Foreign students, workers, and asylum seekers in Canada may soon have more options for permanent status
Does this mean that immigrating to Canada is becoming easier, and that those wishing to become Canadian residents have new opportunities? As Russian Toronto notes, it all depends on which category of potential immigrants you belong to.
To understand why quotas were increased and who benefits, it makes sense to first recall what preceded this, look at the distribution of quotas across different categories, and discuss the motives.
How much quotas have been increased
Traditionally, the Canadian government announced plans for admitting immigrants only for the next year, without looking far ahead. However, in 2017, it changed its rules and for the first time presented a plan for admitting immigrants over a three-year period.
This step was explained by the fact that employers and all interested parties should have an idea of the long-term prospects of Canadian immigration policy in order to make informed decisions and generally plan ahead. At the same time, it was announced that between 2018 and 2020, Canada planned to admit 980,000 immigrants. As of today, there is no final statistics for the past period, and it is difficult to say how this plan was fulfilled.
Usually, the stated quotas were always exceeded, and in fact more immigrants were admitted than originally planned. Of course, the COVID-19 situation made its own adjustments, and many of those who received immigration visas were unable to enter Canada. Nevertheless, overall, it is quite possible to expect that over the past three years, more than one million people were admitted.
If we compare these results with the plans for the next three years (which will also likely be exceeded), we are talking about an increase in quotas of at least a quarter of a million. That is really a lot. A comparison is worth making here.
Starting in 2021, Canada will admit more than 400,000 people annually, while 10 years ago the annual quota was around 210,000–230,000 people. That is, Canada is now admitting twice as many immigrants as it did ten years ago. Obviously, under such conditions, becoming a Canadian resident is becoming easier.
Structure of immigration flows
Now about the distribution of quotas across different streams. The total number of quotas for admitting immigrants over the three-year period is given by year, as follows:
• 2021 – 401,000 immigrants;
• 2022 – 411,000 immigrants;
• 2023 – 421,000 immigrants.
As for the breakdown by category, four main streams can be identified. More than half of the quotas are allocated to two economic streams – through federal programs and provincial programs.
For the economic stream under federal programs, quotas are distributed as follows: 2021 – 124,000 immigrants; 2022 – 127,750 immigrants; 2023 – 131,500 immigrants.
For the economic stream under provincial programs, quotas are distributed as follows: 2021 – 80,800 immigrants; 2022 – 81,500 immigrants; 2023 – 83,000 immigrants. These quotas do not include the Quebec program, which also receives a large number of immigration visas – in 2021 alone, Quebec plans to admit 47,500 people under its economic programs.
It should be understood who currently qualifies under the economic class. The vast majority are individuals who have received a job offer in Canada and/or have worked in Canada for a year. For them, the increase in quotas is important as it improves their chances.
Another stream is family sponsorship, which also receives significant quotas: 2021 – 103,500 immigrants; 2022 – 103,500 immigrants; 2023 – 104,500 immigrants. This includes both spousal and parental sponsorship.
The last stream is refugees, with the following quotas: 2021 – 59,500 immigrants; 2022 – 60,500 immigrants; 2023 – 61,000 immigrants.
Official reasons for increasing quotas
It should be noted that such a significant increase in immigration quotas is a rather bold step by the Liberal Party, which is currently in power. Bold because some Canadians are opposed to immigration, or at least advocate for its reduction. And the percentage of such dissatisfied people is growing. The reception of refugees causes particular irritation among this part of Canadians. Therefore, the overall increase in quotas, including nearly doubling the number of refugees, is certainly not the most popular move.
Why, nevertheless, is the government pursuing such a policy? It is explained by the need to increase the proportion of young people in the population. Canada has one of the highest average life expectancies, at 83 years. By this indicator, Canada ranks 16th in the world. For comparison, Russia ranks 112th with an average life expectancy of 73 years.
On the other hand, Canada has a low birth rate – by this indicator, the country ranks 190th. As a result, the population is aging, which is felt in the labor market. The situation has become particularly acute in recent years due to the retirement of the baby boomer generation. In particular, in the coming years alone, about 9 million Canadians will retire, which is almost a quarter of the country's population. At the same time, there is a limit to the ratio of working people to retirees, beyond which the state can no longer ensure a good standard of living for those who can no longer work.
