Market Update: Immigration cuts hurt economic growth in N.B., business groups say – Full Analysis

Canada’s immigration policy is not working for New Brunswick, according to business and community leaders who gathered recently in Saint John.

The federal government has drastically reduced immigration numbers in the past couple of years to alleviate pressure on housing, infrastructure and social services.

“Our concern is that a national approach has been taken to the immigration numbers,” said Andrew Beckett, chief executive officer of Envision Saint John, a regional economic growth agency. “We would contend that it should be more on a regional basis.”

“We’ve got a need and population growth is critical not only for the vibrancy of our workforce, but for the future of some of our communities.”

Beckett was speaking in an interview at a recent event on the year 2025 in review and the state of the economy.

Many economic wins were touted at the event, such as port expansion, real estate development and securing of major sporting events, but Beckett and others said “changing immigration targets” pose “a big challenge.”

Those pressures were greater in other parts of the country, Beckett argued.

Saint John Mayor Donna Reardon agreed.

“Maybe places like Toronto and wherever, say, ‘Look, we’re bursting at the seams with people.’ …But we aren’t bursting at the seams,” Reardon said.

“We’re a big province geographically and we’re not even up to a million people yet.”

Industry growth hinges on immigration

About a year ago, Saint John was gauged to be the most vulnerable city in Canada to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

So far, analysts say, the local economy is ticking along fairly well despite the evolving risks and uncertainty.

Lana Asaff, an economist with the Atlantic Economic Council, pointed to Port Saint John’s completion of a west-side modernization project with $750 million from the private sector.

This helped Saint John lead the province in capital investments in 2025, she said, and it’s on track for a record high of $1.2 billion in 2026.

Broader trade disruptions have not transpired, Asaff said, because about 75 per cent of New Brunswick exports have been protected under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement.

There’s no guarantee trade will continue without greater disruption, she added, because the trade agreement is being renegotiated this year.

“We don’t know how long that process will take or what the future trade relationship with the US might look like,” she said.

The main opportunities being targeted for future growth are increased business through the port and at the Spruce Lake Industrial Park, including logistics or warehouse management, and other ways to capture value before cargo leaves the region.

All these things would hinge largely on immigration, Asaff said. 

“We need the people to help do this expansion.”

“Many different industries rely on newcomers coming to the province to be able to fill the positions and have that growth within their business so that we can capitalize on these capital projects,” she said.

About 21 per cent of the population is 65 or older, Asaff said.

“So, it’s really important for this region — and in Atlantic Canada more broadly too, where we do have some of the oldest populations in Canada — to be attracting newcomers to our region and retaining them here so we can continue to grow our labour force,” Asaff said.

Having an aging population is “never good,” Reardon said.

“It’s not dynamic enough,” she said. “So we need to change that and we can only change that really through immigration.”

Eighty per cent of population growth will come through immigration, she said.

“So, it’s hard when the provincial or the federal government has, you know, put restrictions on that.” 

Lower immigration already affecting growth

The immigration reduction has already begun “to curb population growth,” Beckett said, “which is going to make it challenging to meet current workforce requirements.”

“Our hope would be that there would be an Atlantic Canada carve out that would treat immigration targets differently here than some of the other areas of the country where housing is an acute problem or there’s other issues that create shortfalls.”

CBC News contacted the federal Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to ask how it will address the regional impact of federal immigration policy.

Department spokesperson Jeffrey MacDonald replied in an email that the department “engaged regularly” with provincial immigration ministers through meetings over the past year to discuss immigration planning, and it continues to do so. 

He said a federal “2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan” aims to increase admissions for “high skilled” workers for nation-building projects and address regional needs.

An existing Atlantic immigration program gives skilled foreign workers and international graduates a path to permanent residency in the region, he added. He said more than 31,500 people have arrived in the provinces through the Atlantic program since it was launched four years ago. 

The federal budget includes a one-time measure to accelerate the transition of up to 33,000 work-permit holders in high-demand sectors to permanent residency in 2026 and 2027 across the country, MacDonald said.

The federal department has a statutory obligation to consult provinces on immigration planning and consider regional economic priorities, noted a report released last week by the auditor general of Canada.

The report indicates that from 2023 to 2024, New Brunswick experienced a 64 per cent drop in international study permits — one of the main pathways by which newcomers arrive and become established in the province. 

That was a much more drastic reduction than intended when the federal government reduced the number of permits available, the report noted.

Throughout the region, 9,500 international students have been lost over the past two years, said Peter Halpin, executive director of the Association of Atlantic Universities.

“That’s a very, very significant hit not just to the institutions, but to the region’s economy and population growth strategies,” Halpin said.

The auditor general noted that Department of Immigration is now working with provinces to boost the international study permit approvals closer to set limits.