Alberta freezes two immigration programs
Starting this week, the Alberta government is no longer accepting new applications for the family stream and U.S. visa holder category of the Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program (AINP).
The U.S. stream allowed people employed in the United States to work in their field in Alberta. The family stream allowed Alberta residents to nominate certain relatives for immigration to the province. The province’s employment and immigration minister Thomas Lukaszuk said the measure was necessary to protect the Alberta job market.
Lukaszuk noted that there are Albertans who can’t find work in the province because of bad job market conditions, and competition from unemployed foreigners would only worsen the situation.
Alberta’s unemployment rate is now at 6.3 per cent. It has been fluctuating between six and seven per cent range since last year. Last March and October, it reached 7.5 percent – the highest level in over a decade. In 2009, the province nominated almost eleven thousand people through the AINP program. Almost 500 of those were in the family program and 943 were U.S. visa holders.
The freeze will not affect applications that are already submitted. Alberta government says the measure is temporary.