New Canada Immigration Levels Plan 2024 Coming by Nov 1

Last Updated On 30 October 2023, 8:34 PM EDT (Toronto Time)

As is customary, the new immigration levels plan 2024–2026 for Canada is set to be announced by 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
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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.

Current Immigration Levels Plan 2023-2025

Category		2023	2024	2025
Category		Target	Target	Target
Overall Planned Permanent Resident Admissions		465,000	485,000	500,000
Economic	Federal High Skilled	82,880	109,020	114,000
	Federal Economic Public Policies	25,000	–	–
	Federal Business	3,500	5,000	6,000
	Economic Pilots: Caregivers	8,500	12,125	14,750
	Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program	8,500	11,500	14,500
	Provincial Nominee Program	105,500	110,000	117,500
	Quebec Skilled Workers and Business	See the Quebec immigration plan	To be determined	To be determined
Total Economic		266,210	281,135	301,250
Family Sponsorship	Spouses, Partners and Children	78,000	80,000	82,000
	Parents and Grandparents	28,500	34,000	36,000
	Total Family	106,500	114,000	118,000
Refugees and Protected Persons	Protected Persons in Canada and Dependents Abroad	25,000	27,000	29,000
	Resettled Refugees – Government-Assisted	23,550	21,115	15,250
	Resettled Refugees – Privately Sponsored	27,505	27,750	28,250
	Resettled Refugees – Blended Visa Office-Referred	250	250	250
	Total Refugees and Protected Persons	76,305	76,115	72,750
Humanitarian and Other	Total Humanitarian & Compassionate and Other	15,985	13,750	8,000
		2023 Francophone Immigration Strategy objective	15,862	19,910