Smaller cities of Canada are gaining preferences amongst immigrants.

Although Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal still absorb the majority of newcomers to Canada, their respective national shares of immigrants has been consistently decreasing as most of the newcomers have started calculating the advantages of living in smaller cities rather than larger.

A statistics that was released recently by the Citizenship and Immigration Canada reveals that small and midsized urban areas in Canada are enjoying an immigration boom.

The number of immigrants who took residence in Charlottetown, Price Edward saw an increase of almost 73 percent in 2007 as compared to the previous year. The number was up by almost 37 percent in Moncton, New Brunswick. More than 40 percent increase in the number of immigrants was seen in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and a small community saw an increase of 93 percent newcomers in the year 2007.

The main reason for this change is the shifting of the economic and employment prospects throughout the country and also the successful regional initiatives like the Provincial Nomination Program, and a better and enhanced recruitment and retention efforts in almost all the smaller cities.

More often, it is the major urban cities that are cited as a preferred destination for the new immigrants because of their established ethnic communities and more economic opportunities for all who might not have a high proficiency in English or French.

Unlike the earlier observations, recent studies have disclosed that almost all the newcomers who settle in smaller cities enjoy a better economic integration. Outside the area of Canada’s three largest metropolises, labour force participation is highest, unemployment rates are lower, immigrants enjoy higher incomes, and also, they find less crowded houses. Moreover, all the immigrants who have come from big busy cities in their home countries prefer to settle in smaller and quieter communities in Canada.

CIC has been making several efforts in order to spread newcomers all over the country. In order to do so, CIC has been encouraging smaller cities to set up their own recruitment and retention efforts in order to educate immigrants about various possible destinations in Canada.

In order to increase the labour pool, raise the municipal tax base in the country, and adding more cultural diversification to the communities, it is very important that newcomers spread around the country. Thus, an influx of new immigrants to smaller and mid sized cities is very beneficial in this sense.

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