RESEARCH REPORT: “Tracking the plan: Examining The early impact of the Federal Government’s Projected reduction in Immigration levels”

May 22, 2025

Last October 2024, the Government of Canada announced a reduction to its permanent immigration targets to align with the country’s economic needs from 500,000 down to 395,000 in 2025; from 500,000 to 380,000 in 2026; and setting a target of 365,000 in 2027. With respect to the breakdown by categories, the economic category remained by far the largest proportion of admissions to reach some 62% by 2027. Support for family reunification continues through the family category, which maintains a rate of 22% of overall permanent resident admissions. Canada’s strong and proud tradition of offering protection to those most in need is evident through the sustained targets for Government Assisted Refugees, which contributes to the resettled refugees and protected persons category rate of 15% of overall permanent resident admissions. 21,200 admissions are provided to commitments made on humanitarian and compassionate grounds over three years (https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/notices/supplementary-immigration-levels-2025-2027.html) Meeting these targets is not simple given the need to account for regional priorities, pre existing and other considerations. That which follows will look at the immigrant admission numbers in the 1st quarter of 2025 to see what initial adjustments were made and how they compare with the admissions for the same quarter in 2024. According to Statistics Canada’s demographic estimates, Canada's population growth slowed in the fourth quarter of 2024, reaching a quarterly growth rate of 0.2%, the slowest since the fourth quarter of 2020. Expect yet further declines over the course of the year 2025 in light of the projected declines in numbers of newcomers and continued low birth rates. As observed in the next slide, the overall population reached 41,528,680 on January 1, 2025 up from 41, 465, 298 an increase of 63, 382. By contrast, the population increase between the two previous quarters was 176,699. Immigration level reductions played a critical role in the outcome.