Nova Scotia’s Immigration Minister will ask the federal government to remove the cap on the number of applicants the province is allowed to nominate through the Provincial Nominee Programme each year.
Speaking yesterday after a summit where 175 Nova Scotian business leaders discussed immigration, the Minister, Lena Diab, told reporters: “I don’t see why we need to have it [a cap] in Nova Scotia. I want flexibility and we want more control over our own programme, more than what we’ve ever had in this province. And I believe we’ve proved ourselves.
“I will ask for it to be eliminated. Not just raised, so we’ll see.”
The number of applicants that the province is currently allowed to nominate through the system was this year raised to 1,350 a year, having been just 700 in 2014. However, the cap is still easily being reached, and pleas to the previous government to raise the cap further fell on deaf ears.
But with a new Liberal Federal Government having been elected last week, Diab is hopeful that there could soon be even more immigrants settling in Nova Scotia in the near future.
In 2014, the province took in 2,670 people, which included federal applicants, provincial nominees and their families.