Town of Coaldale to join Taber in economic immigration program

Town of Coaldale Director of Growth and Investment Cameron Mills says access to skilled labour has been a challenge for smaller communities across southern Alberta for many years now.

He tells LNN that he has heard the same thing from business owners in Coaldale.

“Everyone from smaller restaurants to larger manufacturing operations are telling us that attracting and retaining workers has been a serious challenge over the last several years,” says Mills.

According to Mills, the AAIP allows businesses to more easily access “what is a fairly complicated federal government program.”

The complexity of the immigration program is part of the reason that the Town of Coaldale chose to partner with the Town of Taber.

“Taber has some dedicated staff that are working on this program that understand the ins and outs of it quite well, and they’ve been running it for the past few months in the Town of Taber,” says Mills. “We look at that and say, we don’t need to duplicate that, Taber is doing a good job. If we can partner with them, then we don’t have to divert those resources to getting things up and running.”

The Town of Claresholm was the first in Alberta to become part of the AAIP in February 2020, which was known at the time as the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot.

According to Mills, officials in Claresholm have told him that the program has been successful so far, and that he has learned a lot about how to get the AAIP off the ground in Coaldale.

The Government of Canada has approved Coaldale’s application for the program. Coaldale is set to come on board in March 2023.

Mills says the Town of Coaldale will meet with the Town of Taber next week to finalize the program.

More details on the AAIP are available on the Government of Alberta website.

by David Opinko

Town of Coaldale to join Taber in economic immigration program

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