The President of the AMBM and Reeve of the Rural Municipality of La Broquerie, Mr. Ivan Normandeau, issued the following statement in response to Minister Marc Miller’s announcement of the new 2025-2027 Immigration Levels Plan:
The AMBM welcomes the 2025-2027 Immigration Levels Plan announced by the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRCC), which adjusts overall immigration levels while reinforcing targets for Francophone and bilingual immigration. This plan demonstrates the federal government’s commitment to meeting the pressing needs of Canadian communities, especially those like our bilingual municipalities, which must have all the resources they need to be ready to welcome newcomers and make the growth of our communities a success.
Decisions aligned with the realities of our communities
Canada is experiencing historic population growth, and this plan represents a response to the pressures on housing, infrastructure and essential services. By focusing on better-managed immigration, it eases the burden on municipalities while maintaining the integrity of federal immigration programs.
Our municipalities, on the front line of this growth, are doing their utmost to offer efficient municipal services and meet the expectations of their citizens, while evolving within a fiscal framework that dates back to 1867 and has not kept pace with changing demographic needs. Stable and diversified funding sources, notably through federal programs such as the Green and Inclusive Community Buildings (GICB) Program, the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund (CHIF) and the Canada Community-Building Fund (CCBF), remain essential to enable bilingual communities to meet today’s challenges.
Our municipalities need to be able to rely on funding programs that provide them with medium- and long-term predictability in order to manage sustainable growth and increase their carrying capacity. Today’s needs are many and varied:
- Increasing the supply of affordable housing;
- Renewing aging infrastructure;
- Improving essential services (water and wastewater treatment infrastructure, transportation services, healthcare, cultural and leisure infrastructure and services) to support community growth;
- Providing sustainable solutions to the significant shortage of bilingual skilled workers that is crippling our local businesses;
- Attracting entrepreneur-investors and the next generation of local businesses;
- Improving bilingual government services to better serve the population.
Constructive dialogue at the round table with Ministers Miller and Vandal
The announcement of this plan comes at just the right time, shortly after the round table discussion held on October 18th in Saint-Boniface, attended by federal ministers Marc Miller and Dan Vandal. This meeting allowed representatives of the AMBM and its 16 bilingual member municipalities to highlight the challenges and opportunities that accompany their demographic growth, in line with their Strategy to Support Economic Immigration in Manitoba’s Bilingual Municipalities. It was a great opportunity to exchange perspectives and solutions, and we noted that the federal government shares our vision of dynamic Francophone and bilingual economic immigration, supported by coordinated initiatives between all orders of government. We also agreed on the importance of aligning not only the vision, but the capacities of all three orders of government to make our economic immigration a success by applying the dual rural (regionalization of immigration) and Francophone lens, as prescribed in our Strategy to Support Economic Immigration in Manitoba’s Bilingual Municipalities.
At this round table, we reaffirmed the importance of reliable data to support long-term planning for essential services and growing infrastructure in our communities. The AMBM is ready to work with the federal government to make this vision a reality, in particular by giving other orders of government the opportunity to select a greater number of Francophone and bilingual applicants under economic immigration programs.
A shared commitment to sustainable, prosperous bilingual communities
The AMBM, in partnership with the CDEM, reiterates its commitment to building prosperous, attractive and welcoming Francophone and bilingual communities. In fact, our two organizations submitted a five-year proposal to IRCC in January 2024, aimed at continuing and strengthening targeted actions in Francophone and bilingual economic immigration by applying a significant rural lens. We are convinced that this type of structuring collaboration with the federal government is essential to meet the challenges of affordable housing, infrastructure renewal, improving essential services and attracting bilingual talent and entrepreneurs to our communities.
We thank Ministers Miller and Vandal for their receptiveness and openness to productive discussions, and look forward to continuing to work together to ensure that every newcomer can thrive in our country. Together, we are determined to turn challenges into opportunities for sustainable growth and a prosperous future for Manitoba’s Francophone and bilingual communities.
The AMBM is the voice of bilingual municipal leadership in the province of Manitoba. It represents 16 local governments committed to offering services in both official languages to their citizens. Together, these municipalities represent the majority of Manitoba’s population. Manitoba’s bilingual municipal leadership is also at the head of the AMBM Group, a consortium of three organizations with complementary mandates: the AMBM, the Economic Development Council of Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities (Conseil de développement des municipalités bilingues du Manitoba, or CDEM) and Eco-West Canada (EWC), which specializes in the green economy. Complementing each other, these three organizations actively contribute to the development, vitality and sustainability of the province’s Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs) and the province as a whole.
Information: Office of the Chief Executive Officer (O-CEO), 204-289-4077, [email protected].
