Immigration to Canada fell for the fourth consecutive month in September, dropping to its lowest monthly immigration level since April, the latest Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) data reveals.
In September, the country welcomed only 32,065 new permanent residents, down 8.5 per cent from the 35,055 in August.
After rebounding from the lowest monthly immigration to Canada in April, when the country added only 29,550 new permanent residents, the flow of immigration rebounded in May, hitting 46,000 new permanent residents for that month.
Since then, though, monthly immigration to Canada has been steadily falling, first to 42,340 new permanent residents in June, then 40,680 new permanent residents in July, 35,055 in August and 32,065 in September.
That’s a drop in the monthly immigration rate of 30.3 per cent in only five months.
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The monthly level of immigration to Canada in September was also 37 per cent lower than this year’s peak of monthly immigration, the 50,930 new permanent residents who arrived in January.
During the first nine months of this year, Canada saw the arrival of 371,140 new permanent residents, a level of immigration that would put the country on track to welcome 494,853 new permanent residents by the end of this year provided the level of immigration continued through to the end of 2023.
In its 2023-2025 Immigration Levels Plan, Ottawa had set its immigration target for 2023 at 465,000 new permanent residents.
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Under its newly-released 2024-2026 Immigration Levels Plan, Canada is planning to welcome 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024, 500,000 in 2025 and then hold the line on immigration in 2026 with another 500,000 new permanent residents.
That’s a total of 1.485 million immigrants to Canada over those three years.
Given the growth of the Canadian population during those upcoming three years, the 2026 target for immigration to Canada actually represents a slight drop in the rate of immigration to the country, the first such decline in the immigration rate in years.
Ontario Is Attracting The Lion’s Share Of New Permanent Residents To Canada
Ontario, the country’s most populous province, remained the most popular destination for newcomers with 162,820 of them choosing to immigrate there during the first nine months of this year.
The central Canadian province was the destination of choice for 43.9 per cent of all immigrants to Canada in the first nine months of this year.
Economic programs, including the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP), Agri-Food Immigration Pilot (AFIP), Canadian Experience Class (CEC), Caregiver programs, Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP), Federal Skilled Trades (FST) and Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) programs, the Start-Up Visa (SUV) and Self-Employed Persons (SEP) programs, and the Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Pathway accounted for a smidgeon more than half, 50.3 per cent, of all new permanent residents coming to Ontario in the first nine months of this year.
Those programs helped 82,015 new permanent residents arrive in Ontario in the first nine months of this year.
Another 44,390 new permanent residents arrived in Ontario through family sponsorships and 29,245 came to that province through Canada’s refugee and protected persons programs in the first nine months of the year.
The other provinces and territories attracted the following number of new permanent residents each during that period:
- Newfoundland and Labrador – 4,205
- Prince Edward Island – 2,790
- Nova Scotia – 9,020
- New Brunswick – 8,240
- Quebec – 44,165
- Manitoba – 19,765
- Saskatchewan – 20,020
- Alberta – 43,575
- British Columbia – 55,510
- Yukon – 695
- Northwest Territories – 265
- Nunavut – 45
Despite the Quebec government’s repeated insistence that it will cap immigration at 50,000 new permanent residents this year, the francophone province is currently on track to welcome 58,887 new permanent residents based on the trend set in the first nine months of this year.
