The Current - Why so many newcomers are moving to St. John’s

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

<p>In the past, folks in Newfoundland left the province to find work opportunities elsewhere — but now, immigrants are moving there to build their futures. Matt Galloway hears from business owners and recruiters in St. John’s about what’s drawing newcomers to the province, and the East Coast kindness that makes them want to stay.</p>

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. It's bustling here at the 1949 Barbershop in St. John's. If you need a basic cut or something more artistic, this is the place to come. Right now it's a mid-fade for Afro hair. It's trendy. My name is Yao Njiejie from Ghana, and I'm here in Newfoundland, St. John's. The sign on front says the United Nations of barbershops. What is that?

Just look around. You can have different nationalities in this small space. It gives you a smile. I mean, you're really proud of it. Very, very. You cannot go wrong with diversity. Barbershop is not just the haircut.

It's the community that you create around it. Like, people can have freedom to express whatever they think, share views, argue about current issues. This growing business is just one example of how much St. John's has changed in recent years. Since 2021, something like 20,000 immigrants have settled in this province. He himself, as a newcomer, he came to Canada as an international student. What did you know about St. John's before you got here? I would say nothing. Nothing?

What surprised you the most about this place? First thing was the weather, but if I should say the most, I would say the people. The people were so nice, very welcoming. Where I moved from Toronto wasn't like that. So I kind of felt this place is kind of cool. More like back home where we cherish community. So when I got here, I went to school one day, and everybody's asking how you doing, how's the weather? I felt a bit weird.

Like, I couldn't understand what was going on. So I went home and spoke to my roommate. I said, man, I went to school today, and everybody's talking to me, laughing, smiling. That's not real, right? And then my guy said, no, no, no, that's it. You're in Newfoundland. This is what this place is like.

My name is Emmanuel Dolo. I come here because of him. I just trust him. My hair, originally from Ghana, same as him. But I've been here since I was five years old. So I would say St. John's, Newfoundland is my home. I live in all the provinces, but I've been here since I was five years old, so I would say St. John's-New-Florida is my home. I live in all the provinces, but I always find myself coming back here, always. Whenever you talk to people from this island, they will tell you that there is something

special about this place, and its people in particular. My name is Marshall Rainer. I live here 15 years. What do you love about St. John's? I love everything, the people. I walked down my first year down into Kittivilly and someone welcomed me inside their house to have a drink and have food to eat. And that is not natural anywhere in the world.

So that is what Newfoundland is. For years, people often felt they had to leave Newfoundland and Labrador for opportunity. Now the province is increasingly banking on newcomers to secure its future. We're here to understand its pull and how a new generation and a growing group of newcomers are facing up to some long time challenges. My name is Matt Galloway in St. John's and this is a special edition of The Current. Hello. Hi. How are you? How are you? I'm Matt. Nice to meet you. I'm here. So we are at the store part here. So we have like all of our groceries here. There's like fish curry and mango and prawn curry and then bread and potato chips and it's like the whole mix. We got everything.

Like we got South Indian groceries, North Indian, the masalas, biryani masalas, chicken masalas. Lime pickle. We have a lot of pickle here, like mango pickle, lime pickle, date pickle. Me Too Matthew is another newcomer with a thriving business in St. John's. We are in his grocery and snack shop, SpiceX. And we also got the Canadian groceries, snacks, food, deli, bakery, everything. It's a bit busy today morning because we have some groceries going to Indian communities in different cities of Newfoundland. You're the one who gets the food that they need and they're familiar with into those communities? That's right. So these are all like newcomers who came in past two

years because they miss their food. You know it's hard for them to adapt to the change. Have you seen it change a lot since you've been here? Yes. In past two years especially like I would say even from my hometown, like, my state, I would say over 200 families, you know, here. Mithu came to Canada as an international student, and when he bought this place, it was known for Newfoundland classics. He kept them on the menu,

and the special today is Jigs Dinner. Jigs Dinner is a Newfoundland traditional dish. It's boiled vegetables, salt, meat, gravy and cooked with clove. And this place has been cooking Jigs dinner for over 20 years. In there is cabbage, a whole lot of turnip, and a bit of beef in there to make taste of everything. And salt, and potatoes, and your carrot, and your beef, and your peas pudding. It's all boiling up.

The pots are boiling on the stove. In addition to Jig's dinner, he also serves Indian food, like samosas and tandoori chicken, kind of mashups like poutine with paneer. After taking over this store, even the Spicex customer who used to come for spices, they started trying the Jigs and they're loving it. And, you know, it's a cultural exchange

and that's what people like. When I came in 2019, there were not many international communities here. The past two years the immigration was great, so they got a lot of experienced nurses and professionals from back home. Not even just from India, a lot of other... From Ukraine, there were a lot of immigrations happened. I mean, a few of my staffs are Ukrainians and it's great because you can get people for work because I fight in Newfoundland and when I came, it's hard to get people for

