dynamic

Dynamic infusi
A
ny doubts about the critical role that
immigrants will play in Nova Scotia’s
future economic growth will be quickly
quelled in a conversation with Paul
Pickering. He’s the workplace culture
coordinator for the Immigrant Services
Association of Nova Scotia (ISANS).
“Demographically, Nova Scotia is in
big trouble. We’re looking at a workforce
that’s projected to shrink by 15 per cent
over the next 20 years. This is not a fiveyear
blip — this is a long term, potentially
devastating problem. Even if we bring
every group in Nova Scotia up to full
employment, we’re still at a deficit. We
need to be looking at any underemployed
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population which certainly includes
bringing in more immigrants.”
Doing so requires that we confront
some lingering negative presumptions
about immigration, chief of which is the
belief that immigrants take jobs from locals.
“Immigrants actually create jobs,”
says Sherry Redden, Business and Workforce
Integration Manager at ISANS.
“They’re three times more likely to start
businesses. Of the 230 new clients we
worked with last year, 71 of them opened
new businesses. They’re also 70 per cent
more likely to still be in business after
three years, while the national average is
about 48 per cent.”
JULY & AUGUST 2016
According to Redden, immigrants
also bring valuable global connections
with them. “They have markets they can
connect with to export their products and
markets for the things they need to create
products,” she says.
Product diversification is another
unexpected windfall, with one example
springing up from the local community
gardens that ISANS helped refugees grow
all over Halifax. While many people grow
pumpkins en masse and then discard
the leaves, farmers from the Bhutanese
community use these leaves to make
delicious traditional recipes. Redden
observes that this is just one instance