Unlike Australia, Canada continues to implement its long-term immigration plan

Canada’s steady approach to immigration reform shows that long-term planning, not ad hoc reactions, delivers stability even in uncertain times. Dr Abul Rizvi reports.

CONSISTENT WITH its announced long-term immigration plan in 2024 (yes, unlike Australia, Canada has a long-term immigration plan), Canada will make a further 4% reduction in the size of its permanent program in 2026 to 380,000. It will again make much larger, further cuts to students (reduction of 49% to 155,000) and temporary workers (reduction of 37% to 230,000).

That was after it made major cuts to both the permanent and temporary programs for 2025.

During COVID, Canada’s population growth fell to 0.3% in 2020. Then it boomed to an extraordinary 3.1% in 2023, driven by 471,817 permanent residents plus a net increase in temporary residents (mainly students and temporary workers) of 820,766. That enabled the Canadian population to increase to over 41 million.

But with unemployment rising from 5% at the start of 2023 to 6.6% in mid-2024 and the participation rate falling from 65.6% in early 2023 to 64.9% in mid-2024, the Canadian Government made major cuts to:

permanent migration from a planning level of 485,000 in 2024 to 395,000 in 2025; 380,000 in 2026; 365,000 in 2026; and
students and temporary entrants falling from a net increase of 820,766 in 2023 to a projected net decrease in 2025 of 445,901 and a net decrease in 2026 of 455,622.

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In 2024, the Canadian Government also forecast further cuts in 2026 and 2027, on which it is now following through.

The further cuts that Canada has announced are against the background of another increase in the unemployment rate to 7.1% with the participation rate largely unchanged (that is unlikely to be linked to changes to the immigration intake, given other major issues confronting the Canadian economy, including the trade war with the USA).

In the March quarter of 2025, the natural increase in Canada fell into negative territory and the overall population growth rate was officially 0%. In 2024, Canada had forecast its population growth falling into negative territory in 2025-26.

The permanent migration program will continue to be heavily focused on students and temporary entrants already in Canada with jobs in emerging technologies, health care and skilled trades. That helps to reduce net migration and reduce pressure on the permanent migration program. By contrast, pressure on Australia’s permanent migration program continues to rise due to insufficient measures to deal with the consequences of the post-COVID net migration boom.

The Canadian Government has two overarching objectives for its immigration intake:

reducing the temporary population to less than 5% of the overall Canadian program; and
stabilising permanent admissions to less than 1% of the overall population.

Irrespective of the merits of Canada’s immigration plan, what Canada has shown is that it is possible to develop and implement long-term immigration planning. It makes the arguments the Australian Government is making against long-term immigration planning look increasingly silly.

Dr Abul Rizvi is an Independent Australia columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.