work but it's kind of filled that gap. It's great. Is drinking raw milk safe like RFK Junior suggests? Can you reduce a glucose spike if you eat your food in quote unquote the right order? I'm registered dietitian Abby Sharp. I host a nutrition myth busting podcast called Bite Back with Abby Sharp. And those are just some of the questions I tackle with qualified experts on my show. On Bite Back, my goal is to help listeners create a pleasurable relationship with food, their body, and themselves,

which in my opinion is the fundamental secret to good health. Listen to Bite Back wherever you get your podcasts. The changes in this community are visible all over St. John's and increasingly across this province. Joining me now in our St. John's studio are two people who are in the business of getting people to come here and helping them get adjusted once they arrive. Wanda Cuff Young is vice president of operations at the recruiting firm Work Global Canada, and Dydon Ashanta-Wetterburn is a consultant who helps professionals adapt to life in new and unfamiliar places.

Good morning to you both. Good morning. You heard the joy that people have there in the barbershop and in the spice grocery store. They just love the place that they're in. You, Wanda, you lived here your whole life. You grew up in Bonavista? I grew up in a very small town, a rural town. I left it when I was 16 years of age, but I know rural Newfoundland very well.

How would you describe the changes that you have seen in St. John's and in Newfoundland broadly over the last several years. Yeah, great. And first, welcome, Matt and The Current, to St. John's and to Newfoundland and Labrador. It's great to see you here. And to bring this story to the people of Canada, you know, as I said, I grew up in a rural community. I started working this sector in about 2012 because, you know, at the time we knew there was a labor shortage happening.

In my town of Bonavista, there were very few people that were immigrants. When I grew up, they were primarily dentists and doctors and specialists, things like that. There was nobody else in the community. But just to use that as an example, in the last 12, 14 years, and even in general in Newfoundland and Labrador, because we're operating all over the province, you know, I had little dots where I would put my map that I would show that we had people working in Deer Lake, St. Anthony, you know, I had people in Gander, Goose Bay. There were places that were very prominent.

Now it's everywhere. I got little dots everywhere. So I can see even on the Bonavista Peninsula, even in the last four to five years, significant changes, you know? Aaron Ross Powell Darden, you came to Newfoundland from Jamaica via Japan, is that right? Darden Amoroso Absolutely. I love islands. Aaron Ross Powell So why – you could have lived all over the place.

Why did you choose to come to St. John's? I initially came because I wanted to complete a master's in curriculum studies. But within a couple weeks of being here, I was like, wait, why do I feel at home? It was weird because I'd spent the previous eight years in Japan. And I thought I would have lived in Japan forever. But here I was in this new place and I was like, wait, I feel like I belong here. So I changed my plans and I'm still here. Do you know what that was about?

Why did you feel like you were at home? Why did you feel like you belonged here? In the same way Y'all described it—it's not hospitality. Japan is brilliant at hospitality, but it's somehow—Newfoundlander treats you like they saw you yesterday, even if they are meeting you for the first time. And I've observed with all the different places I've been across four continents, in Newfoundland, they intentionally seek points of connection. So they're always trying to—when they ask you a question, the main purpose is, how

do I find a point of connection with this person? And you feel that as a foreigner. You realize they're not questioning me to categorize me or to just pry. They want to find out what do we have in common, what can we bond on, and that would happen in the middle of the supermarket aisle or on the bus. Wherever you go, they would try to see how can I befriend you, how can I share a moment with you. What do you think the biggest challenges are for somebody who's coming from abroad to

get settled here? I mean they can be as basic as, you know, the weather is tricky. Yesterday the rain was sideways. That might turn some people off. But it can be more than that too, right? I think the biggest challenge for foreign born residents, not just in Newfoundland but anywhere, is realizing that who you were before you landed can't survive in the new place. What do you mean?

A lot of the success that foreigners achieve here is by deciding who do I want to become in this new space. So Yao wasn't a barber before he came here, but he decided this is my new identity. And so he's thriving three different stores. The guy running Spicex, me too. He wasn't running a corner grocery slash takeout shop before he came here. So the most important thing that a lot of people miss is deciding who am I going to become in this new place based on what is needed here and what I bring to the table. Wanda, what is the pitch that you make to people about why they should come to Newfoundland

and Labrador? Well, in the recruiting business, you know, we find—we look for people that want to come and stay and make Newfoundland and Labr or their home, you know, that they have a desire to have an intent to live here, put their children in school, and they're going to blend into a community. You know, rural Newfoundland is very different than living in St. John's. You know, we don't have the infrastructure, transportation. And I'm just going to go to the point that you just made about the connection because, you know, growing up in a small town, my dad brought people home for dinner every day.

But I didn't know who they were. But now, they weren't always—you know, they were local people, too. They were salesmen. But they always came. There was always someone for dinner, because he felt compelled, my God, these are people. They're in town. They don't need to eat in a restaurant. They're going to come to my house.

