Immigration is on track to bust every target set out in Ottawa’s 2023-2025 Immigration Levels Plan by the end of this year with 232,120 new permanent residents to Canada in the first six months of this year alone, the latest Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) data reveals.

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Based on the current level of immigration – if it continues throughout the rest of 2023 – the country could welcome 526,360 new permanent residents by the end of the year, up 20.3 per cent from the 437,610 last year.

Projected immigration for this year would be 5.3 per cent higher than Ottawa’s target for 2025

An immigration level of 526,360 new permanent residents this year would be 5.7 more of these immigrants to Canada than the target of 465,000 under the current immigration levels plan – and almost 5.3 per cent above the much-higher immigration target of 500,000 set for 2025.

The current record-busting level of immigration may suggest that newly-minted Immigration Minister Marc Miller may – as he has already suggested to Bloomberg News – further increase Canada’s immigration targets.

“I don’t see a world in which we lower it, the need is too great,” Miller reportedly told the news agency.

“Whether we revise them upwards or not is something that I have to look at. But certainly I don’t think we’re in any position of wanting to lower them by any stretch of the imagination.”

Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has partly blamed immigration for Canada’s housing affordability crisis and suggested a Conservative Party of Canada government, should his party win the next federal election, would lower immigration to Canada.

The Conservative leader has said immigration targets should be driven by the number of vacancies that private sector employers need to fill, the number of charities that want to sponsor refugees, and the families that want to reunite quickly with loved ones.

Further to the right on the political spectrum People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier, whose party failed to win a single seat in the last election, has said he wants immigration to be cut to less than a third of the current level.

“A People’s Party government will… substantially lower the total number of immigrants and refugees Canada accepts every year, from 500,000 planned by the Liberal government in 2025, to between 100,000 and 150,000, depending on economic and other circumstances,” the party’s website states.

Ontario remains the most popular destination for immigrants to Canada

In June, immigration to Canada softened by 8.2 per cent, to 42,205 new permanent residents, down from 45,975 the previous month. But that was coming off a strong month. The May arrivals were up substantially, 55.1 per cent, from the 29,550 new permanent residents in April.

By far the most popular destination for newcomers to Canada in the first half of the year was Ontario which attracted 101,455 new permanent residents, or about 38.5 per cent of the total for Canada.

Economic programs, including the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP), Agri-Food Immigration Pilot (AFIP), Canadian Experience Class (CEC), Caregiver programs, Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot (RNIP), Federal Skilled Trades (FST) and Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) programs, the Start-Up Visa (SUV) and Self-Employed Persons (SEP) programs, and the Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Pathway accounted for 58,995 new permanent residents to Ontario in the first six months of this year, almost 51 per cent of all new permanent residents coming to Ontario in the first six months of this year.

Another 31,910 new permanent residents arrived in Ontario through family sponsorships and 19,600 came to that province through Canada’s refugee and protected persons programs in the first half of the year.

The other provinces and territories attracted the following number of new permanent residents each during that period:

• Newfoundland and Labrador – 3,150
• Prince Edward Island – 1,970
• Nova Scotia – 6,400
• New Brunswick – 5,345
• Quebec – 27,670
• Manitoba – 14,735
• Saskatchewan – 14,000
• Alberta – 31,680
• British Columbia – 41,770
• Yukon – 530
• Northwest Territories – 195
• Nunavut – 30
• The Atlantic Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador was by far the province with the fastest rate of immigration growth in the first six months of this year compared to the same period in 2022. 

Newfoundland and Labrador immigration is up 80.3 per cent so far this year

In the first half of this year, the Rock, as the province is affectionately called, saw an immigration boom of 80.3 per cent compared to the same six months last year, with 3,150 new permanent residents for that period.

The Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP) was a big contributor to the province’s boost in immigration with the number of new permanent residents through the AIP soaring by 63.1 per cent during the first six months of this year.

But the biggest difference on the Rock has been its Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) which saw growth of 435.7 per cent in its number of new permanent residents in the first six months of this year, or 1,875 newcomers to the province.