Framework to grow immigration announced for Sarnia-Lambton

Sarna-Lambton has about one-third of the immigrants per capita as the province, an older-than-average population, and needs immigration to sustain the community, says the chairperson of a task force trying to make that happen.

The majority of immigration to the community during the last several years has been international students attending Lambton College then finding employment and choosing to stay in the community, said Judy Morris, chair of the Sarnia-Lambton immigration task force steering committee.

But it hasn’t been enough yet to compensate for the generational shift of looming retirements, she said.

Projections predict the community will grow in population in 25 years or so “but we are not growing anywhere (now) close to what Ontario or Canada are growing,” the former Lambton College president said.

The task force, formerly known as the president’s immigration task forcethis week unveiled it’s five-year framework to turn that trend around.

The group, which includes Sarnia and Lambton County government leaders, officials at Lambton College, Bluewater Power, the Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership, chamber of commerce, Center Communautaire Francophone de Sarnia-Lambton and others, is proposing four groups tackle a series of goals , with updates every six months, Morris said.

Broadly, the aims include making more connections between students and potential employers; making employment expectations and requirements clear; boosting equity, diversity and inclusion training for local businesses while emphasizing the caliber and talent of the international student population; and lobbying for federal and provincial funding to help make things happen such as direct links to employment for newcomers in areas where there’s a shortage, she said.

On top of that, the task force is working on continuing the work of groups such as the Sarnia-Lambton Immigration Partnership to make sure community supports are in place for newcomers, and hopes are — if it’s feasible — to develop some sort of in- person or virtual one-stop shop for newcomers for local settlement services and jobs, she said.

“It’s going to take funding and things like that, but it would be, I think, a great deliverable.”

While Sarnia-Lambton’s immigrant population is about 10 per cent, versus 30 per cent in Ontario — rural and smaller communities across the province are in a similar plight, Morris said — Sarnia has seen spikes during the last two years in recent immigrant arrivals, and the number of non-permanent residents—such as international college students—in the community, she said.

Surveys with international students after they graduate generally have revealed they’d love to stay in the community, but need to find employment, she said.

“So, we have a pool of students who are non-permanent that we want moved to permanent residents,” she said.

Goals, in the short-term, include conducting diversity training awareness with local employers by May 30; identifying local skill shortages and partnering with the college to identify co-op placements, by August; and by the end of the year, to hire an immigration consultant to work with small and medium-sized businesses, according to a document provided by Morris.

Hopes are to reevaluate and update the framework every year, Morris said, noting a consultant from the Center for Organizational Effectiveness, hired by Lambton College, helped lay the groundwork for the plan by interviewing graduates, international students and others.

The plan also is to encourage immigration of all kinds in the community, not just international students, she said.

More information about goals and progress could be publicly available in the future, she said.

For now, details about the groups is available at lambtoncollege.ca/slimmigration.

Regular meetings happen between the task force’s various sub-groups, she said, adding “this is an important, important, community-changing task force that has an obligation to work with the community to make sure we are going to meet our mission and our goals.”

Those include “increasing the population, ensuring the skilled workforce is supplied, ensuring that we have a diverse workforce, and ensuring” there’s a welcoming community for international students to work within, she said.

Lambton College had about 1,750 international students attend during its 2023 winter term, a college spokesperson said.

Sarnia’s population according to the 2021 census was about 72,000, up about 500 from 2016.

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