbury, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay in Ontario; Brandon and Altona/Rhineland in Manitoba; Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan; Claresholm in Alberta; and Vernon and West Kootenay in British Columbia. Applicants needed qualifying employment and a community recommendation before applying for permanent residence.
Communities also accepted specific responsibilities. They committed to explaining the benefits of immigration to local employers and residents, helping newcomers settle by pairing them with established residents, connecting them with settlement organisations, and facilitating access to housing, education, transport and healthcare. This marked a measurable change in policy design. A community seeking immigrant workers was expected to demonstrate that it could also help those workers settle there.
By 2023, participating employers had issued more than 2,500 job offers, and 4,600 immigrants and their accompanying family members had been admitted. By the end of 2024, the number granted permanent residence under RNIP had risen to 8,580.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) also attempted to measure whether they stayed. In autumn 2022, IRCC conducted an online survey of 276 RNIP newcomers covering retention, use of settlement services, belonging and community collaboration.
Among respondents, 93 per cent were still living in their original RNIP community, and 88 per cent said they had no plans to leave. When the two measures were combined, 87 per cent said they had stayed and intended to stay. Including or excluding spouses did not alter the 93 per cent retention figure for principal applicants. However, the government explicitly cautioned against treating these figures as proof of long-term success.
Many RNIP immigrants had previously lived in the area as temporary residents, a status associated with higher retention. The pandemic may also have discouraged people from moving. And because the programme was only three years old when the survey was conducted, it could not establish five- or ten-year retention.
The reasons respondents gave for staying were nevertheless revealing. The leading answers included liking life in a smaller community, liking their job, and feeling welcome.
Among people who had left or were considering leaving, a leading reason was the lack of access to services unavailable locally, including specialised healthcare and higher education.
INFO BOX: Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP)
Introduced: 2019.
Ended: 2024.
Communities: 11 in northern Ontario and western Canada.
Purpose: To attract and retain immigrants in smaller communities with labour and demographic needs.
How it differed: Local economic development organisations identified priority sectors and occupations and recommended candidates.
Community obligations: Help newcomers obtain settlement services and access housing, healthcare, education and transport; encourage local acceptance; develop community connections.
Scale: 8,580 newcomers had received permanent residence by 31 December 2024.
Retention survey: Conducted by IRCC in autumn 2022; retention measured in October. Ninety-three per cent of respondents remained in their RNIP community and 88 per cent had no plans to leave.
Caution: These were early results; many participants had already lived locally as temporary residents and the pandemic may have reduced mobility.
If the basic conditions are right, immigrants will make provincial Canada their home
Canada’s programmes provide administrative evidence about retention. Academic research helps explain the decisions behind those figures.
A broad review by Canadian researchers examined the literature on immigration outside Canada’s largest urban centres. The evidence repeatedly identified employment and educational opportunities, housing, transport, access to services, family and friendship networks, and social inclusion as factors affecting retention.
Some of these issues are no different from those affecting Canadian-born residents. A town that cannot provide work for young Canadian adults cannot assume that an immigrant family will remain indefinitely simply because immigration policy initially brought them there. Employment is particularly important because household needs can differ from those of the person originally recruited.
The Statistics Canada PNP research provides unusually clear evidence: among provincial nominees who subsequently moved elsewhere, economic reasons were dominant, often involving employment for either the nominee or the spouse.
Housing
Smaller communities are often assumed to offer cheaper, more readily available housing than in Canada’s largest cities. Bronwyn Bragg, a human geographer at the University of Lethbridge, examined that assumption in research published in The Canadian Geographer in August 2024.
Her study used the small communities of Brooks in Alberta and Neepawa in Manitoba as case studies. Both had successfully used immigration to meet labour needs and to increase their populations.
Bragg found that this success did not resolve housing difficulties. Both communities faced inadequate supplies of affordable and available housing, with immigrants and temporary residents particularly affected. She cautioned that the research was preliminary and relied on secondary sources, but argued that immigration and labour policies cannot be sensibly separated from housing infrastructure.
Healthcare, transport and education
IRCC’s own RNIP research found that participants considering departure mentioned specialised healthcare and higher education unavailable in their communities. In much of rural Canada, lack of public transport can also make access to employment and services dependent on owning a car. Retention therefore depends partly on conditions that immigration departments do not control.
Canada’s latest programme is strongly community-focused
The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot ended in 2024. Its successor, the Rural Community Immigration Pilot, began in 2025 and remains open. Fourteen communities were selected across Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
The programme again offers a pathway to permanent residence for skilled workers willing to work and settle in participating rural and more remote communities. Local organisations designate employers, identify priority occupations and sectors, and recommend candidates.
