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Province wants more people - PEI Wants Immigrants
Published on: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:00:00 GMT
The Binns government is preparing a strategy to encourage a 1.5-per-cent annual increase in the number of people living on the Island, partly through more immigration. Premier Pat Binns said he is worried about a projected decline in Prince Edward Island's population. Falling birth rates mean there will be fewer working-age people in the future.
"The population decline that could potentially happen would have a devastating impact on the province and we must change the course that we are on," says Binns.
"We have to be aggressive about increasing our objectives and bringing more people to the province."
The new population strategy, to be released later this summer, will include plans to convince former Islanders to return home for good and to prevent people living here from leaving.
However, a large part of the plan will focus on bringing more immigrants from foreign countries to the Island.
The government will be looking to attract more people like Ally Kuo and her daughter Theresa, who moved to P.E.I. three years ago and opened the Interlude CafГ© on Kent Street.
P.E.I. wasn't their first choice when they immigrated to Canada from Taiwan five years ago. They started in Vancouver, and then spent some time in Toronto before finally settling in Charlottetown.
Kuo says it's easier to learn English on the Island, because fewer people speak Mandarin, and she believes it's a better place to raise her daughter.
"She's so happy. When I look at her I know this is the right place. We should stay," said Kuo.
Often it's the other way around. Immigrants move to the Island from their home countries, then leave for larger Canadian cities.
Kuo, who immigrated to Canada as a skilled worker and then started her own business, is exactly the kind of person the government would like to attract.
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