Before the City of Brooks stepped in to help, Ebenezer Asare’s pharmacy had lost three pharmacists in six months.
They moved to Calgary and other big cities, lured by the pharmacist jobs that multiplied during the COVID-19 pandemic. Asare had to pay locums just to keep the doors open — travelling pharmacists who cost his shop double when he factored in mileage and accommodation.
But Brooks had a program uniquely positioned to help.
Since 2022, the southern Alberta city of about 18,000 has been working with the provincial government to acquire more authority over immigration decisions. Now it provides targeted endorsement letters to help trusted local businesses that need workers.
The program has had challenges, but for Asare it worked. Over a few years, he recruited nine pharmacists from overseas, secured permanent residency for many through the town’s endorsement letters, and set up a system to get them on-the-job training and recertification. It’s been so successful, he opened a second pharmacy in Medicine Hat.
“We picked them up [from the airport],” he said. “They got their banking set up, and in a week they started work in the pharmacy.”
As part of the referendum this fall, Albertans will be asked to vote on whether the province should have more control over immigration.
Immigration is typically under federal jurisdiction. So CBC News took a look at what control Alberta has already.
The Brooks program is called the rural renewal stream. It’s part of how Alberta currently targets immigration, and because it brings decision making to a level that’s even more local than what the province is asking for, it could offer lessons on benefits and drawbacks.
Ottawa changes the way it picks immigrants
This has all been happening in the context of significant change for Canada’s immigration system overall. The federal government responded to an acute post-pandemic labour shortage by substantially increasing immigration. And for several years, the population grew by 1 million annually.
The country also changed the way it selects immigrants.
Omid Asayesh is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Calgary studying immigration. He says Canada used to rely primarily on a points-based system: collect enough points for language, education and experience, and your application rises to the top.
After the pandemic, it began to focus more on attracting people in specific areas of the economy. For example, a nurse would be given priority because Canada had a shortage.
A ‘help wanted’ sign in the town of Taber in 2022. Taber is another town that joined Alberta’s rural renewal immigration program to address staffing issues. (Paula Duhatschek/CBC)
Alberta made the same shift. For years, it has been able to nominate individuals for permanent residency through the provincial nominee program — about 6,600 people in 2026 out of a total 380,000 permanent residents welcomed to Canada. After the pandemic, Alberta began to target specific categories, like tourism and rural economies.
Lisa Tiffin, an economic development officer in Brooks, says the city had been lobbying Alberta ministers for a greater say in immigration for years because the local meat packing plant and other businesses often have labour shortages.
Brooks was one of the first towns to set up a nomination program for permanent residency, in collaboration with four nearby towns and the county. Since then, the program has grown across the province with 4,300 nominations since 2022.
CBC News spoke with five officials from communities involved, or previously involved, in the rural renewal stream.
Town gets ‘busloads’ of would-be workers
Despite repeated requests over a period of three weeks, Alberta’s immigration minister was not available for an interview. Nor does he have any public speaking engagements scheduled regarding immigration, according to his press secretary.
In a statement sent from Joseph Schow’s office, the minister said the purpose of the rural renewal stream was “to give rural employers a direct way to fill workforce gaps when local hiring options run out, by attracting newcomers with specific, in-demand skills.”
Joseph Schow in his Cardston-Siksika riding. Schow is the Alberta Minister of Jobs, Economy, Trade and Immigration. (Helen Pike/CBC)
Several economic development officers said that’s how the program started — with an announcement on the province’s website that this town and this program would help local businesses fill jobs.
But then each town got slammed with attention.
Wanda Diakow, an administrator from the rural areas around Oyen in southeast Alberta, estimates they had 20 to 30 inquiries a day for the first six months.
Alexandra Ross, who previously worked as an economic development officer in the Calgary region, said they had buses arriving full of would-be employees who would flood local businesses with resumés.
And Tiffin in Brooks said she would come in to 500 new emails some mornings because a YouTuber had mentioned the community on an immigration podcast.
Wanda Diakow is economic director for Special Areas 3 and 4, a rural area in east central Alberta. She’s pictured here in front of a construction site in the town of Oyen when the Keystone pipeline was under construction. (CBC News)
“It was crazy,” said Diakow. “I don’t think we understand how desperate they are to be able to apply for permanent residency, right?”
“The businesses were just absolutely stunned,” said Ross.
And it was hard on the town administration, too.
“As economic development officers, we have broad responsibilities. … The rural renewal program was supposed to be a component of economic development, but it really became a full-time job at times,” Ross said.
