Immigration policy protests to continue daily in Charlottetown, workers vow

Immigrants to P.E.I. with soon-to-expire work permits are continuing to protest in downtown Charlottetown. 

Island workers with expiring permits in the retail and food service sectors will likely not have their documents renewed, due to recent changes to the province's immigration streams and Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) that will prioritize construction, health-care and child-care workers.

"We want them to grandfather us in and we want them to listen [to] what is right," says Rupinder Pal Singh, an internet technology sales representative who's lived in Charlottetown for one and a half years. His work permit is set to expire in two months.

"They want P.E.I. to grow... we want to be a part of it," he said.

"They called us here, now they want us to leave," Singh said. "They're eliminating sales and services, food sector — this is not the right thing."

The protest began on Thursday morning with about two dozen people turning out in the rain holding homemade signs. By Friday afternoon, the group had nearly tripled to about 75 people, including employers, friends and Island workers who have already been granted permanent residency.

The protesters plan to continue from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, including weekends, until a change is made.

We know it's a difficult situation for a lot of people.— Jeff Young, P.E.I. Office of Immigration

"I totally get that the population has been increasing. But yes, in order to fulfil the requirements of those populations, we need the employees as well," says Prabhjot Singh.

He already has the documents he needs in order to stay, but said he was at the protest to support his friends and colleagues.

Immigration official meets with protesters

Jeff Young, the director of the P.E.I. Office of Immigration, met with some of the protesters on Friday morning to hear their stories.

"We know it's a difficult situation for a lot of people," Young said. "But as the premier announced on Feb 22, the immigration measures that were announced were in an effort to manage our population growth."

Young said that the change to focus on offering a faster track to permanent residency for people with health-care, child-care and construction experience, among others, won't entirely eliminate service sector employees from getting permits.

"I think it's about 215, 220 that have been allocated to the sales and service sector this year," he said.

But he said that is a significant decrease from past years when 700 to 800 service sector employees annually were granted a work permit, allowing them to gain Canadian experience and eventually apply to the federal government for permanent resident status.

This year, the province of P.E.I. will nominate just under 1,600 people for the path to permanent residency, which is down from about 2,100 last year but similar to the numbers in 2015.

In total, Young said there are about 11,000 temporary residents on the Island, including people with study permits and work permits, but he doesn't know how many people the changes will impact.

A temporary change?

The province has said the changes to the immigration system are only temporary, but didn't give specifics on the timeline.

"We're reviewing it on a regular basis to determine what the outcomes are," said Young. "We're only, I think, about 60 days into it, so I think it's a little too early to determine… when that temporary change might be lifted."

Young did say his office is trying to help new Islanders whose work permits will soon be expiring.

"We do have staff who will be reaching out within the coming days to those individuals who specifically have work permits expiring in 2024 to kind of talk about where their process is at, where their file is at, and to assure them that we will be processing their files this year," he said.

While many of the workers are asking to be given an exemption from the new rules if they were on P.E.I. before the changes took effect, Young says it's not that easy, given the limited number of nominations that the province can distribute. 

For the workers who are already here, Young recommends looking at other immigration streams, or other types of employment.

"We would encourage people to look at what options are out there and what industries that they may be able to gain employment in that may make their journey toward PR more effective."

A statement from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said it has not reduced any province or territory's Provincial Nominee Program allocation in 2024, and told CBC News to ask the P.E.I. government any questions about how it chooses to use — or not use — its allocation.

On May 8, IRCC approved Manitoba's request to extend temporary resident status for potential nominees identified under the province's Provincial Nominee Program who have work permits that will expire in 2024.

The IRCC says that it's "open to exploring options with other provinces and territories to transition a greater portion of current temporary residents to permanent residence and address their labour market needs."

'No promises'

After speaking with Young, Rupinder Singh said he wasn't confident any change would come.

"They definitely say that there will be something in the future that they can do," he said. But, he added: "They did no promises."

Singh says his desire to stay on the Island hasn't changed — he just wants the support of policy-makers.

"We only get once-a-lifetime chance… We came to P.E.I. because they made these rules that we can apply for PR after six months, one year," he said. "But they changed it overnight."

And while the change may have the most impact on Singh and other workers, he says it's only a matter of time before the general population of P.E.I. sees ripple effects.

"Yes we will be affected, but definitely they will be affected too — when they have to wait for 20 minutes for the same cup of coffee that they get in two minutes," Singh said.