The Ontario government is bolstering its flagship immigration program with an additional $25 million in funding over the next three years to support the recently-announced doubling of skilled immigrants it will intake in 2025.

“Our government is ready to welcome more skilled newcomers to Ontario, to help build the highways, transit, schools, homes and hospitals our growing population needs,” said Premier Doug Ford. “As we continue to tackle historic labour shortages, we’re doing everything we can to ensure we have the workforce to help build Ontario. It’s all hands on deck.”

The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program allows the province to nominate individuals for permanent residence who have the skills and experience to contribute to Ontario’s economy in industries like the skilled trades and health care.

Earlier this month, the province and federal government announced a doubling of the number of economic immigrants the province selects to an historic high of 18,000 by 2025.

In 2023, Ontario will be able to nominate 16,500 immigrants. That allocation represents 36% of the national allocation of provincial nominees.

The new funding announced in the province’s 2023 budget will speed up processing and ensure those coming to Ontario can start working in their professions quickly. The funding increase supports enhancing security and other IT updates to ensure the system can handle increased demand now and in the future.

The money supplements the $15 million over three years that was announced in Budget 2022.

"Ontario needs more skilled trades and construction workers to build our growing province,” said Nadia Todorova, executive director of the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario. “RCCAO welcomes today’s funding announcement to increase application processing capacity to get more workers to Ontario through immigration. When coupled with the government’s focus on domestic recruitment and training, these measures will help ensure that industry has the necessary workforce to build critical infrastructure."

This action builds on the province’s recent Working for Workers Act 3, which introduced further measures to remove barriers facing internationally trained professionals who wish to work in regulated professions.

The legislation also builds on Ontario becoming the first province in Canada in 2021 to remove discriminatory barriers that prevent foreign-trained professionals from continuing their careers in sectors they trained in, such as engineering, law, accounting and skilled trades.