Canada relies heavily on immigration to fill the economic gap left by older baby boomers leaving the workforce, but everyone is content to attract more people from abroad. It does not mean that Earlier this month, the federal government announced aggressive plans to welcome 500,000 immigrants each year through 2025, and she expects nearly 1.5 million new immigrants to arrive in the country over the next three years. Under the plan, Canada will receive about eight times as many permanent residents per capita each year as the United Kingdom and four times as many as its southern neighbor, the United States. But recent polls also show concerns about welcoming so many newcomers.
For years, Canada has tried to attract permanent residents (rural immigrants who have the right to stay indefinitely but are not citizens) to grow its population and economy. Last year the country absorbed 405,000 permanent residents. The reason is in some ways simple mathematics. Like many Western countries, Canada has a low birth rate and an aging population. So if a country wants to grow, not shrink, it has to attract immigrants. Immigrants are already responsible for virtually all of the country’s workforce growth and are expected to be responsible for all of the country’s population growth by 2032, according to a government press release. Earlier this month, the government said it hoped to attract 500,000 new immigrants each year by 2025, up about 25% from the 2021 figure. Today, about one in four Canadians comes to the country as an immigrant, the highest number among her G7 countries. Compared to the United States, colloquially known as the world’s melting pot, immigration is only 14%.
The UK also has about 14% of the immigrant population. Madeleine Sumption, director of the Oxford University Immigration Observatory, said these figures did not mean that the UK was lagging in immigration, but that Canada was an “outlier”. A small island nation with twice the population of Canada, the UK is already densely populated, and with just over 38 million people and one of the world’s largest landmasses, Canada has room to grow. “By and large, Britain was not aiming to grow its population in the same way that Canada was,” she said. Jeffrey Cameron, a political scientist at McMaster University, said while many countries like Canada are facing a declining birthrate and aging population, the success of immigration systems depends on public support. “The limiting factor in most countries is public opinion,” he said. With the number of immigrants entering through the southern border reaching an all-time high, there is a general concern that there are more immigrants than jobs. Before Brexit, a wave of European Union immigrants moving to the UK from Eastern Europe sparked an anti-immigrant backlash. But in recent years, public opinion against immigration has grown, according to Sumption. One reason is that people believe the country is better able to manage immigrants than before.
Canada, on the other hand, has historically had very high support for immigration. “I think one of the reasons is that there is a certain level of public trust that immigration to Canada is being properly managed by the government and being managed in a way that is in Canada’s interests,” Cameron said. Told. Not only does Canada host more economy-class migrants than any other major country, but it is also one at the forefront of refugee resettlement, with 20,428 refugees in 2021. In 2021, Canada aims to relocate approximately 59,000 refugees. This is almost three times the number received in Canada and around the world. Canada wants to help resettle 76,000 refugees by 2023.
