As more US states and cities demand a say over who settles within their borders, it helps to know that Canada has been doing a version of this for thirty years. Today's guest essay by Aubrey Westfall, a political scientist at Wheaton College, draws on her own interviews with the people who run Canada’s local immigration programs to show how provinces and towns select immigrants to fit local needs. She’s just as good on the harder part: how the federal government keeps that patchwork from splintering into conflict. I hope you all enjoy the read!
In 1996, the Winnipeg Jets left for Phoenix. For many Manitobans, losing their NHL team to a Sun Belt city was more than a sports heartbreak; it confirmed a quieter fear that their province was being left behind, its people and economic life drifting toward Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Out of that anxiety came an unlikely experiment. Rather than wait for Ottawa to direct newcomers its way, Manitoba set out to choose its own immigrants, and pioneered a model that has since reshaped how the whole country decides who gets to come.
That model is immigration federalism: provinces, and increasingly local communities, selecting and admitting immigrants to fit their own labor needs instead of leaving the choice to the national government. Canada has spent three decades building it, and its experience speaks directly to a question now pressing on the United States and Europe: can you give regions meaningful control over immigration without fracturing the country or feeding the backlash now reshaping democratic politics? Canada’s answer is a qualified yes. The conditions that make it work, and the one that makes it fragile, are what the rest of us should be studying.
Canada is the quintessential country of immigration. Its population is made up of over 450 ethnicities, and 23% of the population is foreign born (compared to 15% in the US). Canada’s robust economic immigration is facilitated by a points-based system that determines eligibility based on a prospective migrant’s human capital, and their potential to meet current and emerging market needs. Points are awarded for skills, education, language, work experience, age, and other characteristics. Prospective migrants exceeding a certain threshold are invited to apply for a visa. Such a system is intended to clearly match immigration levels to Canada’s demonstrable needs. It is also intended to be transparent, flexible, and responsive, as governments set the criteria for awarding points, and regularly review and update the criteria and the planned levels of migration. The system assumes an admitted individual responds to the domestic labor market to find appropriately skilled work, wherever the jobs may be.
And yet, at the turn of the millennium, the vast majority of immigrants in Canada disproportionately settled in just three major cities in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia, many in jobs mismatched to their skills. During the 1990s, the other provinces and territories began to recognize that the national immigration policy was not working for them or the newcomers, and that they were missing out on a critical influx of human capital.
Where immigration federalism began
For Manitoba, the message of losing out was driven home when their beloved hockey team moved due to financial shortfalls. Devastated by the loss, and driven by a desire to grow Manitoba’s economy, a group of businessmen formed the Business Council of Manitoba (BCM). The BCM worked with other stakeholders to build immigration capacity, and as a result, Manitoba became a forerunner in developing the first of Canada’s Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs). Manitoba’s innovation worked—migration numbers started to rise shortly after the implementation of the PNP, and now it receives a proportionate share of Canada’s immigrants. Encouraged by the population and economic growth, the Winnipeg Jets returned to Manitoba in 2011.
More broadly, the PNPs are intended to facilitate the settlement of migrants outside of the three largest Canadian cities, and to help employers address their workforce needs in more context-sensitive ways. Through a PNP, provincial governments can nominate and select a potential economic immigrant, either from the candidate pool in the federal government’s system, or their own provincial selection systems, which are designed to reflect provincial priorities and labor shortages.
Historically, the vast majority of the candidates nominated by the provinces are invited to apply for a visa by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC - the federal department responsible for immigration). Between 1998 and 2009, PNPs were introduced in every province (excluding Quebec, which had already made its own immigration arrangements based on its special status as a minority nation) and every territory (excluding Nunavut). By 2019, provincial nominees accounted for 35% of all new economic migrants to Canada and the PNPs became the single largest economic immigration stream into Canada.
More place-based policy innovations
The PNPs achieved their objective of getting more immigrants to land in different parts of Canada. They also demonstrated how delegating the management of migration to lower-level governments can better respond to diverse needs and capacities. Even better, according to a government report, around 89% of those who immigrate on PNP schemes tend to stay in their province for the first year, and 86% of those are still there five years later. However, there is significant variation across provinces. Those provinces that need immigration the most—especially the Atlantic provinces—suffer the lowest five-year retention rates (59% on average).