The solution to this problem is seen in attracting a large number of new immigrants from among young people. It is for this reason that Canada primarily relies on graduates of Canadian colleges and universities. At the same time, Canada gets a double benefit from this policy. First, foreign students pay for their education without any discounts (Canadians receive subsidies of up to 75%), parents often buy real estate in Canada for them, and in general they spend money earned in other countries here, which stimulates the Canadian economy.
After graduation, students find jobs in Canada and go through the immigration process. As a result, Canada gets well-prepared, well-settled young people fully integrated into Canadian society.
Opponents of immigration strongly criticize this policy, calling for focusing primarily on the domestic population and stimulating birth rates among Canadian youth. They also call the reliance on immigration an outdated approach that does not take into account the realities of the fourth industrial revolution, with its total automation and displacement of people from all sectors of the economy.
Another argument against increasing immigration is the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19. No one knows how long the fight against it will last, how it will affect the economy, whether we should expect a recovery in business activity or we are entering a full-scale crisis. At least, critics believe it is too risky to increase immigration in such unclear conditions.
Nevertheless, liberals stubbornly hold the view that immigration is necessary to rejuvenate the population. As a result, the country annually accepts immigrants in the amount of about 1% of the country's population. By this indicator, Canada leads all countries in the world. In particular, in the United States, this figure is three times lower.
Unofficial reasons for increasing quotas
However, what is described above is only part of the overall picture. There is a much more prosaic explanation for the increase in quotas – the government is solving current problems, trying to avoid an impending crisis.
Speaking about economic streams, it is about the need to legalize a large number of graduates of Canadian colleges and universities. Due to the fact that the entire immigration policy of the last 8 years has been built around accepting young people who have received education and work experience in Canada, there has been a huge influx of foreign students into the country's educational institutions. The ultimate goal for most of them is to stay and live and work in Canada.
As a result, the number of graduates who want and have grounds for immigration has begun to exceed the quotas allocated for economic streams. And the government had and has no other solution to this problem than to increase the intake of immigrants under this category. This, in fact, is the whole explanation.
Approximately the same reasons can explain the increase in quotas for family sponsorship. The fact is that Canadian residents have great difficulties sponsoring parents due to the small quotas allocated for this category. The government tried to get out of this situation by raffling off immigration visas for parents in a lottery or distributing them on a first-come, first-served basis.
As a result, there were always a large number of dissatisfied people who filed lawsuits and held protest demonstrations. Moreover, this mess has been going on for years, resulting in a critical mass, and the government generally has no other solution than to allow everyone who wants to sponsor their parents. Therefore, again, this is a long-expected step.
The situation with refugees is slightly different, but motives are also visible here. One of them is the personal preferences of Justin Trudeau and his entourage. For some reason, the prime minister is obsessed with the idea that Canada should play a much more important role in the UN, and tries to show how advanced Canada is in humanitarian issues. Apparently, his special attention to refugee problems is somehow connected with this.
Another point is the sharp increase in tension in relations with China, which have seriously deteriorated over the past year. In this regard, the government has begun initiatives to facilitate the admission of Hong Kong residents to Canada, including through humanitarian programs. At least, this can also explain the significant increase in refugee quotas.
Does the increase in quotas create new opportunities?
The main question: what does the increase in quotas give to those who want to immigrate to Canada, and do any new opportunities arise in this regard?
Unfortunately, no new opportunities arise. We have already noted several times above that this is about ordinary plugging of holes. Everything else remains the same. The main flow of immigrants under economic categories, as before, will consist of graduates of Canadian colleges and universities who have found jobs in Canada. In addition, a very small percentage will be those who managed to get a job offer in Canada and/or worked in Canada for at least one year.
For those who do not fall into these categories, it hardly matters that Canada will accept more immigrants. The same applies to changes in the structure of points allocation when passing through the Express Entry pre-selection system.
For example, currently more points are given for proficiency in English and/or French. However, this does not matter to you if you cannot go through the Express Entry system at all without a job offer in Canada or work experience in Canada. Therefore, you need to start either with studying in Canada (the easiest and most reliable path) or try to find a job if you can really be of interest to Canadian employers.
And in this case, the increased quotas will matter to you. At the very least, it strengthens confidence that the efforts and money you have spent will ultimately lead to obtaining permanent resident status.