[HALIFAX, NS] – When June Spindloe and her family immigrated to Nova Scotia from the United Kingdom in 1996, they had a lot to learn about Canada’s second smallest province. From employment to driver’s licenses, Spindloe said she had a hard time finding the services she needed.
Nearly 15 years later, Spindloe is the founder of Relocation Nova Scotia, a service for immigrants, particularly those from the U.K., to learn more about the province. Although there are more services available now than in the late ‘90s, Spindloe believes businesses are still not recognizing the value of new Nova Scotians as consumers.
“I still don’t think they really understand that if our growth in this province is by immigration, every one of those persons that is a newcomer is a consumer and they will need to buy everything,” she said, adding that when she arrived, her family “bought more than the average person” because of their clean slate.
Spindloe said in an effort to offer information about local businesses to immigrants and to gain advertising, she’s called the marketing division of many companies but has been consistently turned away. Spindloe citied one example of a company that said, “we’re well known in Atlantic Canada and I don’t see any reason why we would want to advertise with you’.”
“You’re well known in Atlantic Canada, but nobody knows what you are in the U.K.,” said Spindloe, who also owns a bed and breakfast. “There is a real disconnect between what the business community needs to do to address the needs of an immigrant.”
Spindloe said it’s all about retention.
“If they have an experience where they can’t find a lot of the things that they want easily, they actually make the assumption that it’s going to be harder to be here.”
Nabiha Atallah is the spokesperson for Immigrant Settlement and Integration Services, which offers intense orientation programs that introduce immigrants to life in Canada and covers aspects such as banking, driver’s licenses and schools. Atallah said businesses outside government and public services need to make their services more assessible to immigrants.
“There are a lot of assumptions made by businesses when advertising. Sometimes for a newcomer the language of the messages isn’t clear,” said Atallah, citing the use of jargon, abbreviations and expressions. “I certainly think immigrants would like to find clear messages that make sense to them.”
Atallah said immigrants also have a hard time finding business services they can trust.
“We all want, when we’re accessing a service, to have some idea about it. I think its human nature for someone to tell us that this is a good one.”
Spindloe said businesses need to start branding towards immigrants.
“They need to sit down and say ‘how do we get the newcomers to come in and shop there’.”
Atallah and Spindloe both agree that forming networking groups to discuss different experiences would be very helpful to immigrants new and old.
According to the Nova Scotia Office of Immigration, the total number of immigrants to the province per year has risen from 1,608 in the year 2000 to 2,424 in 2009. Atallah said this should be viewed as an opportunity for companies to boost their business, mentioning the number of international students that travel to Nova Scotia each year on top of immigrants.
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