ST. PAUL – On March 10, the Town of St. Paul suspended application intakes from a provincial immigration program, noting challenges in the program’s implementation and limited benefits to the community.
The Town of Elk Point also indefinitely paused the program, and the County of St. Paul made the same decision during its Public Works meeting on March 25.
The Rural Renewal Stream (RRS) program, which is part of the Alberta Advantage Immigration Program (AAIP), was designed to help rural Alberta communities address labour needs and skill shortages.
It also acts as an immigration pathway by providing qualified newcomers in Canada an opportunity to gain permanent residency through the program.
Town of St. Paul discussion
During the Town of St. Paul council meeting on March 10, Linda Sallstrom, Economic Development Officer at STEP, recommended the Town withdraw from the RRS program as of April 1, due to the program’s lack of data in success rates, and the lack of STEP resources to work with the program.
The federal government also cut provincial nominee allocations by 50 per cent, which is 4,875 in Alberta, with 93 allotted specifically to the RRS program throughout the province. It is these allotted 93 spaces that Sallstrom said provided a lack of return value for the work involved with dealing with program.
“The [STEP] committee has come to the conclusion that the program effort and the workload now outweigh the employer and the community benefits,” said Sallstrom.
Knowing the success rate of candidacy is important to understanding the benefits of the program to the region, noted Sallstrom. But, even despite the STEP Alliance, on behalf of municipalities in the region, providing letters of endorsement for candidates, the federal government was unable to provide the success and failure rates of applications.
Attached in the agenda was AAIP’s most recent response to STEP requesting information.
“Unfortunately, RRS is unable to provide stats for Designated Communities at this time, due to the time and effort involved in processing these requests, and the large number of communities participating in this stream. RRS nomination stats will be provided at the quarterly Designated Community meetings, starting April 2025,” reads the response from the AAIP.
Town Coun. Nathan Taylor made a motion that the Town of St. Paul withdraw participation from the RRS program as of April 1.
During the discussion, some council members sought clarity, including Coun. Ron Boisvert who asked what would happen to applications currently being processed. Coun. Sid Sood expressed similar concerns with ongoing applications.
Sallstrom said if an applicant received a letter of endorsement, they could directly apply to AAIP. “They have to go through an expression of interest process again, which is another layer that may limit our candidates’ success.”
Mayor Maureen Miller said the Town previously supported the program to help employers find workers, and asked Sallstrom if there is still demand for labour.
Sallstrom affirmed that employers are still looking for labour, but the number of candidates moving through the program is not enough to support the demand.
“In theory, the program is very good,” she said. But practically, “It’s a struggle because we don’t know how many of those applications are actually successful.”
Miller asked if the Town could re-engage with the program at a later time.
If the program has been paused and not withdrawn, Sallstrom said it is possible.
Miller suggested pausing the program instead of withdrawing, due to the amount of work done in the past to get an RRS designation in the region.
Taylor said he was fine with amending his previous motion, believing bringing more people to rural areas is important to grow rural communities.
“I welcome new Canadians to our community,” however, he said the RRS program failed with the implementation.
Taylor explained the program allowed designated communities to be the “first filter” with vetting and endorsing immigrants that would benefit the local economy and stay in the community.
However, other communities failed to properly screen applicants and “flooded the system with anybody and everybody,” resulting in the province taking over the filtering process, and removing the ability for municipalities like the Town of St. Paul to properly vet and support immigrants that would be a good fit.
This turned the Town's role into an administrative workload, without the intended benefits, Taylor believes.
Miller said, “I respect STEP’s decision,” especially with constant changes in immigration policies, leading to uncertainty and more workload for STEP. “I just know the work it took to get a designation.”
Taylor amended his motion to suspend application intake until March 2026. This would also allow council and administration to bring the matter to stakeholders for feedback, and lessen the workload on STEP.
The motion was carried.
County of St. Paul discussions
A similar discussion took place during the County of St. Paul Public Works meeting on March 25, where Coun. Darrell Younghans, who sits at STEP’s board, made a motion to suspend the program indefinitely.
During discussions, Coun. Ross Krekoski said he acknowledged the challenges with the program, but hopes that as time goes by, there will be changes within the program that would allow for more people to come to the community.
“If you look at our population as a region, it is stagnant and aging,” which he said implies a further declining trend in population in the future.
“We need something in place to addresss that.”
The motion was carried.
Background
In March 2023, the STEP region, representing communities from the County of St. Paul, Town of St. Paul, Town of Elk Point, and the Summer Village of Horseshoe Bay, received RRS designation for a three-year period until March 2026.
An RRS designation means a designated municipality could issue a letter of endorsement to help an immigration candidate’s application for permanent residency.
The region’s STEP (St. Paul/Elk Point) Economic Development Alliance has been the organization working to implement the program.
In October 2023, while the RRS program had seen some success, STEP expressed concerns, citing a lack of provincial support leading to detraction from STEP’s other projects, which involves economic development and investment attraction in the region.
In December 2024, the STEP (St. Paul/Elk Point) Economic Development Alliance paused the RRS program until March 2025, to allow STEP to evaluate changes being made with the AAIP program.
