NWT to issue new nominee program guidance in February

The NWT government will make changes to how it runs its nominee program, a key immigration initiative, when that program eventually reopens.

However, what those changes will be and when the program will reopen remain unclear.

The nominee program had been due to resume accepting applications earlier in January but the GNWT paused that resumption at the last minute, moments after learning the federal government had cut the program’s annual cap from 300 to 150 people.

There has been no formal clarification since about what will happen next.

In an interview with Cabin Radio this week, Caitlin Cleveland – the NWT minister responsible for immigration – acknowledged some people had expressed concern about the GNWT’s approach to the nominee program even before its January reopening was suddenly scrapped.

Groups like the Yellowknife and NWT chambers of commerce had said they worried that applicants with expiring work permits might lose out in a first-come, first-served system like the one the GNWT had said it would use to fill an initial 100 places.

Applicants and immigration consultants have told Cabin Radio a system based on whoever applies first is “very stressful.” They worried the system itself might collapse under the strain, such is the interest in applying. (Before the GNWT learned its annual cap was being cut to 150, the territory had asked Ottawa to increase it to 500 to meet that demand.)

Cleveland said Department of Education, Culture and Employment staff had sat down with chamber of commerce representatives and others to understand their concerns and “really look at some different options as to how to design this program for when it does reopen.”

“We have far more than 150 people in the Northwest Territories looking to make the Northwest Territories a permanent home,” the minister said.

“Regardless of how we put this program out, I’m very live to the fact that there are going to be people who are going to be very disappointed, and we aren’t going to be able to take on everyone.”

Even so, the minister said, there will be “changes in how we are going to launch the program.”

“What exactly those changes will be? I will wait for when we do put that out there officially, because there are still some moving pieces,” she said.

“The program will open and, before it does open, we’ll make sure that everybody knows under what parameters it will reopen.”

Pressed for a timeline, Cleveland said she was “looking to get that information out as quickly as possible, and it will be during the month of February.”

When the nominee program will actually start accepting applications again was not specified.

‘I will keep placing phone calls’

Meanwhile, the minister said she was struggling to get the federal immigration minister on the phone to discuss the territory’s concerns about its nominee program cap being slashed.

She said the North “isn’t the same as the rest of Canada” and added she had “placed a few phone calls to Marc Miller to try to continue the conversation,” referring to her federal counterpart.

Asked if those calls were being answered, Cleveland said: “I have not had a chance to have a thorough conversation with him about this.”

She noted that federal ministers are presently being kept “fairly busy” by developments south of the border. Miller is part of the federal response to Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs, which the new US president has in part tried to justify by asserting Canada must do more to stem a perceived flow of drugs and people heading south across its border.

“I will keep placing phone calls to his office and and hopefully be able to have a thorough conversation with him about what he sees as the next steps for the nominee program across Canada,” said Cleveland.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the federal agency, declined Cabin Radio’s request for an interview with the minister last week.

Instead, the agency issued a statement that in part urged provinces and territories to do more to accept asylum seekers, which has been a flashpoint between some southern provinces and Ottawa in recent months.

Cleveland said the NWT “would need a significant investment from the federal government” to be able to meet that request.

Support the territory says it would need to accept what Cleveland called “humanitarian-class immigrants,” as opposed to economic immigrants, includes housing, mental health supports and settlement services.

“That’s not something we can just take on without increased supports from the federal government,” said Cleveland, “given our need to ensure we’re serving the residents of the Northwest Territories with their housing and their mental health needs.”