Economist warns about effect of immigration cut on N.B.

For New Brunswick economist Richard Saillant, the federal government's slash to immigration numbers is not a tweak, but rather a "massive U-turn."

"We already knew that this would be happening but no one thought that Ottawa would cut immigration targets," Saillant said, in an interview with CBC Radio's Shift.

"They thought they would focus on non-permanent residents. But the numbers announced yesterday are nothing short of breathtaking."

The government is cutting the projected number of new permanent residents, from 485,000 this year to 395,000 in 2025, and dropping to 365,000 by 2027.

The projected 0.2 per cent population decline predicted from the measures is historic, Saillant said.

"I've looked back throughout history and I failed to see the period since confederation where this has happened."

Under the previous plan, released in November 2023, Canada was expected to admit about 500,000 people in both 2025 and 2026.

Recent immigration has helped Canada, and more specifically New Brunswick, he said, but the change will impact how the Susan Holt government will be able to manage the provincial budget.

"Obviously this will have an impact on our economy, and it will have an impact on the fiscal flexibility that the government has to deal with to implement its agenda."

The province won't be able to bank on immigration solving its needs as much anymore, Saillant said.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller said the reduction in immigration will help the housing market. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

"My take is that we're going to need to be much more strategic because we're going to have way fewer people coming here, if at all, and on a net basis. And we're going to need to be targeted and have a global strategy."

He said New Brunswick "has been sitting on a gold mine" of young people who came to New Brunswick, and he thinks the government should focus on that group to train more professionals to work in health care, education and other areas in need of workers.

Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the pause on immigration will help the housing market, something that was a priority of the Holt campaign.

Saillant said the Holt government will have to decide "whether it wants to stick to its no deficit commitment, or have an approach that is more flexible and reflects the reality that our fiscal flexibility is likely to be more limited" than originally thought.

"There's no denying that if you welcome more than a million people a year for several years, for a couple of years that is going to exert a dramatic pressure on housing, no one denies that."

But Saillant said the blame is not on immigration, but non-permanent residents.

"The demand for those people came from educational institutions and employers in the aftermath of the pandemic," he said.

"Looking back, I think that one now realizes that by trying to deal with one problem, it's fed into another problem."