Oh No, Mr. Bill! Canada to reduce new immigration by 21 percent
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
AlJazeera reports that Canada has announced it will cut immigration for the first time in years, a major policy shift for the Liberal government:
“From 2025 to 2027, Canada will bring in a total of 1.1 million new permanent residents, a 21 percent drop from previous years, the government announced on Thursday.
The number of temporary residents, meanwhile, will also decrease by about 30,000 to 300,000 in 2025, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said.”
Long welcoming newcomers, Canada has seen a change in its citizens’ attitudes toward immigration, in no small part due to rising housing prices.
Here is part of the Canadian government’s announcement of the reduction in immigration:
“Today, the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan: a plan that will pause population growth in the short term to achieve well-managed, sustainable growth in the long term. For the first time ever, the levels plan includes controlled targets for temporary residents, specifically international students and foreign workers, as well as for permanent residents.
Immigration is essential to our country’s economic success and growth. As Canada reopened following the pandemic, the needs of businesses were greater than the supply of workers available to support their recovery. We took decisive measures to attract some of the world’s best and brightest to study and work in Canada, and to integrate them into the economy quickly. This meant a faster economic recovery. It also meant that robust immigration helped prevent a recession, while contributing to Canada’s workforce.
In response to the evolving needs of our country, this transitional levels plan alleviates pressures on housing, infrastructure and social services so that over the long term we can grow our economic and social prosperity through immigration. This unprecedented plan offers a comprehensive approach to welcoming newcomers—one that preserves the integrity of our immigration programs and sets newcomers up for success. Canadians also expect a well-managed immigration system from the Government of Canada.
The 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan is expected to result in a marginal population decline of 0.2% in both 2025 and 2026 before returning to a population growth of 0.8% in 2027. These forecasts account for today’s announcement of reduced targets across multiple immigration streams over the next two years, as well as expected temporary resident outflows resulting from the 5% target, natural population loss and other factors.
With this year’s levels plan, we have listened to Canadians. We are reducing our permanent resident targets. “
Click the link above to read the full announcement.
KJ