[LINK] "Immigration helping keep P.E.I. population stable"

[rfmcdonald]

The Guardian of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island recently featured Ron Ryder's article "Immigration helping keep P.E.I. population stable", the most significant portions of which are excerpted below.

Growth in immigration and a net gain of migrating Canadians are keeping P.E.I. from losing population according to numbers from Statistics Canada Tuesday.

The federal numbers agency reported P.E.I. had a total population of 135,851 in 2006, compared to 135,294 Islanders in 2001. The gain represents an increase of less than half a percentage point.

The city of Charlottetown saw its population slip slightly over the same period, from 32,245 to 32,174.

What growth there was could be attributed to newcomers. Statscan found that there were 505 Islanders who had lived in a different country the previous year and 2,745 who had been living in a different province or territory.

America was the greatest source of international immigrants to P.E.I. Ontario was the province that sent the most internal migrants — 2,680 — to the Island from 2001 to 2005. Some 2,125 Islanders went to Ontario over the same period.

Marc Melanson, regional advisor for Statistics Canada, said P.E.I. was one of very few provinces to attract more people from other provinces than it lost.

"All of the other Atlantic Provinces have a net loss to other provinces, Quebec has a net loss, Ontario has a net loss. Where Ontario and Quebec make up ground is in the fact that they are major destinations for immigrants," he said.

[. . .]

Development Minister Richard Brown said P.E.I. wants to get serious about bringing in a greater number of immigrants. He said the Island needs new blood to revitalize with an aging population--as it stands the province will have more people leaving the workforce than entering it by 2010 or 2011. The situation becomes more acute in about 20 years, when Statistics Canada predicts the Island will have more people dying every year than are born.

"This is something we are dealing with now. We have had some of our people going around to different Canadian embassies. We had people in China, Korea and Hong Kong. We want to make sure that when someone comes in to the embassy to talk about immigrating to Canada that P.E.I. gets mentioned.

"It’s a critical issue for P.E.I., something we want to deal with . . . We have to have the people here to fill jobs if we want companies here. We need the companies to pay taxes, to build the economy."

Brown said the province is working with the Association for Newcomers to put plans in place that will ease the arrival of new Islanders. He said established immigrant communities such as those from the Philippines, the Netherlands or Lebanon are a great resource in attracting and assisting newcomers. He said the predominantly white and Christian province is showing no hesitation about bringing in people from different backgrounds.

As one might expect, yahoos in the comments wonder why Prince Edward Island is diluting its unique culture with immigrants from non-white nations, some wondering why Island women don't reproduce more and others calling for a return to the family farm. On the whole, though, the commenters seem relatively and refreshingly realistic about the Island's population challenges.