Immigration Minister Gerry Byrne is calling for support from all MHAs as the province faces what he calls “an existential threat” by Ottawa to reshape the country’s immigration landscape.

Earlier this year the province received news from the feds that their allocation of immigration spaces was being slashed in half – from over 3,000 to just over 1,500.

An extra thousand spaces was later renegotiated to bring that number up to 2,500.

Byrne says the province has seen great success with its immigration program, using it to curtail a population decline and fill jobs in certain areas.

But now, Byrne says the province is caught in the crosshairs of federal reductions.

“While the national prescription may or may not be necessary for the nation, it is definitely not the right prescription for Newfoundland and Labrador.” Byrne says the situation here is very different from across the rest of the country. For example, he says according to stats Canada 23 per cent of the Canadian population are first generation newcomers, that same number for this province is 3 per cent.

Byrne cites numbers from Statistics Canada that say 9,000 newcomers will be needed over the long term to grow the province’s population by one per cent.

He says while that is something they need to work up to, and he is not calling for that today, he is asking for the original allotment of 3,000 spaces to be reinstated.

In fact, Byrne believes the province could “easily” handle 4,000 spaces, and without what he calls the same “anxieties” that exist in the rest of the country they could be very successful.