Declaration of intent signed between Manitoba and Iceland to facilitate immigration of Icelandic workers to Manitoba

Fylkin New Brunswick og Nova Scotia eru aðskilin af Fundyflóa, sem gengur úr Atlantshafinu til norðausturs. Þar eru mestu sjávarfallabreytingar (munur flóðs og fjöru) í heiminum. Minnsta fylki Kanada er Prince Edward Island. Vestur við Ontario, eru hinar breiðu og flötu Kanadísku sléttur, sem ná yfir fylkin Manitoba, Saskatchewan og Alberta, og ná allt að Klettafjöllunum, en þau liggja á milli fylkjanna Alberta og Bresku Kolumbíu.

Now that Labour Minister Nancy Allan has actually made the trip to Iceland to sign the declaration of intent there are quite a few articles on the subject. About two or three weeks ago they were pretty hard to find, as it wasn't a sure thing then. Here are three of them.

First, one here from March 4:

In January, Manitoba’s unemployment rate was 4.6 per cent, the third lowest in Canada behind Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Iceland’s Minister for Social Affairs Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir has invited Manitoba’s Minister of Labour and Immigration to Reykjavik.

...

The Manitoba Ministry of Labour is in the process of sourcing and pre-screening employers, who must be able to demonstrate they have a labour shortage in a specific trade.

The Iceland Directorate of Labour will identify and pre-screen potential candidates.

...

“If they chose to do so, they can go back to Iceland. But once they are here and working, they can also move to the PNP, (provincial nominee program) after six months. They can stay as landed immigrants, if they have a permanent job offer.”

That's pretty much standard for hiring immigrants: employers have to show that they aren't able to find a Canadian to fill the position.

Then another article here from the 6th when the declaration was signed:

Ásta R. Jóhannesdóttir, Iceland’s minister for social affairs and Nancy Allan, minister of labor immigration in Manitoba, Canada, signed a declaration of intent yesterday on facilitating opportunities for Icelandic citizens to work in Manitoba

and:

The agreement creates a basis for cooperation on offering Icelanders with professional skills temporary employment in Manitoba; an initiative of the local authorities. A delegation of Canadian officials is expected to arrive in Iceland soon to finalize the procedure, Morgunbladid reports.

Finally, there is the requisite whining that always follows something of this nature:

Some Manitobans are criticizing Labour Minister Nancy Allan for going to Iceland to recruit workers, saying she should focus on unemployed Canadians instead...But Allan said Iceland offers an opportunity to aid a country that has close ties with Manitoba.

She also said foreign workers, especially ones with strong cultural support networks already established, tend to stay in Manitoba...In Iceland, Allan is especially interested in workers whose special skills are desperately needed in Manitoba — everyone from social workers to geothermal heat pump installers.

Three things about this complaining:

1) Iceland has a tiny population. The country itself has a tad over 300,000 people in total, so the whole country could make its way to Canada and still make up less than 1% of the population.

2) Canada has a yearly goal for immigrants to bring into the country anyway (without them the population would eventually decrease, and we'd end up with a situation like the one in Japan with a shrinking workforce taking care of an aging population), and these people have to come from somewhere. Icelanders are people that are highly educated, have no problems with living in a modern democracy, and already speak English quite well; in short, they're worth their weight in gold to a country that relies so much on immigration. If the same thing happened in Germany you can bet Canada would be throwing its doors wide open to bring in a lot of them as well.

3) Working on one issue (bringing in skilled immigrants) doesn't necessarily mean one is any less interesting in another issue (unemployment at home). Barack Obama said pretty much the same thing during the campaign: a leader needs to be able to do two things at once, and tackling Important Issue A doesn't mean that you also need to shut down Important Issues B and C until A is solved.

By the way, the Icelandic Wikipedia still doesn't have a page on Manitoba. Hurry up!

Edit: if you can read Icelandic, there are two articles on the same subject from mbl.is here and here.