Communities put limits on immigration program
Soon many communities dramatically scaled back their programs, either voluntarily or because the province gave them a smaller allotment. Also, many stopped accepting applicants from outside of the country and narrowed the program to work only on cases initiated by a local business. Some set up volunteer committees to review who should get the endorsements.
Some restricted endorsements to only skilled trades or professionals — not entry-level positions — and mandated that jobs must provide at minimum a living wage for the region.
Some administrations also took measures to reduce fraud. In Brooks, for example, the city will only consider applications from businesses that have been in operation for two years.
“And that’s not just having a business licence,” said Tiffin. “Brooks is small enough that if I don’t recognize the name of that business, you’re not active.”
A file photo of Main Street in the east central town of Oyen, Alta., where many businesses struggle to attract workers. (CBC News)
Provincial officials seemed to be struggling as well. At one point, Alberta had such a large backlog of applications that it took nearly two years for endorsement letters to get through the system, said Sandra Blyth, an economic development officer in Olds.
Payoff in employee retention
Most of the five development officers CBC News spoke with said ultimately, the program is useful to their communities. But it’s less about bringing new people in, and more about helping local businesses keep the workers they already have — people who are here on open work permits with a temporary status.
Many of them are international students, willing to work service jobs outside of their expertise just to stay in the country, or they’re Ukrainians who fled the war, and others with a permit they need to regularly get renewed.
Having a local say who gets permanent residency is valuable, said Tiffin.
Otherwise, “the people in Edmonton who are reviewing these applications, they don’t know the difference between a mom and pop welding company who really only has two employees … and one of them is a Ukrainian welder who’s just so dedicated to work, versus any other file that crosses their desk.”
There’s a real joy when individuals and their families are settled, said Diakow.
“I’ve just seen a bunch of people that had got their Canadian citizenship and it chokes me up because they were so proud to be a Canadian, you know? I just think, man, we all take it for granted.”
A banner welcomes families with young children at the SPEC Association in Brooks, Alta., where 49 per cent of the population is a visible minority, owing to a history of strong immigration. (Collin Gallant/CBC)
But some communities decided the work wasn’t worth the payout. The economic development officers said several municipalities have paused or cancelled local programs, including Sylvan Lake.
In a report to council, Sylvan Lake officials said the program was oversubscribed and too slow to be useful for many businesses. And because most of the positions that local businesses were trying to fill paid minimum wage, it wasn’t meeting the town’s goal of attracting long-term residents.
“It was quite a lot of work,” said Amanda Mercer, economic development officer. “We were just feeling like it was a little too much for one, for one person to keep doing long term.”
The pros and cons of local control
At the University of Calgary, Asayesh has been watching Alberta’s immigration programs develop, and trying to make sense of the immigration questions it’s putting to the public this fall.
He says the downside of targeting specific industries as Canada and Alberta are doing is that it’s often short-term thinking.
As long as communities have the staffing capacity to handle the work, local control has benefits because local authorities, whether provincial or municipal, are in a good position to see local needs as they change in real time, he said.
Omid Asayesh is a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Calgary who focuses on immigration policy. (Submitted by Omid Asayesh)
But the previous points-based system had the benefit of attracting well-qualified people who had a system they could count on and work toward.
Immigrants tend to plan their move years ahead, he said. If the rules keep changing to meet immediate labour needs, it reduces a potential immigrant’s ability to plan, which can increase opportunity for fraud and bad actors.
“If you want to see the benefits of migration, you should be patient,” he said.
“If every community is trying to just prioritize their short-term need, the big picture will be messy. Nobody will know what’s going on, who’s coming in and what will be the future of Canada in five years, in 10 years.
“Immigration is a long-term project. It is not a good idea to fill out the short-term needs with immigration. It needs a sophisticated, sustainable plan.”
‘It’s not a neutral question’
But even when all those pros and cons are acknowledged, there’s another factor that will complicate the vote in October: there’s politics involved, Asayesh said. Many Canadians now see immigration levels as too high.
On Oct. 19, one of the 10 referendum ballots will ask: “Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities?”
“It’s not a neutral question,” Asayesh said. “It is a political statement. It can be understood as a political statement.”
“This question is a way for the Alberta government to distance itself from the federal government.”
How will he vote? He said it’s tough to say.
“It’s a yes, no question. It seems neutral, but in practice it may become politicized, promoting anti-immigration sentiment and rhetoric. That’s my concern.”