BONNYVILLE – The Town of Bonnyville is likely to be one of the latest northeastern municipalities to be able to offer the Government of Alberta’s Rural Renewal Stream Program (RRS) to businesses operating within the town.
The RRS program is designed to support the attraction and retention of foreign workers to rural Alberta in eligible occupation sectors.
The program requires a municipality to apply to the Government of Alberta to receive a ‘host community’ designation to participate in the program. As such, administration presented the option to apply to the provincial program to council.
Town council approved the submission of an RRS application to the province during a regular council meeting on June 27.
Prior to council voting on whether to approve an application submission, Coun. Neil Langridge shared that while visiting local businesses over the last few months, “There is one massive hurdle that I could probably say 90 per cent of the businesses have, and that is bodies – they need them. They do not have enough workers.”
Langridge went on to say that while businesses seem to have a lot of work, they may be forced to turn down jobs simply because they are uncertain if they will have the manpower to complete it.
“It will be crucial that the proper communication goes out to our businesses that this is going to be an option for them,” said Langridge.
Mayor Elisa Brosseau also acknowledged that business owners have reached out to her wanting the Town to get on board with the RRS program.
“It'll be very welcomed by many of the businesses especially when we talk about hotels, retail and the food industry. They are the ones who are currently suffering,” noted the mayor.
Providing background on the matter, the Town’s CAO Bill Rogers told council, “The Rural Renewal Stream Program... supports the attraction and retention of newcomers to rural Alberta through a community driven approach to supports local economic development needs and contributes to the growth of our community. It's designed to address current labour needs and skill shortages in rural Alberta and helps newcomers settle into the community.”
In the last year, the Alberta government has introduced two new programs aimed at increasing immigration and immigrant entrepreneurs to rural Alberta. The Town of Bonnyville was accepted into the Rural Entrepreneur program in May of 2022.
Rogers went on to say, “In fact, the program is attractive to employees because it offers newcomers a path to permanent Canadian residency. The program is an economic immigration vehicle that allows municipalities to offer foreign nationals a letter of nomination once they have a job offer from an eligible and approved business.”
Since the program was introduced in early 2022, over 25 rural Alberta communities have joined the RRS program.
Northeastern municipalities that have signed up to be host communities for the RRS program include the County of St. Paul, along with the Town of St. Paul, the Town of Elk Point, and the Summer Village of Horseshoe Bay, who completed an application as one host community.
RELATED STORY: STEP Economic Development Alliance optimistic provincial program will help address labour challenges
The City of Cold Lake, the City of Lloydminster, the County of Barrhead and Athabasca County have also signed up for the program.
RELATED STORY: City of Cold Lake hopeful provincial program will boost local economy
Town administration noted that once designated as a RRS community, “The community then works with employers to attract, recruit and retain newcomers by sharing information on settlement supports. This may include accommodation, education, health care and services such as language training.”
To be eligible, a candidate must be selected and endorsed by a designated community and meet all criteria for the Rural Renewal Stream.
“Our focus is on the Town of Bonnyville. So, each candidate that an employer comes to us with is going to require a letter from the Town outlining how this individual will suit the Town of Bonnyville’s economic development goals,” outlined Rogers.
"If we don't endorse the individual brought to us by an employer, they don't get included in the program.”
There are several requirements that must be met before the municipality can provide a letter of candidacy.
For example, an eligible candidate must be seeking work in an eligible job classification and has been working in their field for at least a year, whether in Canada or not, on a full-time basis. The employer must also be able to provide a minimum of 30 hours per week, for 12 months or more.
“And if they meet these requirements... we will have to review and we will have to prepare a recommendation for the province. So, this is where our time is spent,” explained Rogers.
Once designated as a host community, the Town will also be responsible for working with organizations to identify and plan for some of the settlement needs within the community as well as developing and implementing a plan for welcoming and settling foreign nationals to the community.
As discussed by the County of Barrhead, settling foreign workers can be a challenge for a municipality when faced with limited housing and childcare.
RELATED STORY: Tight rental market could impact efforts to find workers
Suggestions provided by administration that could mitigate a variety of possible challenges include developing additional criteria, narrowing down the occupations that the community is interested in recruiting, or insisting that employers must have housing secured for new employees, among other conditions.
Help wanted
To further understand the current labour shortage impacting the Town of Bonnyville, the municipality sought a report from Alberta Labour.
The report compared job postings listed during the month of March in 2022 and March of 2023. The report shows that there were nearly 40 per cent more job postings during March of this year compared to last year.
This translates to at least 200 positions waiting to be filled by skilled workers compared to 147 positions last March.