In response, the Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP), which started as a pilot in 2017 and became a permanent program in 2022, was developed as an employer-driven program. The Atlantic provincial governments designate employers to participate in the program, and the employer commits to intercultural competency training and enhanced settlement support for newcomers by connecting with service providers. The program then connects employers with qualified immigrants from all over the world. Once the employer makes a job offer, the province endorses the candidate to IRCC. By requiring local businesses to invest in the success of their newcomer employees, the AIP makes the immigration process a community enterprise, and as a result, improves long term retention of newcomers.
For many within Canada, the existing provincial and region-based programs still didn’t go far enough. Those in rural, northern, and francophone communities advocated for a distinct policy focus to meet their unique needs. In response, the IRCC issued Ministerial Instructions to quickly introduce a series of employer-driven pilot programs within selected communities, built on the example of the AIP. The pilots are centered on the community or municipality more than the province, as the community identifies their labor needs, designates employers for the program, and recommends the migrant for permanent residency through the program. These pilots are ongoing (and could be stopped at any time), but early assessments indicate success at attracting migrants to these less conventional destinations, as demand outstrips allocated spaces.
Avoiding the risks of immigration federalism
The layering of fragmented immigration programs and pilots at varied levels of government creates a very complex system. There are over 100 pathways of migration into Canada for skilled workers, business people, and families, all with potentially moving targets. Just like in the US, this complexity undermines the transparency of the points-based system and makes it challenging for immigrants to navigate. At the same time, the sophistication of the system allows it to better serve the purposes of the Canadian government and meet varied needs within the country.
Still, fragmented systems come with risk. Where the central government allows provincial governments to assert control over key policy areas, it effectively establishes the institutions and competencies of a “mini-state,” prepared to function more independently. This has the potential to undermine national unity and increase conflict between levels of government, even to the point of secession. This possibility became reality for Canada with the announcement of an Alberta referendum on October 19, 2026, focusing on ten questions relating to immigration, constitutional amendments, and independence. The Albertan premier partly blames provincial budget deficits on federal immigration policy, even as her government maintains an active “Alberta is Calling” program to attract skilled tradespeople.
Even with the threat of the Alberta referendum, and despite the fragmented nature of Canada’s immigration federalism, there is still remarkable national coherence in the general approach to immigration. Xhardez and Tanguay analyze the design, requirements, and distribution of provincial nominations within PNPs, and note policy variation within prevalent employment-based PNP streams, which require prearranged work. The emphasis on employability aligns with federal policy that requires skilled work experience, or targets selection for specific in-demand sectors and occupations.
Why it all doesn’t fall apart
I saw similar trans-provincial convergence in interviews with directors of Local Immigration Partnerships (LIPs), which are bodies intended to integrate the inclusion of newcomers in the general community planning agenda. I was told about distinct programs intended to serve the particular needs of their community. Examples include targeted programs to welcome Ukrainians in rural Ontario, collaborations with the police department in Medicine Hat (AB), music programs aligned with London’s (ON) designation as a UNESCO city of Music, even distributing vitamin D to newcomers in the north. The activities vary, but the ethos driving the activities and the vocabulary used to describe the work were the same. As one LIP director in Ontario put it, “The bottom line for all the local immigration partnerships is creating a more welcoming community, a more inclusive community. Whatever the political system they have, this is the goal…I haven’t seen many differences… every community is unique, every LIP is different, but I think the objective is the same.”
How is interprovincial agreement in the management of migration achieved, given the robust opportunities for immigration policy fragmentation? Analysis of my interviews offers three explanations.
Federal funding. Among those working directly in migration, such as the LIPs, service providers, and the IRCC, federal funding is perhaps the most powerful coordinating tool. The Canadian government provides extensive funding to support the many actors in the immigration sector. In July of 2025, the government announced an allocation of $3.2 billion over three years to more than 520 organizations intended to improve the integration of newcomers. Recipients include service providers and LIPs, both of which are almost entirely reliant on federal funds. The amount of funding is tied to the landing rates of immigrants, and is also determined by federal strategy. High reliance on federal funding allows the government to define the programmatic direction and eligibility, which manifests in parallelism and congruity in the migration sector across provincial or regional entities.
Formal and informal collaboration. Consistent collaboration, within and across provinces, and between the federal, provincial, and local actors, supports coherent shared governance. Much of the collaboration within the migration sector is informal, built on relationships and a desire to share and implement best practices. However, collaboration is also encouraged through formal federally-supported structures. The federal government supported the development of a LIP secretariat as a coordinated planning body for all LIPS. The federal government also sponsors annual professional conferences for those who work in the migration sector. There are ministerial, provincial-municipal, and municipal advisory “tables” (working groups) that promote dialogue and information sharing among stakeholders at all levels of government.
