RNIP is back.
But now it’s called RCIP.
The announcement was made on January 30 by federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller. The Rural Canada Immigration Pilot is almost a carbon copy of the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot, which had a successful five-year run in the North Bay region and 10 other locations across Canada.
See: New immigration pilot project should help fill labour shortage gaps
The new program adds three more municipalities and keeps North Bay, Timmins, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay and their surrounding areas in the fold. Timmins and Sudbury will also be part of a new stream for francophones.
RNIP helped attract students to both Canadore College and Nipissing University, with the prospect of permanent residence following graduation and landing a full-time job in an eligible field. RCIP will do the same.
There will be renewed interest from people outside the region but hundreds of qualified candidates are already here, working, paying taxes and contributing to our economy.
As the program evolves, we can expect to see it attract more international students and workers to the region. Whether we will see the numbers RNIP attracted is unknown, given the federal government’s slashing of the number of study and work permits in the past year, in an effort to reduce the temporary resident population in Canada.
Regardless, it is good news for local employers struggling to find people to fill job vacancies. It is also good news for Canadore and Nipissing, and for the city and region, which is gradually becoming multicultural, and looking more like the rest of Canada.
The federal government’s rollout left something to be desired. It shut down the popular RNIP program at the end of August 2024 and had nothing to replace it until now. It has a new name, but it’s pretty much the same program.
The intention is to make it a permanent immigration stream, which is good news for the five major Northern Ontario cities.
Once again, the North Bay & District Chamber of Commerce will be running the program, with two coordinators housed there. It will take a while to get it up and running. Meanwhile, those interested in applying can sign up for email program updates from the Chamber here https://nbdcc.ca
Once again, it is a two-step process, with the first step consisting of applicants applying on the North Bay website, in the hopes of earning a community recommendation. Once they have a community recommendation they proceed to an immigration application through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
The entire process takes six to 12 months.
Applicants have to have a full-time job offer in an acceptable field, English or French test results compatible with their job level, at least a high school education, although most have multiple degrees and diplomas, police clearances from their home country and any other country they have spent six months or more in since the age of 18, and much more.
Government changes to immigration over the past year have caused a lot of anxiety among international students and workers in Canada. They came to Canada under one set of rules, only to see the rules change.
The federal government, in cutting study and work permits, was reacting to public opinion that international students and workers were causing house and rental prices to rise.
There is likely a kernel of truth in that, but prices have been rising for years, before the large increases in international numbers during the COVID period. I am not an economist, but I am sure there are many factors involved in housing and rental prices.
The Chamber has to get a new website up and running, the coordinators have to learn the new program, which shouldn’t take long as it is almost the same as the one it’s replacing, and they have to get new forms and processes in place.
Newcomers are eager to get their applications into the system and will be looking for updates from the Chamber anxiously.
Without this program we would have seen what we have seen for years—newcomers gravitating to the large cities and ignoring Northern Ontario. Those days are over.
Editor’s Note: Don Curry is a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant living in North Bay, and a member of Bay Today’s community advisory committee.