Quebec doing better at retaining immigrants, Atlantic Canada still struggling

Immigrants are increasingly choosing to stay in Quebec, according to a new report from Statistics Canada, but the same isn't true in the Atlantic region.

Immigrants are increasingly choosing to stay in Quebec, according to a new report from Statistics Canada, but the same isn’t true in the Atlantic region, which continues to lose newcomers to the rest of the country.

Out of all the immigrants admitted into Quebec in 2021, almost 94 per cent of them were still in the province one year later — a jump of 8.8 percentage points compared with the 2018 cohort of newcomers. The largest increases of newcomers choosing to stay in Quebec were in the economic category, the StatCan report said.

Catherine Xhardez, assistant professor of political science at Université de Montréal, said the StatCan report is welcome news for Quebec because unlike in the rest of the country, the provincial government controls its economic immigration stream.

“It’s also a question of competition. You want the best and brightest to stay because if you invest in them, if you select them, you do not want them to go to Ontario,” said Xhardez, who also directs ÉRIQA, a research group that studies immigration to Quebec.

Decades ago, when the Quebec unemployment rate was much higher than the current 5.7 per cent, immigrants were leaving the province at a much higher rate, Xhardez pointed out, saying job opportunities and social programs are key to keeping newcomers.

“It really depends on living conditions and opportunities for migrants. That is the biggest factor for people moving from one province to another province,” she said.

With the latest data already a few years old, Xhardez admits that changes in Quebec’s political climate — the government regularly blames immigration for threatening the French language — and the province’s recent decision to freeze several immigration programs may impact future immigration trends. Such actions may have the effect of driving immigrants away, she said, especially considering other provinces also target francophones.

Quebec isn’t the only province to have high immigrant retention rates. Ontario leads the country — 94.6 per cent of newcomers admitted to the province in 2021 were still there one year later. In British Columbia it was 91.7 per cent and in Alberta is was 89.5 per cent.