COVID-19 Immigration Effects – March 2022 update

My latest monthly update.

March 2022 marks two-years since the COVID measures and lockdowns began. As a result, the two-year comparisons become more striking.

The government’s not wishing the “crisis to go to waste” by increasing immigration levels by about one-third compared to pre-pandemic 2019 continues, with just over 40,000 admissions in March, across all categories. However, there is a declining trend of temporary residents transitioning to permanent residents, suggesting an “inventory” decline.

The planting season can be seen in the increase of Temporary Foreign Workers in the agriculture sector, both in terms of the regular seasonal patterns as well as the COVID disruption in March 2020.

The citizenship program continues to increase the number of new citizens and thus starting to reduce backlogs or at least move to restoring normal processing times.

The introduction of streams for Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion is seen in the dramatic jump in visas issued to Ukrainians, mainly under the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel, from a pre-pandemic average of 648 per month in 2019 to 21,465 March 2022.