Low politicization of immigration. Immigration in Canada is bureaucratized, at least in part because the system is so complex. And, because immigration is managed as a public policy embedded within formal structures of multilevel governance, the immigration sector is relatively depoliticized. The federally-funded actors within the immigration sector are required to remain non-partisan, which is not extremely difficult, because immigration has not been a partisan issue for the last few decades. There is partisan consensus about the desirability of immigration, at least at the symbolic level, and even if a party is not ideologically committed to immigration, there are strong electoral reasons for parties to maintain pro-immigrant and pro-minority messaging. Until recently, the majority of Canadians supported the size of immigrant flows, which made it less politically salient. As a result, it has not been used to support divisive politics, notwithstanding the very recent case out of Alberta.
These three factors go a long way in explaining how immigration federalism has been implemented in Canada without succumbing to the serious risk of fragmentation.
What can other countries learn from Canada?
The Canadian case demonstrates that immigration federalism can work to serve place-based interests in countries with multi-level systems serving regions with distinctive needs. Insistence that a common border requires a centralized immigration policy that exclusively governs all migration into a country ignores the obvious reality of diverse economies, cultures, and polities within a country, and how they can benefit differently from immigration. There are risks associated with decentralizing powers over immigration, but if the federal government financially supports a multi-level migration sector, and assists in coordinating intergovernmental networks, it can create efficiencies and push back against forces of fragmentation.
The development of Canada’s immigration federalism is a feature of Canada’s willingness to experiment and fail. The LIPs began as a regional effort in southern Ontario, and have since spanned the nation. The directors at LIPs shared a willingness to discuss both successes and failures in an effort to better inform others about what to adopt and avoid. The stable financial support from the federal government allows them to be honest—they do not have to oversell their successes to private donors. PNPs were adopted gradually over a decade because the early adopters of the PNPs were watched by other provinces, who took cues from policy successes to tailor their own PNP agreements.
The pilot programs implemented with Ministerial Instructions allows for the design and implementation of small initiatives without time-consuming Parliamentary review. If the programs succeed, they can go through a process of regularization, with alterations to fix identified problems. Any multi-level system could embrace their ability to use lower-level systems as a type of “laboratory” to explore policy options, but systems of collaboration and review should be implemented to facilitate learning.
In my view, the most difficult element to replicate, and the most fragile one, is the political and social consensus around the desirability of immigration. In contexts where immigration is hotly contested, or where political distrust is high, experimentation and policy flexibility may not be democratically viable, at least not in the short term. International policy analysts like Laurenz Guenther have identified a persistent representation gap, where there is a disconnect between public attitudes about immigration and the immigration policies passed by governments. The far right has built a base of support in Europe and the United States on this very issue. Mainstream parties have responded by moving right on immigration, with mixed results.
Alexander Kustov and others in this newsletter argue that another solution could be found in smart policy implementation that effectively demonstrates the benefits of immigration to the national population. Place-based migration policies are an underutilized way to build trust in the system by making the contribution of immigrants clear and directly applicable to the needs of individual communities.
For the US in particular, the Canadian example demonstrates the viability of a state-based visa program. American states are institutionally capable of administering such a system; however, the current American immigrant integration sector is typified by infrequent and ad hoc collaborations. In order for a state-based visa system to achieve policy coherence and operational efficiency without compromising national consensus, more formal structures of intra- and interstate collaboration must be developed.
Crucially, this structural coordination must extend to funding; the current federal system of competitive grant programs for NGOs—which remain heavily reliant on private donations—results in a piecemeal approach that does not serve the national interest. In order to promote equity and systematic unity, the federal government should develop a consistent federal budget line to provide high-level strategic direction while continuously supporting service provision and community inclusion at the local level. Instating a national or hybrid federal-state program modeled after Canada’s LIPs would help communities coordinate resources and develop coherent strategic plans.
In the absence of political will at the federal level, Manitoba’s experience reminds us of the power of community-level policy entrepreneurs. States can take the lead by funding and organizing regional initiatives. Ultimately, as the development of Canadian immigration federalism proves, good policy ideas are contagious.
Very interesting article. It makes sense.