During Envision Saint John’s presentation to the City Council this week, the regional growth agency’s CEO Andrew Beckett voiced concern about the federal government’s announcement last week in relation to reduced immigration targets.
Noting the need for population growth in Saint John, he raised the prospect of this policy bringing a drop in numbers of people coming to the region, and an overall decline in the region’s population.
While he acknowledged it could cause problems in terms of securing talent for the local workforce, he also suggested that such a policy could counterproductively cause more issues in the area of housing, rather than help solve them. However, alternate views of the likely effects of the federal immigration policy came from the City Council, with Counsellor Brent Harris noting the importance of inter-provincial immigration to the region.
