Nova Scotia increases immigration cap

Thank you for idea Philipyeo.I am traying to finde a way to get my family and me in Canada for years.Its like Iam fighting against the wind.We have 2 small kids I am 41 y.o. and my wife is 34 y.o.We both have a high school diploma but its hard.I made a contact to David Cohen and he told me to that we have no chance to get there.Do you have any idea?We live in Serbia and we are ready to go anywhere in Canada just to get there.Thank you kinde regards Rade from Serbia

Thank you Philipyeo,

Indeed this province is doing well recently and immigrant should really follow what's going on in this area.

According to many analysts Nova Scotia is well ranked in Education: Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario have the highest per capita numbers of science, math, computer science, and engineering graduates and are considered above average.
Let's see this example: Nova Scotia, with a population of less than 1 million, has 11 public universities. By comparison, Ontario has a population of over 13.5 million and 20 public universities.
It is home to several universities with good international reputations for science and engineering programs that attract students from Nova Scotia and elsewhere.

In the last issues of Service Canada we can read that Nova Scotia has emerged as a predominately service sector economy in terms of employment and is expected to continue to do so over the forecast period.

- Demographic change has helped push Health services to the front in terms of current and future employment growth.
- A shift towards technology and knowledge intensive industries will continue to increase employment in Professional, Scientific and Technical Services.
- A rebound in offshore oil activity and mining should lead to a modest increase in Mining and Oil and Gas in Nova Scotia.
- Employment growth is also expected for Finance, Insurance and Real Estate and Accommodation and Food Services as the economy slowly improves.

Thanks again Philipyeo

Abdel

Hi Abdel,

Nice to meet you on Expat.com again. Actually Nova Scotia is slowly being more appealing to newcomers than your typically big and larger cities. However there's more grey haired folks here than there are young people as there's more work out in the west. Provincial income tax is also high, very high because of the fact that there's more older retired folks that the provincial gov needs to support for their medical but not enough younger working families around to pay income tax to support the older folks. The lack of resources is also contributing to the provinces' lack of spending power but hopefully, as you did mention, they'll slowly warm up to oil and gas exploration and eventually its extraction like Newfoundland did under the premier Danny Williams.

Also the fact that there's more universities here doesn't make good monetary sense as federal contribution to the universities are dependant on the number of registered voters. So there's actually less money from the feds and thus these universities depends more from the province to help them out. Funny thing is Ontario is happy with that because there's more federal MPs from there than there are from Nova Scotia, so changing the legislation to have federal contribution amount for universities to be based on the number of registered students (than number of registered voters) will not happen anytime soon.

Having said all that, Nova Scotia presents a better quality of life in my personal opinion than other larger cities, despite the lower wages here. Cost of home ownership is cheaper and then there's also lesser commute time for folks. Economically, the province is slowly building itself up and attracting more investment especially in the IT sector. The concept of "near-shoring" is becoming more appealing to corporations as oppose to off-shoring to India as Nova Scotia, being in North America share similar culture. So there's lots of plus for setting up IT shop here. Lastly, there's also the Naval warship building program that'll start next year too, which will help spur the economy further.

Hi Phillipyeo nice to meet you on Expat.com again too.

Not everything is great that's for sure, but comparing with long time ago, many immigrants start being interested to other provinces -rather than the “old” attractive ones Ontario, Alberta, Québec…- and Nova Scotia is one of them.

Indeed Nova Scotia had the highest percentage of seniors (16.5% in 2011 according to the HRSDC calculations based on Statistics Canada), the Provincial income tax is also high (but, for example, when a wage is over 40 000$ for a single income family with two children aging between 6 and 17 years, Québec and PEI overpass Nova Scotia), and as you mentioned there are few resources but not enough to get more spending power.

For the idea of having many universities, I want to emphasize the large choice for people who are interested to go back to study. I know some new immigrants that had difficulties to find a program in the capital city of the neighbour province of New-Brunswick and they could find this program only if they move to another city in the province. Things that, you will not suffer from if you are in Halifax for example. In order to face the two major challenges: an aging population and a growing shortage of skilled workers, I think Universities may hold the key.

Nonetheless, all universities in all Canadian provinces will face significant challenges in terms of enrollments over the next two decades, and that due essentially (as you mentioned it Phillipyeo) to the exodus of young people out of their home provinces.

The main thing, that keep me thinking, regarding the immigration in Nova-Scotia, is about the regionalization: Many of the newcomers arriving to Nova Scotia are settling in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), and it's obvious to choose the biggest city or the most economical city (like everywhere), however is that mean there is no life outside the HRM?

Of course not, so why then most people move to the capital? Some say there is no much “Services” for newcomers there are few settlement partners and very limited services for ESL learners outside HRM, none at the higher language level and few labour market or bridging programs for immigrants.
Also many immigrants could find in HRM their homeland products. Halifax is well served in this field versus the other cities.

I'm wondering if a new comer or someone used to live in other province and decide to settle in Nova Scotia (let's assume they already got a job), will that be a good idea to settle outside Halifax??

Abdel

Hi @rrade,

It does get harder after a certain age as one will loose points for that. Although not officially stated but I have seen a pattern where the changes made to the PR process tend to favour immigrants who come here as students first for their first / master degrees and then plan to settle down long term. Plus with a high school diploma only, it is harder as well. If you have some special skills and have certification for those like welding etc. you probably could try to position that. All the best.

Resettling in other towns apart from Halifax would not be ideal for most people as there's hardly any other town that offer all the benefits of a large city yet small enough to have a good quality of life. Halifax is one such place. The other towns are way too small and jobs are scarce to come by. But I do know of people who work from home and live in smaller towns. It all depends on one's luck, job, and choice of living.