Businesses in Saskatchewan are facing a big problem. The Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP) has suddenly been put on hold. This has made it hard for them to find new workers and keep the ones they already have.
The SINP is the only immigration program that the provincial government controls. Last month, the intake for job approval forms was stopped. This means no new job approvals for the program, but people can still get a federal work permit or nominations for jobs that have already been approved.
No one knows when the program will start again. Employers also don’t know what the program will be like when it does. Nick Mastromatteo is one such employer. He’s worried about planning for his business’s future. His employees are also worried about their own futures.
Mastromatteo is a director at Insul Fibre, an insulation company in Saskatoon. He said insulation will be one of the fastest – growing trades in the next 10 years. His crew has grown from 18 workers to 45 in the past year.
Forty percent of his new hires have come through the SINP. He said the pause has affected his workplace. “The uncertainty of when the program will open has been a big strain on our industry as a whole,” he said.
About half of his employees who came through SINP will need to renew their work permits in the next six months. Even when an application is accepted, it can take a long time to process.
Mastromatteo’s company has work booked until 2028. They always need more workers. They often get complaints from other contractors on projects who have to wait for their product. He said right now, using the SINP is about keeping workers.
“Insul Fibre has trained these employees. They’ve worked for us for six, eight, or 12 months. If a skilled labourer in the insulation industry has to go home and we have to re – train someone else, it will cause big problems for building projects and increase delay costs,” he said. Mastromatteo spoke at the invitation of the Sask. NDP.
Noor Burki, the Sask. NDP’s immigration and career training critic, and Aleana Young, the jobs and economy critic, were there. They called for the program to be restarted right away.
Young said the government made the change without any consultation or notice. “It should be easy to reverse this and give certainty to skilled workers and small businesses during this time of economic challenge,” Young said.
Burki said he’s been getting calls from workers and business owners across the province. They’re all worried about their future.
Immigration Minister Jim Reiter hopes the pause will be short. On Friday, he said he wants to meet with the ministry to figure out what the program will look like in the future. Then he wants to open the intake again soon.
“We know this is causing stress for some people. We’ll make this pause as short as we can. Then we’ll let people know which parts of the economy we’ll be focusing on,” Reiter said.
Because of allocation cuts and requirements from the federal government, Reiter said there are only about 900 spots left this year. These spots will be used to target specific sectors in the economy to meet challenges. He didn’t say which markets will get workers and which will have slower applications. But he thought health care is a sector that really needs workers.
“Of the areas they’re looking at, I think it’s safe to say health care will be one of them. We need specialists. In the past, there have been efforts to recruit nurses from the Philippines. Those workers would come from that small target of 900,” Reiter said.
Reiter said the government thought it would be unfair to keep taking applications and let them pile up while they made changes. He said about 200 applications come in every week. The new allocation would be filled up in a month.
Reiter said the situation is a problem. He’s asked the government to look at it again. This includes talking to and writing a letter to his federal counterpart.
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