Canada to Increase Immigration Intake According to New Multi-Year Immigration Plan
If all goes according to Canada’s recently released Multi-Year Immigration plan, we could see as many as 1.14 million newcomers welcomed into Canada by 2022.
According to the plan, which was recently released by Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino,
Canada will admit 341,000 newcomers this year, 351,000 in 2021 and 361,000 in 2022.
The majority of these new immigrants (58%) will be accepted through one of Canada’s economic immigration streams, followed by those that have been sponsored by spouses or parents/grandparents at 26 per cent. The remaining 16 per cent will be admitted either as refugeesor under humanitarian grounds.
These numbers should come as no surprise, as the federal government has been working towards achieving this kind of immigration growth for some time. In fact, just back in 2019, Canada welcomed the highest number of new immigrants in more than a century by accepting 341,180 newcomers from 175 different countries, far exceeding the government’s initial target of 330,000.
Going forward, Canada will also increase its annual intake of caregivers, agri-food workers, and immigrants willing to settle in smaller communities in Canada’s north, from 5,200 in 2020 to 9,500 in 2022. The goal is to help fulfill labour market needs of aging populations in remote, rural communities.
In addition, Canada will also increase the number of government sponsored refugees from 10,700 this year to 11,450. However, the target for privately sponsored refugees remains that same, at 20,000 a year.
Meanwhile, for family class immigration, the overall targets will remain unchanged, with just 70,000 spouses and children and 21,000 parents and grandparents to be admitted each year until 2022.
According to Mendicino, the multi-year plan aims to balance Canada’s economic needs along with its obligation to reunite families and provide a safe haven for refugees. Plus, an added benefit to increasing the country’s immigration targets is that it will allow the government to turn a pilot project designed to attract immigrants to the Atlantic provinces into a permanent program.
“It’s vitally important that we continue to leverage immigration as a way of creating economic opportunity and growth,” Mendicino told the Toronto Starin a recent interview. “The vast majority of Canadians support immigration. My message to the doubters is to believe in immigration because it has proven to be a net positive to our economy and to our country.”
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Arghavan Gerami
Arghavan Gerami is the Founder and Senior Counsel at Gerami Law Professional Corporation ('PC'), a full-service immigration law firm in Ottawa, Ontario. Since 2011, Ms. Gerami has focused her practice on immigration and refugee litigation. Prior to that, Ms. Gerami worked at the Ministry of Attorney General and the Department of Justice and had the privilege of serving the Honourable Mr. Justice M. Evans at the Federal Court of Appeal on immigration and administrative law appeals. Ms. Gerami contributes to the Immigration Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Ms. Gerami has also published numerous journal articles and presented at various immigration and refugee law conferences and events across Canada.