The MRC Pontiac has put the finishing touches on a plan it will use to attract newcomers to the region and connect them with the services and resources they need.
On Aug. 27 at Mansfield’s Pourvoirie Magnum, the final plan was presented to the public in the last of a series of consultations the MRC has held over the past year.
Staff presented the proposed plan and invited final feedback from leaders in key social service sectors as well as members of the public who are newcomers themselves.
While the MRC’s economic development officer Rachel Soar-Flandé said she is not prepared to share the details of the plan before it is approved by the council of mayors, communications advisor Francis Beausoleil sent a general summary by email.
The plan has three areas of focus: enhancing the quality of reception when immigrants first arrive, fostering a sense of inclusion in community life, and supporting retention of those immigrants.
Networking activities with regional partners as well as consultation with the broader public allowed the MRC to identify potential measures to help improve the integration and retention of immigrants.
“Suggestions included better support upon arrival, easier access to information, and improved coordination among municipal stakeholders,” the summary says.
In the public consultations, participants reported having difficulty knowing where to go for services upon arrival, difficulty knowing what paperwork they needed to fill out, and trouble finding social events to integrate themselves into community life.
SADC Pontiac general manager Rhonda Perry, who was in attendance, said these are familiar challenges for people who come to set up a business in the Pontiac.
“The biggest thing for them is to figure out what paperwork they need, what permits they need, do they need municipal accord to open a business in their municipality, even things as simple as how do they do their taxes,” she said.
Perry said she believes this issue of integration could be addressed in part by having an employee whose job it is to help orient newcomers.
“One of our asks is that we have a resource dedicated in that area,” she said. “If we had at least one point person, then they could filter and say, ‘Okay, I think you need to go to this organization, they can help you,’” she said.
CISSSO’s Pontiac service network director Nicole Boucher-Lariviere, who was also present on Wednesday, said attracting and retaining immigrants is crucial to keeping the region’s health network staffed, as many employees are set to retire soon.
“The scary part is that there is more baby boomers retiring than there is new life coming into the system [ . . . ] immigration will fill part of that gap,” she said.
“We want to keep our emergency rooms and our CLSC and our hospital, so we need to find a way to replace the baby boomers.”
The development of this plan was funded using $100,000 the MRC received from the province’s Programme aux Collectivités, overseen by the Ministère d’immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, known as the PAC-MIFI program.
The plan will be submitted to the MRC’s council of mayors at the Sept. 17 meeting, then will go to the MIFI for approval. Following that, the council of mayors may submit a request to proceed to phase two of the project, which would allow for funding over a three-year period to implement the plan.
