November 1, 2018
What is Canada’s New Multi-Year Immigration Levels Plan for 2019-2021?
In 2017, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), in its Annual Report to Parliament presented targeted immigration levels for multiple years (2018-2020) for the first time in fifteen years. The 2018 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration expands on this plan, as well as making some adjustments to the immigration targets.
Plan for 2019:
For the 2019 year, IRCC has increased its targeted admissions by 800, for a new total of 330,800 individuals to be admitted to Canada for permanent residence. This follows the commitment made by the Government of Canada in its 2018 federal Budget to resettle an additional 1000 vulnerable women and girls as refugees. As 200 of these vulnerable women and girls are expected to be settled in 2018, the remaining 800 have been added to the 2019 target.
Plan for 2020:
The 2020 target has been adjusted upwards by 1000, rising from 340,000 to 341,000, as a result of an additional 1000 admissions in the Protected Persons and Dependants Abroad category due to growing demand. While it did not change the overall admissions target, 700 admissions have also been transferred from the Blended Visa Office Referred Program (BVORP) to the Government-Assisted Refugee Program (GARP). Both are refugee resettlement programs, however in BVORP private sponsors help the government with resettlement costs along with providing emotional and social support, while in the GARP the government is the sole financial provider. This change was made due to the complexity of the BVORP, which would have made meeting its target difficult.
Plan for 2021:
The target for 2021 has been increased by 9000 admissions from the 2020 target for a total of 350,000 admissions, which is almost 1% of Canada’s population. Of these 9000 admissions, 6500 are allocated to the economic class and 2500 to humanitarian streams. Immigration targets for Quebec were not provided in this annual report – they will be established at a later date after consulting with the Government of Quebec.
It is interesting to note that while targeted immigration levels across most of the categories show an incremental increase year after year, projected admissions under Family Reunification remained the same for 2021 as 2020. Logically, as the population rises, more applications under the family class will be made, and given the same approval rate, it should result in higher overall admissions.
Immigration Highlights from 2017:
- In 2017, an ambitious plan for population growth was unveiled and 5,371,162 visitor travel documents were approved.
- In 2017-2018, international migration accounted for 80% of population growth. (Source: Statistics Canada)
- In 2016-2017, international students and visitors contributed over $31 billion to the Canadian economy.
- Over 130% increase in citizenship applications from October 2017 to June 2018.
- In 2017, Canada admitted 65,417 new permanent residents in the Economic Class through the Express Entry application management system.
- In 2017, 39% of economic immigrants settled outside Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver.
- In 2017, economic immigrants residing in Canada for at least 5 years exceeded Canadian average earnings by 6% and were 15-24% more likely to be working than Canadian-born residents.
- In 2017, 56% of permanent resident admissions were in the Economic Class.
For more information on the 2018 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration please click here and here.