Comment Canada is setting record immigration goals to bring in 1.45 million immigrants by 2025 to help fill labor shortages. “Look, guys, it’s simple for me. Canada needs more people,” Sean Fraser, Canada’s minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, said at a press conference on Tuesday. The government is trying to stimulate a labor market that has left nearly a million jobs vacant as a result of the pandemic, he said. The new immigration plan aims to take in 465,000 people in 2023, rising to 500,000 in 2025. Canada’s immigration department says it took in 405,000 new arrivals last year, which was “the most we’ve ever taken in in a single year.” “We’re building on this and setting higher goals in the coming years because immigration is critical to growing our economy and helping businesses find the workers they need,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted. The rhetoric from Canada contrasts with many at the top of government in other Western countries, where officials have spoken of limiting immigration and view immigrants as an economic burden. British Home Secretary Suella Braverman, for example, faced criticism this week for describing migrants crossing the Channel as “an invasion of our south coast”. In a bid to stem the flow of asylum seekers traveling the perilous route to Britain, Braverman backed a drive to deport people to Rwanda to apply for asylum there – a previous government plan that sparked outrage and hit a legal roadblock. Europe rewrote its migrant playbook for Ukrainian refugees. Some fear it is not enough. Increased border crossings are also at the forefront of polarizing issues in the United States, where some politically ambitious Republican governors have moved immigrants to Democratic-led cities in protest of the Biden administration’s policies. In Canada, often a destination for economic migration, the country’s development policy appeared to be less divisive. Immigrants made up 23 percent of the population this year, the largest percentage in the country in more than 150 years, the Census Bureau said last week. Canada has long adopted an immigration-attracting approach to offset the impact of low birth rates and an aging population, and has reshaped some policies to overcome pandemic-related disruptions to movement and immigration. “Canadians understand the need to keep growing our population if we’re going to meet workforce needs, if we’re going to rebalance an alarming demographic trend and if we’re going to keep bringing families together.” Fraser said. The country has about three workers for every retired citizen, Fraser said, describing the targets as unprecedented for economic immigration. “We need more workers in every sector in every region of the country, whether they’re frontline health workers, truck drivers, home builders or software engineers,” he said. Canada wants immigrants, but the pandemic is an obstacle. So it tries to keep people already there. The opposition Conservative Party, while criticizing the government’s announcement on Tuesday, expressed its support for efforts to increase immigration. The plan was also met with questions from reporters about whether the government would address the push for affordable housing in parts of Canada and any discrimination or challenges immigrants may face in finding adequate support after they arrive. While the new plan calls for a reduction in the number of refugees, the UN refugee agency said it welcomes Canada’s “continued leadership in refugee resettlement.” The policy “makes sense in many ways,” wrote Canadian refugee lawyer Maureen Silcoff, but urged the government to “focus on the inequities that vulnerable refugees face because of the caps.”
