Todd: Liberals got a popularity bump by reducing immigration targets. But those numbers aren’t the full picture

2025/12/19 Leave a comment

Some reaction from various experts. Published at the same time that Canada’s population declined for the first time in many years, driven by reduced numbers of students. But government was being “too cute” in how it presented the numbers and somewhat foolish given the number of persons with detailed knowledge who would spot the “slight of hand:”

…Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, who obtained the PCO surveys, said this would not be the first time Ottawa has massaged immigration numbers. It is, he said, common practice.

“And selling Canadians the idea that there has been a ‘reduction’ in new immigrants is not the same as an actual ‘reduction’ in the number of foreigners living in Canada,” said Kurland.

The most important measurement, Kurland said, is how many foreign nationals are living in the country at any one time. But the bigger numbers on temporary residents in Canada are even harder to nail down than those on permanent residents.

Statistics Canada recently reported there are now 3.03 million foreign nationals temporarily in the country as workers, students and asylum claimants.

Temporary residents made up about 7.1 per cent of the entire population for at least the past year. That compares to 2.3 per cent in 2015, when the Liberals were first elected.

Carney has promised to get the proportion down to five per cent by 2027, since it’s hurting the job prospects of both immigrants and those born in the country.

But Anne Michèle Meggs, a former director of Quebec’s Immigration Ministry and now a prominent migration analyst, says, “It’s going to take ages to bring down the numbers.”

Nevertheless, Meggs said Ottawa is “working hard at issuing fewer temporary permits. To demonstrate how they’re succeeding, they’ve started just this year to issue data on arrivals.”

To that end, on Wednesday the federal Immigration Department went on X to say: “Between January and September 2025, Canada saw approximately 53 per cent (308,880) fewer arrivals of new students and temporary workers compared to the same period last year.” Immigration officials say that means 150,220 fewer new students arrived, as well as 158,660 fewer new temporary workers.

Meggs, however, cautions: “There are some serious gaps in the data. It really is a numbers game.”

For instance, she said StatCan numbers show the number of people living in the country on work visas actually grew in the 12 months leading to September of this year — from 1.44 million to 1.51 million.

The only overall drop, said Meggs, has been in international students. The number of study-permit holders declined to 551,000 in September, from 669,000 a year earlier, she said, citing StatCan.

Meggs joins Henry Lotin, an economist who advises major banks, in pointing out that StatCan’s data has long been unreliable on how many guest workers and foreign students are in the country.

That’s because StatCan naively assumes, they say, temporary residents leave the country within 120 days of their visas expiring. Canada Border Services also does not publicly track who leaves the country. CIBC economist Benjamin Tal has estimated the number of uncounted “overstays” at roughly one million….

Source: Liberals got a popularity bump by reducing immigration targets. But those numbers aren’t the full picture

And the StatsCan report:

…Canada’s population fell by roughly 76,000 over the third quarter, the largest decline this country has seen in records dating to the 1940s, and a result of major policy changes by Ottawa to curb immigration.

Outside of a slight drop during the height of the pandemic, this is the first time that Canada’s population has declined in at least the past eight decades, based on historical data from 1946. 

The decline was driven by a drop in the number of international students, more than a year after the federal government started imposing caps on study permits. 

Source: Canada reports biggest population decline on record

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Ottawa pressed to factor in 500,000 undocumented residents as it consults on immigration targets

2025/08/14 Leave a comment

Agree. Last year (finally), TRs were included, albeit imperfectly, the the plan and factoring in the undocumented and government related plans would be a logical next step:

…“Because Minister Miller was transparent with his attempt at regularizing residents without status, it is appropriate to suggest that the new minister put in the levels plan how many she thinks there are, and how many she thinks she could regularize,” he [Henry Lotin] said, referring to a plan to grant permanent residence to many undocumented people under Mr. Trudeau.

“Some highly skilled workers remain in Canada. Officially they have all lost their temporary social insurance numbers and they have all been told by their employers they can no longer work. Evidence has been brought forward to disprove that assumption.” 

Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist of CIBC Capital Markets, said in an e-mail that “a necessary condition” for any immigration, housing or economic policy is “knowing exactly how many people reside in Canada at any point in time. Unfortunately, that is not the case now.” 

“While in the past, the number of undocumented migrants was negligible, that is no longer the case,” he added. “It is significant enough to impact the macro picture and must be correctly accounted for.”

A 2024 Department of Finance briefing document, released though access to information laws, estimated there are up to 500,000 people living in Canada without the required immigration papers. …

Source: Ottawa pressed to factor in 500,000 undocumented residents as it consults on immigration targets

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ICYMI: Carney’s aim to cut immigration marred by undercounting of temporary migrants, economists warn

2025/05/21 Leave a comment

Important analysis regarding a highly dubious assumption:

…But economists who have analyzed immigration statistics say that any reductions would not reflect the true number of temporary residents living here and may mean that pressure on housing and services will not be eased to the extent expected. 

Official population figures also fail to capture undocumented migrants who last year Mr. Miller estimated could number about 600,000. 

The economists warn that Ottawa is overestimating the number of temporary migrants who leave the country once their visas expire. This could have a serious impact on planning, including for housing demand, they say.

“The undercounting of non-permanent residents is an issue that must be addressed in order for this policy to be effective,” said Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist of CIBC.

There are just over three million non-permanent residents in Canada, according to the latest Statistics Canada population estimates. 

Non-permanent residents include international students, work-permit holders, asylum claimants and family members of work- or study-permit holders. 

