Sask. needs to retain more immigrants, NDP says

The NDP is calling on the provincial government to enhance measures that would entice immigrants to remain in Saskatchewan. The opposition said one third of immigrants leave Saskatchewan within five years of arrival. They met with a group of foreign students this week to try and find out why.

Chemistry grad Navjot Kaur has been searching LinkedIn for a job and said most seem to be outside of the province.

“The most jobs I saw are in Ontario because they have good pharmacy companies there, Quebec or some health care jobs in British Columbia. These are the three provinces that pop up mostly,” Kaur said.

They are also among provinces with the highest five year immigrant retention rates of 80 per cent or more. The NDP say Saskatchewan’s rate is only 63 per cent.

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“If you don’t have good education, if you don’t have good health care, you don’t have good job growth perspectives, you’ve moved across the planet, you’ve left your home, what is it you know to move six hours away or two provinces over,” NDP MLA Aleana Young said.

Saskatchewan also has issues with climate and the age old complaint of not enough nightlife.

“You can’t have a nightlife here after 8:00 PM, the major thing the youngsters want, to be honest because even any of the malls, any of the shopping complexes, they just close after 6 p.m. or 7 p.m..” undergrad student Birpartap Bains said.

The government can’t do much about the weather or the nightlife but said more people have moved to Saskatchewan over the past three months than during the 16 years of the previous NDP administration.