October 22, 2020
By Shelby Thevenot, CIC News
Canada is expected to continue rising immigration levels beyond 2020, despite travel restrictions and reduced numbers of new permanent residents.
Canada’s immigration minister, Marco Mendicino, is not scaling back government immigration targets for the next three-year levels plan, Bloomberg reports.
Days before Canada went into lockdown, Mendicino announced that Canada would welcome over one million immigrants by 2022. Since the Canadian border was closed on March 18 to non-essential travel, the number of new permanent residents plummeted by roughly 64 per cent of 2019 levels this past August.
“Mendicino’s office has consulted with various business, labor and settlement organizations to gauge the current demand for immigration,” according to Bloomberg.
Canada has historically leveraged immigration to fill gaps in the labour market, and help grow the population. Mendicino previously stated that immigration will remain an “enduring value” post-coronavirus. The ministers’ meeting on immigration is another sign pointing to high immigration targets in the years to come.