Canada looking to stabilize immigration levels at 500,000 per year in 2026
CBC
After increasing its immigration targets several times in recent years, the federal government announced Wednesday it's aiming to maintain its target of welcoming 500,000 new permanent residents in 2026.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the target is meant to support the labour supply while easing pressures on housing and health care.
"What Canadians are telling us, what economists are telling us, is that we have to dive into the micro-economic impacts of immigration," Miller told a press conference.
The government has steadily increased its immigration targets in recent years to boost the workforce and support an aging population.
Last year, the government released a plan to grant permanent residency to 465,000 people in 2023, a figure that's set to rise to 500,000 by 2025. The immigration target for 2015 was under 300,000.
Miller said Wednesday the government is now levelling off its planned immigration intake to see what sorts of adjustments can be made to Canada's immigration programs.
"Those numbers were needed but now we have to take a look at them, where we feel they're reasonable and plateauing in a space where we think it makes sense," he said.
"We have a lot of complex calculations that we need to make and measures we need to adjust. I think it's sometimes politically convenient to come out with a hammer-type approach… It's more on the level of finer surgery that we need to adjust."
Canada's population grew by a record 1 million people in 2022. The population also surpassed the 40 million mark earlier this year.
That population growth is coming at a time when the country is also facing a housing shortage. Almost 5.8 million new units will have to be built by the end of the decade in order to fix the housing supply, said a report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released in September.
Miller admitted the housing shortage was a factor in the decision to level off immigration targets. He said it was not the main factor.
"If that were the sole reason, it would totally be misunderstanding the challenges I think we're facing as a country," he said.
Many experts have said that the root causes of this housing shortage are not related to immigration. Red tape and anti-development sentiment at the municipal level, for example, can lead to major delays in housing projects.
The federal government is pushing municipalities to adjust their zoning bylaws through its housing accelerator program.
Ferry crossings are cancelled and over a thousand households are left without power Saturday morning, due to high winds and severe weather conditions.
Tens of thousands of Nova Scotia Power customers are waking up without power on Saturday morning after high winds and rain hit the province on Friday night.
Statistics Canada is reporting a population decrease last quarter for New Brunswick — its largest quarterly decline since the 1970s, according to an economic development consultant.
Residents clapped, danced, sang and cried in the Anishinaabe community of Kitcisakik this week when the lights were finally turned on for the first time.
A man is suing three members of a Winnipeg family and a real estate broker he alleges used his intellectual disability to financially exploit him through property deals in Canada and India, leaving him out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
When Stephanie Gamble watched her mother model the first dress she made, smiling wide and walking an imaginary runway, she knew that was what she wanted to keep doing in her life.
'Tis the season for cuddling on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate and watching holiday movies. And for people in B.C.'s Interior, that can increasingly mean seeing their home communities on display.
Every year, snowy owls spread their wings and migrate down to the Prairies, where they enjoy access to plenty of rodent prey in vast open spaces.
This month has been a busy stretch at the Upper Room Food Bank in Charlottetown.
N.W.T. Education Minister Caitlin Cleveland says she has received the final report from an independent investigation into education bodies in the Dehcho region.
P.E.I.’s auditor general says he’s concerned and disappointed that the projected deficit has doubled what government initially estimated it would be — and he's urging the province to balance its budget.
A man found not criminally responsible for stabbing five people to death at a Calgary house party is getting more freedoms but not an absolute discharge.
A man has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of a Toronto mother outside a supervised consumption site in Leslieville.