Last Updated On 24 October 2023, 8:29 PM EDT (Toronto Time)

As is customary, the new immigration levels plan 2024–2026 for Canada is set to be announced on November 1, 2023, outlining annual targets for the next 3 years.

Marc Miller, the newly appointed Minister of Immigration, Refugees, Citizenship, and Canada, will be announcing his first immigration levels plan.

This year’s announcement will be closely watched in terms of whether Canada will increase, decrease, or just keep the annual immigration targets steady.

Understanding the Canadian immigration levels plan

It is important to understand exactly what the immigration levels plan means since it is often blown out of proportion.

The immigration levels plan outlines the number of annual permanent residents (PRs) to be landed among all the categories, including economic immigration, family sponsorship, refugees, and protected persons.

However, these numbers do not essentially mean that all of these new permanent residents will come from outside Canada.

Almost close to 45% of the economic immigration admissions are temporary residents already inside Canada who transition to permanent residency (PR).

Furthermore, there is no inclusion or any annual target set for temporary residency categories such as international students, work permit holders, or visitor visas.

So the immigration levels plan only includes the new “permanent residents” from both inside and outside Canada.

Usually, the immigration level plan for 2024 is of the utmost importance given that these 3-year plans are revised every year on November 1.

Will Canada increase immigration levels?

Canada immigration is receiving a lot of interest from around the world, with highly qualified individuals and families seeking to call Canada their permanent home.

Further, Canada has the largest ever inventory of foreign nationals inside Canada with valuable Canadian experience and contributions to the Canadian economy seeking permanent residency status.

Apart from this, Canadian citizens and permanent residents have already been seeking an increase in the quota for family sponsorship since these numbers are quite low.

Additionally, Canada has been on the front lines to provide a response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in different parts of the world, offering refuge to people fleeing war.

The current federal government (Liberals) has been repeatedly indicating a labour shortage in the construction sector and healthcare to provide for the Canadian population.

International students, work permit holders, asylum claimants, and their family members inside Canada are also increasing exponentially, with not enough spots to become permanent residents.

The plain sight of the above-listed factors indicates that we could see an increase in annual immigration targets on the upper side of 500,000.

Not only this, Canada previously set a target of 465,000 for 2023, which the country is already on track to easily meet this year.

For 2024, the target is already set at 485,000 and 500,000 for 2025. So chances are higher that the immigration target will be increased further.

Canadians at ground level are divided on the topic of whether Canada should admit a lesser number of immigrants given the ongoing housing crisis and inflation.

Canada’s new immigration levels plan 2024

Focus on Temporary Residents in new immigration levels plan 2024

According to the Financial Post, some economists advise the government to provide more information about the potential role of the country’s anticipated 2.1 million temporary residents to avoid coming across as “disconnected” from the “reality on the ground.”

The government needs to properly manage the expectations of people who are already here on temporary visas and give a clear picture of how many new residents it expects, whether permanent or not, according to Rebekah Young, an economist at the Bank of Nova Scotia.

“The government runs the risk of coming across as disengaged or indifferent to reality on the ground if it keeps raising the targets for permanent residency without offering more information,” the official stated.

“However, we might have a growing target for permanent residents but, overall, a slower pace of population growth if they release an all-in target that includes numbers around non-permanent residents and the anticipated crosswalks for some that are already in the country.”

That might buy some time while the strained infrastructure tries to make up for lost time.