An immigration program that has provided a huge boost to Steinbach and area marked its 20th anniversary Thursday. The Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program has recruited more than 130,000 people to this province over the past two decades.

Kelvin Goertzen, the Minister of Education, Immigration and Training, says the Steinbach area has been a huge beneficiary of the program, enabling it to attract more workers and business people.

"Between 1999 and 2004, more than 1,300 people immigrants came to Steinbach through the Provincial Nominee Program. Anybody who has lived in Steinbach through those years has seen the change that it has had within our community, both in terms of growth and in terms of diversity. The program was really monumental because it gave the province some control over who was coming to the province and to be able to connect them up economically."

The nominee program continues to be effective in getting immigrants to come here. Goertzen notes over the past decade, more than 38,000 nominees have arrived in Manitoba from the Philippines, more than 21,000 from India, more than 10,000 from China and hundreds of others from Germany, Israel, Korea, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ukraine and other countries.

Former Premier Gary Filmon, who brought in the initiative, says it has been one of the most successful public policy decisions in decades, enriching our province’s diversity while strengthening our economy.

Goertzen notes the entrepreneurial aspect of the program is readily visible.

"You can drive around Steinbach just as you can drive around Winnipeg and you can see the different business that have sort of an ethnic flavour to them. Whether it's a restaurant or food store or some other sort of product, you can tell that they are bringing from their home country, the different skills that they had there, trying to bring them in an entrepreneurial way, to the province.

Goertzen adds the key thing that has made this initiative so successful is that it is community driven.

"It was always those communities, Steinbach and Winkler, who in the 1990's were saying, we need to have more individuals coming into certain job programs to continue to have growth within our communities. They then built support services around that with the chamber of commerce and other groups and said, we want to have some control, in terms of who is coming to our communities, we'll provide them support, we'll connect them into a job and then they are going to be successful. The success of that is shown in the fact that we have a 90% retention rate. So, 90% of those who are coming through the Provincial Nominee Program to Manitoba are staying in Manitoba."

Goertzen says even though the program is 20 years old, it is as relevant today as it was in the late 90's.

"HyLife is a clear example of that within Manitoba, impacting our region but also impacting, significantly, Neepawa, where they have their processing plant. HyLife will say there are certain kinds of skills that we need to make our business continue to grow, they'll identify individual skills and help us identify those individuals who fit those skills. So it really is a partnership between the business and between our communities (and government)."