Immigration Minister Marc Miller is set to announce new targets for how many new immigrants Canada aims to bring in over the next three years — and the major question is, will Canada bring in more or fewer newcomers once current targets expire in 2025?
The Immigration Levels Plan sets guidelines and targets for how many permanent residents Canada plans to welcome under economic, humanitarian and family reunification streams. The previous levels were set in 2022, when the country welcomed 431,645 new permanent residents — which was a record high.
Those previous targets were revised, though, setting historically high targets for the number of newcomers Canada planned to bring in between 2023 and 2025.
The plan set a target of 465,000 new permanent residents in 2023; 485,000 for 2023 and 500,000 new permanent residents for 2025. Now, the new plan will lay out any revisions to those targets between now and 2026.
The new targets will also come as a growing number of Canadians appear to feel immigration to Canada is too high, spurred by worry about the cost-of-living crisis, according to a new survey from the Environics Institute and echoing polling done for Global News earlier in the month by Ipsos.
The Environics survey suggests that 44 per cent of Canadians agree with the statement that “overall, there’s too much immigration to Canada” compared with 51 per cent who disagree.
This view of immigration marked a significant shift from the results last year, when only 27 per cent said there was too much immigration, and a record high of 69 per cent of people disagreed.
Miller, when asked earlier in the week about whether he could consider slashing immigration targets amid a nationwide housing crisis, told reporters, “(It) doesn’t make sense to drop the numbers knowing what I know.”
“This isn’t people being anti-immigrant but wanting government to get their acts together. What I hear from industry is need for specialized workers. People clearly saying immigration needs to be more organized and structured,” he continued.
On Tuesday, Miller released the Strategic Immigration Review report in Ottawa, which said Canada’s immigration strategy over the next few years will be to focus on aligning immigration policy with the country’s labour needs.
The strategic review, which lays out a roadmap for Canada’s immigration strategy, said Canada needed to attract global talent across fields to fill its labour shortage. It outlined a need to “create the new role of a Chief International Talent Officer (CITO) to align Canada’s immigration policies with a long-term skills and labour strategy.”
The CITO will be responsible for assessing what skills the Canadian economy will need in the future and ensuring that immigration strategy aligns with those needs.
It said that Canada must focus on bringing “workers to Canada who can help alleviate social pressures in key areas like housing and health care, using dedicated Category-Based Selection draws in Express Entry.”
Last week, Miller told Global News that he was not planning on capping the intake of international students into Canada, saying it would be like “doing surgery with a hammer.”
Instead, he announced several reforms to the international student program to stop instances of fraud and said he wants to take a year to work with provinces on the matter — but that the idea of a cap could be one to revisit if those efforts fail to make a difference.
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