After attending a population symposium the previous Thursday, Mayor Tom Rose told fellow members at Thursday’s council meeting Stephenville needs to be proactive in attracting more immigrants.
He also feels it is important to retain the people from other countries that are already living in the town.
Rosie Verma, who immigrated to Canada with her husband Dr. Subhash Verma in 1991 from Chaneigarh in Northern India agrees that Stephenville is a great place to raise a family with lots of opportunities for her kids to grow up here.
She and her husband first came to St. George’s in 1993 with their oldest of three daughters, Parinita who already did a pharmacy degree and switched over to medicine, where she is now in her third year.
Their second eldest, Sonali, is graduating with a pharmacy degree this year and Radhika is in high school and this week took part in the Rotary Music Festival.
After spending 12 years in St. George’s, the Verma family moved to Stephenville in 2004 when Dr. Verma took a transfer to Stephenville Crossing.
“Our children grew up here and got values from this town and I think became better citizens because of it,” she said.
Verma said when her parents visit from Ontario every few years they love to come to Stephenville and encourages the family not to leave.
She said it’s a great place to raise a family but to attract people young people to come back and live in the town, there needs to be some incentives for them.
The day-long event in St. John’s entitled “Population Symposium: How to Retain Immigrants in NL” took place at St. John's Campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Rose said with an aging and declining population in this province the numbers are not looking good but believes Stephenville is a good place to attract people from other countries.
“We’re a town of inclusion. We need to look at opportunities on immigration as it would pay great dividends to grow our town,” he said.
He said the town already has people from China, Phillipines, Ukraine, India, Iran and likely other countries, with many of them having great skill sets to offer.
“We already have a multicultural group of people in our town, so why not add to those already here?” Rose said.
The symposium he attended brought together representatives from all three levels of government, from the post-secondary education system, from settlement agencies, from employer groups and from other related organizations; also from the newcomer community to discuss how best to coordinate efforts to raise the retention rate.
The morning session looked at the retention of all newcomers, regardless of their reason for arriving; while the afternoon session focused on international students at College of the North Atlantic and Memorial University.
Some questions addressed at the Population Symposium: How to Retain Immigrants in NL
How can we retain the newcomers we have worked so hard to attract to the province?
What incentives should we provide (to employers, newcomers, settlement agencies and others) and what barriers should we remove?
How can we better coordinate activities between government, academia, civil society and employers?
Source: Memorial University of Newfoundland