The programme is too new to provide evidence of meaningful long-term retention. Its design, however, reflects what policymakers carried forward from earlier experiments: employment is tied to a specific community, local organisations participate in selection, and permanent residence rather than indefinite temporary status remains the principal immigration incentive.
The demographic rationale is substantial. Pictou County in Nova Scotia, one of the participating areas, saw its workforce shrink by 12 per cent between 2011 and 2021, even as the number of immigrant workers increased by 80 per cent. Federal economic modelling published for the programme estimates that, without immigration, the area’s workforce could decline by 40 per cent between 2021 and 2031.
In North Okanagan–Shuswap, British Columbia, the corresponding model estimates a possible 42 per cent decline in workforce size by 2031 without immigration.
These are projections rather than predictions, but they illustrate why smaller communities are interested in immigration, even as the federal government has reduced Canada’s overall immigration targets.
INFO BOX: Rural Community Immigration Pilot
Launched: 2025.
Status: Operating.
Communities: 14 across six provinces.
Purpose: To provide permanent residence to skilled workers who work and settle in participating rural and remote communities.
How it works: Local organisations identify priority sectors and occupations, designate employers and recommend candidates. Applicants require qualifying employment from a designated employer.
Immigration incentive: A pathway to Canadian permanent residence.
Retention evidence: None yet. The programme is too new for meaningful long-term measurement.
Significance: It continues the community-driven approach tested by the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot rather than returning regional immigration entirely to federal or provincial selection.
Incentives can influence settlement, but cannot guarantee it
Canada’s experience illustrates an important distinction between attracting immigrants and restricting their subsequent movement. The regional programmes offer substantial incentives. A suitable job in a participating community can provide access to a pathway to permanent residence that might otherwise not exist.
But permanent residents have mobility rights within Canada. Regional immigration programmes therefore depend substantially on immigrants genuinely choosing to remain after obtaining permanent status.
The Statistics Canada data show what happens afterwards. Among the 2010 cohort of provincial nominees, 89 per cent remained in their original province after five years and 85 per cent after ten years. At the national level, therefore, retention was high. But averages conceal enormous differences between places.
Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia retained very high proportions. The smaller Atlantic provinces lost substantially more. This suggests that immigration incentives can influence an immigrant’s first destination much more readily than their location ten years later.
The evolution of Canada’s programmes is significant. The Provincial Nominee Program gave provinces greater influence over who came. The Atlantic Immigration Pilot gave employers and settlement organisations greater responsibility. The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP) moved decision-making even closer to individual communities. RNIP's successor retains that community-based structure.
Canada has therefore gradually widened the question from which immigrants should be admitted? to include where workers are needed, which communities can support them and what makes newcomers remain?
Ontario’s Community Immigrant Retention in Rural Ontario programme makes this final point particularly explicit. Communities are encouraged first to examine what attracts newcomers and what prevents them from settling, looking at employment, education and housing, then to develop a strategy and subsequently to measure the results.
A community cannot simply identify population decline, decide that it needs immigrants, and expect immigration policy to solve the underlying causes of that decline. If residents have been leaving because employment is limited, housing is unavailable, transport is poor, or essential services are disappearing, newcomers will encounter many of the same conditions and may move on after a short period.
Principal sources
Statistics Canada
2021 Census of Population: immigration and settlement patterns, including the geographical distribution of recent immigrants.
Picot, Garnett; Crossman, Eden; Hou, Feng: Provincial Nominee Program: Provincial retention of immigrants after admission, 2023.
Statistics Canada data on five-year provincial retention rates for immigrants admitted through the Provincial Nominee Program.
Statistics Canada fertility data.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)
Immigration Levels Plans and permanent-resident admissions data. 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan
Evaluation of the Atlantic Immigration Pilot, 2020.
2023 Settlement Outcomes Report, including evaluation and survey evidence from the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot.
Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot programme data and results.
Rural Community Immigration Pilot programme information and community profiles.
Atlantic Immigration Program statistics and programme information.
Academic research
Haugen, Stacey; McNally, Rachel; Hallström, Lars: review of 90 Canadian studies on immigration, retention and secondary migration outside Canada’s largest urban centres, The Canadian Geographer, 2024.
Bragg, Bronwyn: Immigrant labour, rural economies, and the question of housing, The Canadian Geographer, 2024.
Government of Ontario
Community Immigrant Retention in Rural Ontario programme and guidance on newcomer attraction and retention.
Further reading from The Immigrant Times: Immigrants work || Foreign-trained doctors in Canada || Canada-Greenland Partnership ||
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