The Morden Immigration Program has been running since 2012, and this is its tenth year of bringing families and individuals to Morden.

According to the cities Immigration Coordinator, Shelly Voth, the purpose of the program is to bring people into Morden that will support the city's employers and provide the skilled workers they need.

In the last month or two, people have slowly started arriving in Morden, some who have waited through the pandemic for travel restrictions to loosen enough for them to buy plane tickets and move to Canada. Some of them are coming through the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program Business Program (MPNP) and others the MPNP Skilled Worker Support Program.

Voth described what they've been experiencing.

Morden Immigration Coordinator Shelly Voth speaking at the recent Newcomer Welcome night

"We've been seeing quite a number of families that have come in the last few months. In the next couple of months, we've got a lot of people that we are expecting to land and have their air tickets bought and are ready to come in, and we're excited to see that. Our employers are very ready for some increased labour pool, and so we're excited to be able to fill those positions for them."

Voth said we will see more people arriving in the next few months.

"As far as people that are ready to come, we probably have people booking in the next couple of months, as we've got eight to ten families arriving. There are a lot of people that are in final stages of the process, either with a Permanent Residence process that they've been waiting a long time for, or direct to employer work permits, which is a little bit shorter. We're starting to see some of those arrive now as well. "

There is a diverse group of people from around the world moving to Morden.

"As far as countries that we're seeing coming in, it's a big mix, which is great, it just adds to the diversity of our community," added Voth. "There are a few new countries that we're starting to see some arrivals from that we haven't seen as much in the past. That would be Armenia, Algeria, and of course we're still seeing a lot from the Philippines, a lot from India, a lot from Brazil, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan... I don't want to leave anyone out, but it's great to see everybody coming in."

Voth said the program will be making up for some lost time.

"Pre-COVID we were usually getting between 50 and 100 families through our program landing in a year. There haven't been a lot of arrivals in the last few years, obviously. So that backlog will be coming now. So, there's going to be more this year than there has been in the past, and it's a good time for that. Right now, you can find apartments that are open, as well as lots of jobs being available."

For more information about these programs click HERE