A new Canadian holds a flag at a citizenship ceremony on Parliament Hill. In fall 2024, the government set a new immigration plan that aims to lower the annual number of new permanent residents over the next few years.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Governments that concentrate decision-making at the centre have trouble tackling more than a few issues at a time, and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is unlikely to be an exception.
There’s been an understandable focus on preserving trade relations with the U.S., building ties with the rest of the world, and advancing new projects to strengthen the economy. These have consumed the government’s time, interest and intellectual bandwidth.
But the government can’t ignore other big issues that are top of mind for Canadians. Crime is one; the Conservatives are talking about it because voters are, and with reason. Another is immigration.
Canadian immigration is a complicated system with multiple points of entry and exit; separate yet interconnected permanent and temporary migration streams; and a lack of transparency that makes it difficult for the average person – or journalists and researchers – to get a clear picture of what exactly is going on.
This opacity is why there was at first little public pushback when the Liberal government began quietly ramping up immigration to unprecedented levels after 2015, and especially after 2021. Canadians had long been supportive of immigration in principle, and of the relatively high but stable immigration levels in place since the late 1980s. It took time for voters happy with the status quo to realize that the government had eviscerated it.
In 2022, Canada added one million immigrants. In 2023, it added 1.3 million, mostly through the temporary immigration streams. That last figure is approximately five times the immigration level of 2015. There was a sharp reaction in the polls, and by 2024 the Liberal government was backpedalling.
Most Canadians favour scaling back immigration and temporary resident numbers, poll shows
Since last fall, Canada has had a new immigration levels plan, which aims to lower the annual number of new permanent residents from nearly half a million in 2024 to 395,000 in 2025, 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027. (That’s still well above the pre-2015 level of around a quarter million a year). It also limits work and study visas, and aims to lower temporary residents from more than 7 per cent of the population last year to less than 5 per cent in a couple of years.
Large numbers of new temporary residents will continue to arrive – an estimated 673,650 this year, 516,600 next year and 543,600 in 2027. But Ottawa’s plan assumes much more subtraction than addition. Far more temporary residents are supposed to exit. Some will get permanent status and become Canadians; the rest are supposed to leave when their visas expire.
So how’s the plan going?
Government data show a significant decline in the new arrivals among students and temporary foreign workers. But that’s half the equation. What’s unclear is how many former visa holders are leaving.
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People can move among temporary migration programs, and the way Ottawa presents data makes it hard to get a clear snapshot of what’s going on. More importantly, while Statistics Canada estimates how many temporary residents leave Canada each quarter, those estimates are based on assumptions, and are not firm counts.
The government doesn’t know for sure how many former visa holders left this year, versus how many declined to follow the rules and are still here. Nor does the government know how many people are living and working in Canada despite the fact that they are not legally allowed to do so.
A briefing note last year for the Immigration Minister said that “estimates suggest that the population could be as high as 500,000.”
The number of people in these categories – arriving temporary residents, departing temporary residents, and those here without legal authorization – were once small. They are now very large. As a result, everything from labour-market data – including the unemployment rate – to an honest assessment of demand for public services and housing is dependent on accurately counting these populations.
The Carney government has targets for immigration and temporary migration. I believe they’re still a bit too high, but they are a significant improvement on the previous policy. However, outside of the student visa program – where the number of visas is firm, and lower than before – it’s less than clear to what extent Ottawa is achieving or overshooting its own temporary immigration plan.
It’s like a CEO setting a corporate target for earnings per share, at a company that tracks revenues better than expenses, and isn’t certain how many shares are outstanding.
To restore public confidence in immigration, which Canadians once assumed was being managed well and for their benefit, the government doesn’t just have to do better. It has to be able to prove it.