Inside: The government of Canada has recently announced cutting immigration targets for the next three years.
The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship announced recently 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.
Lesser targets for PR
This means that the government is reducing permanent resident targets. Compared to last year’s plan, what happens will be:
- reducing from 500,000 permanent residents to 395,000 in 2025
- reducing from 500,000 permanent residents to 380,000 in 2026
- setting a target of 365,000 permanent residents in 2027
As Canada reopened following the pandemic, the needs of businesses were greater than the supply of workers available to support their recovery.
In response to the evolving needs of our country, this 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, says Marc Miller, IRC minister.
The plan also supports efforts to reduce temporary resident volumes to 5% of Canada’s population by the end of 2026. Given temporary resident reduction measures announced in September and this past year, Canada’s temporary population will decrease over the next few years as significantly more temporary residents will transition to being permanent residents or leave Canada, compared to new ones arriving.
Specifically, compared to each previous year, we will see Canada’s temporary population decline by
- 445,901 in 2025, and
- 445,662 in 2026, and then
- we will see a modest increase of 17,439 in 2027.
Positive News
Some good news include: transitioning more temporary residents who are already in Canada as students and workers to permanent residents. These temporary residents represent more than 40% of overall permanent resident admissions in 2025.
According to IRC, these residents are skilled, educated and integrated into Canadian society. They will continue to support the workforce and economy without placing additional demands on our social services because they are already established, with housing and employment.
Another positive move is strengthening Francophone communities outside Quebec and supporting their economic prosperity. Of the overall permanent resident admission targets, Francophone immigration will represent 8.5% in 2025; 9.5% in 2026 and 10% in 2027.
Through this plan, we are using our existing programs so that everyone—including newcomers—has access to the well-paying jobs, affordable homes and social services they need to thrive in our beautiful country, says the IRC.
Excerpts from news release posted at www.canada.ca
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The population in Canada has to be large because over the years I have heard on TV and have seen on the internet how they advertise on a huge scale for foreign workers. I can only imagine how the workforce looks. But with this major inflow of people it is good that the government has put measures in place
Hi Norman,
Yes, even international students have come in big numbers recently, but definitely, the government has to limit them all because the services and housing have suffered.
Thanks for reading.
Marita