would be eager to set up shop in Morden. One is Manitoba’s Provincial Nominee Program’s (MPNP) Business Investor Stream (BIS), an immigration program that allows foreign entrepreneurs to immigrate to Manitoba to start or purchase a business; and another is Morden’s Community Driven Immigration Initiative’s (MCDII) Skilled Worker Program, which works with local employers to identify targeted occupations, and then pairs them with qualified immigrants who apply yearly in the thousands for those skilled worker positions and permanent resident status. The city also works to educate, produce, and promote its own native supply of employees. “Workforce development has been a big focus of the city for the last ten years,” Dyck notes. “We’ve grown different types of programs to support access to employment and training opportunities within the community. In particular, the Red River Technical Vocational Area (a partnership of five southern Manitoba school divisions devoted to providing apprenticable trades training options to high school students in the region) has done some fantastic work setting up a regional training center for welders and pipefitters. For the last year-and-ahalf in high school, students are able to earn credits towards their apprenticeship levels in both trades.” “Also, our students get to be part of a broader regional training effort where they can take a number of other apprenticable trades in other communities,” Dyck continues. “We bus kids in to do welding and pipefitting in Morden, and then we bus kids out to other communities that are in partnership with this technical vocational area to do automotive training, carpentry, electrical trades, healthcare, and a number of other training opportunities.That’s a really robust program integrated with our high schools and we’re trying to expand that to include access to IT certification, as well, because our needs for computer skills and IT infrastructure are growing daily.” 259 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 05, ISSUE 11 MORDEN, MB
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