Population estimates by Statscan presume that visa holders whose permits to stay here have expired leave the country within 120 days, but many do not leave and remain and work in Canada, said Henry Lotin, a former federal economist and founder of the consultancy Integrated Trade and Economics. 

“We know that many, perhaps even half, of these expired visa holders are awaiting permanent residency or a renewal of their temporary visa,” Mr. Lotin said. “The population estimates as presented assume expired temporary residents leave the country − that is a fiction.” 

“Policy makers and planners need accurate population estimates to plan adequate housing, infrastructure, health care and other social services. No one plans for population you are told you do not have.”

An analysis published last month by Mr. Tal, with input from Mr. Lotin, also expressed concern that Statistics Canada is not counting people with extended Temporary Resident Visas who do not have work permits. …

Source: Carney’s aim to cut immigration marred by undercounting of temporary migrants, economists warn

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Immigration Surges Past One Million — Canada Needs a Real Count and Real Plans

2023/04/24 Leave a comment

Annual levels plan needs to include temporary workers and international students rather than these being solely demand-driven. And better and more disaggregated data would be welcome although we have enough to understand the general trends:

Canada revved up its immigration machine last year to make up for the pandemic slowdown and recorded a new high of 437,500 new permanent resident arrivals. And the federal government plans to keep going, increasing permanent immigration targets to half a million by 2025 – 75 percent higher than the 2017 target level.

While public opinion remains broadly supportive of greater immigration, the impact on housing, health care, and broader community capacity has entered the debate. And to fully assess the effects, especially on housing, we need to look beyond headline immigration numbers. International arrivals for permanent and temporary visa holders not already in Canada need to be added to the equation. Precisely counting these groups is not an easy task due to data gaps and inconsistencies, but for 2022, we estimate the real total of arrivals last year was more than one million people.

The expansion of two-step immigration selection that prioritizes applicants with Canadian work experience and post-secondary education, allowed many applicants, such as temporary foreign workers and students, to receive approvals from within Canada. However, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) does not publish the data on their country of residence, making it difficult to understand the role of approvals for those already residing in Canada. According to IRCC data, this trend of applications from within Canada spiked during COVID. They made up fully 75 percent of 406,045 permanent residency approvals in 2021, but only 45 percent last year. This means the number of permanent residency approvals for people outside Canada – who create incremental housing demand – more than doubled between 2021 and 2022 to about 241,500.

Among those new arrivals are non-permanent residents. This category is growing rapidly, faster than new permanent residents, and is the most volatile element in population estimates. Non-permanent residents need to hold a valid permit to live in Canada and include temporary foreign workers, international students, refugee claimants and now a surging number of Ukrainians under a new authorization for emergency travel program.

In total, there were 1.3 million new temporary visas issued (excluding extensions and tourists) in 2022, a 45-percent increase from 2021. According to country of residence data, the number of new permit holders (e.g. temporary foreign workers and international students) whose place of residence was outside Canada grew by 83 percent from 2021 to more than 855,000 in 2022.

Combining permanent and temporary entry from outside Canada in 2022, the estimated total arrivals was more than one million (see Figure).

A new element of the temporary resident increase was the policy response to the invasion of Ukraine. Eligible Ukrainians can come to Canada for up to three years under the emergency authorization, and Ukrainians already in Canada can extend their visas. There is also a surge in Ukrainians arriving through other programs.  In 2022, only 29 percent (140,094 individuals) of the 478,357 approved applications arrived (another 66,000 have landed so far in 2023 through April 2). The continuing flow will substantially increase international arrival and non-permanent resident numbers in 2023 as Canada keeps receiving and processing applications.

Although some residents may leave Canada and some new arrivals are absorbed into existing extended family households, the available data points to an overall net increase in the number of arrivals as well as in demand for housing: the latest CMHC Rental Market Survey shows the national vacancy rate fell from 3.1 percent to 1.9 percent from October 2021 to October 2022.

Current trends indicate a larger influx of international arrivals (far outpacing temporary visa departures) in 2023 and further increases in housing demand. This would push the rental vacancy rate to near zero and worsen housing supply shortages.

Even if the Ukraine War ends swiftly and the labour market starts to cool down, requiring fewer temporary foreign workers, Canada still needs to address its housing crunch in both the short- and long-term.

In the short-term, prefabrication and modular construction, like those that non-profits have constructed for veterans may be needed.

Meanwhile, another concern is Canada’s data quality. Complex, confusing and even conflicting published data due to over- and under-estimates of temporary immigration figures hampers accurate and timely population and housing forecasts. First, one individual can have more than one visa in a calendar year, and leave prior to the visa expiry. As well, in another COVID response, the immigration department has allowed non-permanent residents with expired visas to remain in Canada while their application for visa renewal or permanent residency is under review. To obtain population estimates, however, Statistics Canada still assumes non-permanent resident visa holders left the country the month following visa expiry. Accurate data is needed for accurate analysis of resources and capacity planning to serve new arrivals. And evidence shows that there have been long term data gaps in tracking temporary residents.

COVID shutdowns and the Ukraine war illustrate how dramatic changes in the number of new arrivals can occur with lasting economic and demographic consequence. Using the correct metric in a timely manner is, therefore, critical. We need disaggregated data on permit issuances and arrivals by country of residence as well as data on the total unique count of temporary residents to make sure we know how many people are here.

Henry Lotin is an economist and principal of Integrative Trade and Economics and a retired Canadian diplomat, and Parisa Mahboubi is a Senior Policy Analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute.

Source: Immigration Surges Past One Million — Canada Needs a Real Count and Real Plans

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