By Bradley Bennett [1]
BELLEVILLE – The city of Belleville has received a $40,000 grant from the provincial government to upgrade its immigration portal.
The portal is a website that shows off the positive aspects of the Quinte area and has stories about how other immigrants have come to live here.
Karen Poste the economic and strategic initiatives manager for Belleville explained the city’s ongoing plans to bring immigrants to the Belleville area.
“Immigration is always good for small communities that need the population growth” said Poste.
She says the plan is to add more languages and testimonials to the site while also adding more content to better help people that are planning to immigrate to the area.
In the most recent census results from 2011 to 2016 there here 550 new immigrants to the Quinte area which is 80 more people than 2006 to 2010.
The city has created multiple initiatives over the last few years to try and bring more immigrants to the Quinte area.
The portal is supposed to be accessible from the Ontario immigration portal [2] but when you click on “Cities and Towns” on that site at the moment, it doesn’t link to any city or town portals.
The city also has an inclusion committee which has been founded to help promote acceptance and inclusiveness in the local community.