So, we always grew up like that. And even today, when I see people—and especially, you know, not just immigrants—I always say, hey, where are you from? How did you get working in this job? Just yesterday, I spoke to a guy in a restaurant who was a cook, and he's from Sri Lanka, but he has a master's degree. And of course, we had friends from Sri Lanka mutually that we connected to because I spoke to him and he was so happy that I took the time to – he was sitting in his car. I took the time to talk to him and it kind of changed his perspective on things.

You know? Trevor Burrus How important are those folks – I mean we heard from Me Too. He bought that corner shop and Spice X, the grocery store, from somebody who retired. How important is it that there are newcomers who are bringing new blood to those community institutions, if I can put it that way? Well, I think – so in the business that I operate, you know, immigration and recruiting and working with people all the time, the settlement piece is important.

But people are selling their businesses. People are retiring. So it's really important that we match and find the right people that are going to survive and be welcomed in these communities and we work to ensure their success. It is going to become a bigger issue, more complex because living in St. John's, you live in St. John's, a bulk of the international students come and start in St. John's, but a lot of the opportunities are going and start in St. John's, but a lot of the opportunities are going to be in rural places, outside.

And is that a hard pitch to get somebody to move out of a bustling city into a smaller community where, as you said, the infrastructure and maybe those points of connection aren't there? Well, like in central Newfoundland, major opportunities in the mining industry coming up. But you can't go there if there's no restaurants and there's no daycares and medical facilities. You got to have all of the core things in place to build a community. So there's a lot of challenges in those areas.

And of course, when you start a business or operate a business in Canada, the rules are different. So I know in your business on a daily basis, you work with people to ensure that they understand that and of course that the community welcomes these people. So, we're all working together to ensure that we get this matching in place and we do a good job because we want success. It's one thing for people to arrive. You said something interesting.

I want to pick up on this, Dina, that maybe people come here but they don't stay. That Newfoundland has a real problem in terms of retaining immigrants. Sure, people are arriving, but maybe they aren't sticking around. Why do you think that is? Kévin Ngoziat-Ngcua Newfoundland is brilliant at recruitment. The retention piece I think ties into what Wande is saying that probably where all the opportunities are, sufficient supports are not there. And where the supports are, like here in St. John's, maybe the opportunities aren't

as diverse or as abundant. But I think the person has to decide, I can change. What I did before is not necessarily what I need to do now to be happy. Peter Van Doren What is it that, I mean, whether it's the city or the province could do? Sure individuals can decide that they want to stay, but what is it that infrastructure and governments could do to make sure that people feel like this is an opportunity for them, that they don't have to go somewhere else, that maybe they arrived here but then

they see opportunities elsewhere and they're lured to go to Ontario or Quebec or Alberta or B.C. What is it that you could do to create the conditions so that they want to stay? I think a missing piece is there's a lot of effort to orienting people to how things work here, how do you fit in, but not showing them that these are possible, like, alternative pathways. So if you were an engineer, it doesn't mean that you need to stay an engineer. You could branch off into a completely different area. And so maybe having people who can show that even though your background is in one area,

we have big opportunities that use the same skill sets a lot of the lessons We pick up on as students at Memorial University is transferable skills transferable skills transferable skills And I guess it's one thing to tell someone oh transferable skills are important But showing them practically how it shows up in real life Maybe having people like me who can say, OK, I arrived here as a second language educator. But since that time, I have moved through educational administration. I have moved now into marketing and events coordinating.

So you can take the same skills but use them in a different industry or a different profession. So maybe spending more time doing that, showing them the possibilities that exist here. Trevor Burrus Wanda, it's interesting. We just have a couple of minutes left. Newfoundland and Labrador has an unemployment rate of something like 9.6% in April. It's one of the highest, if not the highest in the country. And yet at the same time, there is a labor shortage, right? It's hard to find people to plug into jobs that need to be done.

How do you square that? Wanda Paz-Garcia It's hard to find people to plug into jobs that need to be done. How do you square that? It's very difficult. And, of course, we have such a diverse province. Transportation, getting to places like St. Anthony, like the drive there today would take us 15, 16 hours to get there. We have a lot of seasonal work in the fishery and maybe up to a thousand people working here now in seasonal jobs because it's been traditionally like that. And of course, you know, just talking about the wage rates and the things that are trying

to play into factors. So it is a very complex problem, and one that we deal with on a daily basis, and it's all about collaboration, communications, understanding and proper planning. And you know, bringing these topics to the forefront are important because people need to understand and to – in order to be successful, we're going to have to do better and to work together more in order to ensure that the success of our province and our communities continue to exist. Aaron Ross Powell You can encourage – I mean one of our colleagues

said this morning, people choose to be here. People choose to live here. What does that say to you? I chose to be here. I think what's beautiful about Wanda and I being here today is that Wanda is representing the part of Newfoundland that receives and supports. I'm representing the part of Newfoundland that's self-determination. That's very important. And I'm representing a part of Newfoundland that's self-determination.

That's very important. Reinvention is key to thriving in a new environment. So definitely we choose to be here because we can determine a whole new life for ourselves once we land here. Really glad to have you both here. Thank you very much for coming into our studio this morning. Thank you, Matt.

You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.