Canada to cut permanent resident intake by over 18% next year

Toronto: The Canadian government is expected to announce a reduction of over 18 per cent in the number of permanent residents (PRs) accepted next year.

According to Canadian media reports, the new levels will be announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa on Thursday. That will see the intake drop from 485,000 this year to 395,000 in 2025. The numbers will decrease further to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027.

This will be the first time that Trudeau’s government will cut PR numbers since it came to power in 2015.

The measure will come as public opinion has turned sharply against high levels of immigration instituted by the Trudeau government.

A poll by the agency Environics Institute earlier this month stated that for “the first time in a quarter century, a clear majority of Canadians say there is too much immigration, with this view strengthening considerably for the second consecutive year.”

The survey showed that 58 per cent of respondents felt “believe the country accepts too many immigrants”, reflecting a 14 percentage point increase since 2023, building on a 17 point increase over the previous year (2022 to 2023).

“This is the most rapid change over a two-year period since Focus Canada began asking this question in 1977, and reflects the largest proportion of Canadians who say there is too much immigration since 1998.

The latest findings suggest the balance of public opinion about the volume of immigration currently being admitted into the country has effectively flipped from being acceptable (if not valuable) to problematic,” it added.

Among those who will be most impacted will be prospective PRs from India as they form the largest national cohort in this immigration category. In 2023, of the 471810 PRs granted, 139785, or nearly 30 per cent, were from India.

Those numbers have escalated sharply since Trudeau became PM in 2015, when the total PRs accepted was just 271840 including 39340, or 14.4 per cent, from India.

This will also reflect a major course correction for the Government. In November 2023, it announced it would not increase the intake of PRs beginning from 2026, the first time levels in this category were not enhanced since Trudeau came into power.

Ottawa said, at the time, it was maintaining its targets of 485,000 permanent residents for 2024 and 500,000 in 2025, as announced in 2022.

However, a statement from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said, “Starting in 2026, the government will stabilise permanent resident levels at 500,000, allowing time for successful integration, while continuing to augment Canada’s labour market.”

“By stabilising the number of newcomers, we recognise that housing, infrastructure planning, and sustainable population growth need to be properly taken into account,” Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller had said in a release issued at that time.

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