A view of East Hastings street in Downtown Eastside of Vancouver on Jan. 31, 2023.Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
The number of temporary residents in Canada swelled to 2.8 million in the first quarter, underscoring the challenge facing a federal government that is looking to restrict migration to the country.
Temporary residents – a group that includes international students, people here on work permits and asylum claimants – now comprise 6.8 per cent of the total population, up from 3.5 per cent two years ago, Statistics Canada reported on Wednesday.
Over all, the population grew by roughly 243,000 or 0.6 per cent during the first quarter, bringing the total to more than 41 million.
Canada is experiencing some of its fastest population growth in decades, fuelled almost entirely by immigration. The number of temporary residents has more than doubled over the past two years, raising concerns about Canada’s ability to welcome so many people, particularly in housing markets with low supply.
Several polls indicate that a rising share of Canadians – who are largely supportive of strong immigration – think the recent intake has been excessive, tying it to various economic troubles.
Now, the federal government is trying to curtail migration. In March, Ottawa announced that it would reduce temporary residents to 5 per cent of the total population over the next three years, setting targets on this group for the first time. The plans will be outlined in the fall, alongside the usual targets for permanent resident admissions.
The growth of temporary residents is “far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a news conference in April. “We want to get those numbers down.”
Population growth is set to slow dramatically as the government pursues its objective. Several economists have forecast that annual growth will decelerate to less than 1 per cent – down from 3.2 per cent in 2023.
There are tentative signs that growth is peaking.
Canada registered a net gain of nearly 132,000 temporary residents in the first quarter, higher than the increase in the same period a year earlier. However, this paled in comparison with the increase (about 313,000) in the third quarter of 2023. Temporary migration tends to be highly seasonal, with a stronger number of arrivals in the fall, when many school programs start.
This year is likely to be different, however. The federal government is sharply reducing the number of study visas that it approves this year, and a cap will be set for 2025 as well. Ottawa is also limiting work visas for spouses of international students, among other changes focused on higher education.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller has likened some postsecondary institutions to “puppy mills” that churn out degrees to high-paying international students, many of whom aspire to settle permanently in the country.
Canada has increasingly moved to a two-step immigration system, wherein people first work or study on temporary permits, then seek permanent residency. This TR-to-PR transition is one way in which the federal government can reduce the pool of temporary residents. Ottawa is targeting the admission of 485,000 permanent residents this year, which rises to 500,000 annually in 2025 and 2026.
Mikal Skuterud, a professor at the University of Waterloo, said the federal government has made several decisions that favoured the selection of immigrants who, in previous years, would have struggled to gain entry.
For example, Ottawa is inviting thousands of people to apply for permanent residency because of their French-language abilities, and some of those individuals have scores that usually would not have sufficed. (The Express Entry system for skilled immigration assigns a score to each candidate, based on various attributes, such as age, education and language abilities.)
“Economic immigrant selection increasingly looks to migrants like a lottery,” Prof. Skuterud said.
“The ticket in the lottery is a temporary permit. So that’s attracting huge numbers, and until they fix that and return to a selection system for economic immigrants that’s transparent and predictable, they’re going to struggle with this [non-permanent resident] population.”
As of the first quarter, there were one million temporary residents who held study visas, or both study and work permits, according to Wednesday’s report. This amounts to an increase of nearly 60 per cent over two years.
The number of temporary residents who only hold work permits exceeds 1.3 million, an increase of 152 per cent over two years. Many of these individuals are former international students who obtained post-graduate work permits.
Still, the federal government has made it easier for Canadian companies to hire foreign workers in various ways. For example, employers in most industries can now hire up to 20 per cent of their staff through the low-wage stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, up from a previous 10-per-cent cap.
Statscan noted in Wednesday’s report that Alberta registered a net interprovincial gain of residents – more people moved to Alberta from other provinces than vice versa – for the 11th consecutive quarter. Ontario and B.C. made the largest contributions to Alberta’s inflow.