First-hand views on immigration to Manitoba
I learned so much about immigration to Manitoba this month.
I haven’t lived in my home province in years, so I enjoyed the opportunity to learn about in how more and more immigrants have been choosing Manitoba as a destination in recent years:
· 22.7% of the foreign-born population arrived between 2016 and 2021!
· Top 3 places of birth (2021): the Philippines, India, and the United Kingdom.
· Among recent immigrants: India, the Philippines, and Nigeria.
Source: Statistics Canada
October 23, 2023: Bales of hay on a field in southwestern Manitoba, 1 km from my family’s farm.
Much of what I learned was through talking to people.
I loved the conversations with the Farmery brewery owners in Neepawa, a town growing rapidly due to Agri-food employer HyLyte that is sponsoring work permits and in turn revitalizing the schools, business, and community.
Learn more through this CBC article.
I enjoyed stopping in Steinbach, a regional hub of 20,000 that is one of the fastest growing towns in Manitoba due to its embrace of immigration. A traditional Mennonite community that didn’t allow alcohol in town until the past five years, it is place of change. I took particular joy in visiting the The Public, a new brewhouse and gallery with a Progress Pride flag in the window. They hosted an event with an Indigenous educator the night I dropped by. Read about a recent Steinbach citizenship ceremony here.
I took heed of conversations in depopulating farming villages, where hospitals are closing and class sizes are getting smaller. But these are also places where newcomers from India and the Philippines are buying local businesses, seeing the value in rural Canadian life, and joining small communities of winter warriors who will always help a neighbour out.
October 2023: Cows grazing on a cousin’s farm.
I spent time with university friends in Brandon, the province’s second-largest urban centre. I visited university professors and enjoyed re-walking my undergraduate home of Brandon University. When I last taught there in 2013, there were 159 international students; there are now nearly 500 out of a student population of approximately 3,000.
I chatted with members of Brandon’s Latin American community, which has grown because of Maple Leaf Foods, and I learned more about the growing number of Nigerian families in both Brandon and Winnipeg.
I see a Manitoba that is open to the world. I’m excited about the ways that immigration will continue shape this province in the years to come.
