Tourism and Immigration

Tourism and Immigration on first brush seem like an odd combination to share a governance webpage. However think of it as temporary and permanent visitors to our region. At any rate I have a letter posted below that highlights the critical shortcoming of Nova Scotia’s governance on both matters, and it is my hope that via self-governance the Province of C.B.I. can turn a mismanaged shortcoming into a strategic comparative advantage and thus essentially tourism and immigration prospectively represent 2 key platform areas for growth of our future new province. Please refer below:

Published in Inverness Oran, Port Hawkesbury Reporter & Cape Breton Post June 2006:

Dear Editor,

In 1999, two years before 9/11, there were 2,157,000 visitors to Nova Scotia. Despite a strong U.S. dollar in 2000, under tourism minister Rodney MacDonald tourism declined to 2,144,000 and in 2001 (with the peak of the season coming before 9/11) U.S. visitors again declined. After modest rebounds in 2002 and 2004, visitors in 2005, MacDonald’s last year in the ministry, totalled 2,147,000.

In 2005 MacDonald was appointed Nova Scotia’s first minister of immigration. In that year, Pierre Pettigrew, then Liberal federal minister of immigration, announced Canada intended to increase its population to 40 million from 32 million and launched a plan to open the country’s doors to 320,000 skilled immigrants per year by the time it is fully implemented within five years.

In Nova Scotia, the Tory government hopes to increase immigration back to 3,600 per year by the year 2010, where it stood in 1995 before falling 60 per cent to a low of 1,500 in 2003 under the Hamm government.

Meanwhile, according to claims of locals at the Inverness Co-op and Mabou Fresh Mart, there are likely close to those numbers now in exodus to Fort McMurray from Inverness County alone.

Canada will be building its future workforce and population through an annual immigration intake of 320,000 per year, one per cent of the current national population of just over 32 million. So if Nova Scotia was to share equally, as one of 10 provinces we should look to gain up to 32,000 people per year. But the Nova Scotia Tory provincial forecast is just 3,600 per year.

If we assume that Nova Scotia should have at least a growth of per cent per year via immigration, a provincial population of around 900,000 would mean an annual intake of at least 9,000.

The Conservative Party of Nova Scotia over the past seven years has shown little vision of growth and clearly does not have the ability to competently lead this province into the 21st century.

Mark Macneill
RR 4 Mabou