North Bay investing in immigration.

• Position: OPINION

North Bay is spending time and resources to attract immigrants. Some wonder why.

Trevor Wilson, a human equity expert and author of The War for Talent who spoke at North Bay's Diversity Day event in May, tells audiences wherever he goes that one-third of the Canadian workforce is eligible for retirement between 2006 and 2012. Three-quarters of the top managers are eligible for retirement by 2012 and half of the senior managers under them are also eligible to retire.

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Many of us have heard David Foot, University of Toronto demographer and author of Boom, Bust and Echo, speak. I've heard him twice and it was many years ago. He talked about what was coming. Schools will close and we will be building more seniors' housing.

Look around you. The time he was talking about then is now.

The replacement rate to sustain a population is 2.1 babies per couple. Canada's rate is 1.8.

Get the picture?

North Bay Mayor Vic Fedeli says he doesn't think there was an "ah ha moment" for city council when it decided an immigration strategy was needed. But he gives the topic great attention on his weekly blog and is a firm supporter of the North Bay Newcomer Network, the North Bay & District Multicultural Centre and all things multicultural. His business cards are available in numerous languages.

Immigration concerns in Canada have long been the domain of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, cities that still receive 75 per cent of the approximately 250,000 immigrants to Canada each year. But the times, they are a-changing.

Witness the Welcoming Communities Initiative (WCI) in Ontario.

It has representation from universities and settlement agencies in 15 communities across Ontario--almost everywhere except Toronto, and Toronto was left out deliberately. North Bay, Sudbury and Thunder Bay are all participating.

Meyer Burstein of the WCI project notes "the aim of the project is to create a policy-research centre that focuses on smaller cities and towns and their capacity to attract, retain and integrate minorities in a manner that promotes prosperity and sustainability."

Projections show that in 2007, 15 per cent of Ontario's religious minorities and 13 per cent of its visible minorities will be living in urban and rural settings outside the Greater Toronto Area.

I have lived in North Bay since 1978 and the change in the city has been noticeable in the past few years. The city is becoming more diverse. More international students at Nipissing...