IRCC reveals its Immigration Levels Plan every year. According to this immigration plan, Canada invites a certain number of immigrants. The plan provides a division of immigrants based on family class, economic class, and humanitarian class for the following three years. As per reports, it will soon announce the immigrant numbers for 2023 and the following two years.
The government will soon declare this plan by November 1. The Immigration, Refugee, and Protection Act, the Canadian immigration law, expects the government to announce the division of an immigrant number by November 1 annually. This Immigration Levels Plan is the second one this year. The first one came out in February this year after the federal election which took place in September 2021.
The reason behind the two Immigration Levels Plan’s announcement in 2022
The Immigration Levels Plan for 2022-2024 didn’t occur before February 2022 despite the planned schedule of announcing it by November 1, 2021. This was because the Parliament didn’t sit until November 22, 2021. Once it resumed, the holiday break eventually took place. In the given circumstances, the IRPA states that they must announce the plan within thirty days of whenever the Parliament resumes. However, the Parliament sat back in the mid of January this year.
Presently, the Parliament is working with full zest. Therefore, it plans to declare the latest immigration plan as per the given schedule.
The Immigration Levels Plan at present
The Immigration Levels Plan (2022 to 2024) suggests Canada’s target of receiving 431,645 new permanent residents across all immigration classes in 2022. This specific target raises to 451,000 new permanent residents in 2024.
In 2022, Canada managed to welcome around 300,000 new permanent residents. A majority of these immigrants belonged to the economic class programs. Although, the immigration target for economic class immigrants in 2022 is around 241,850, which accounts for 60 percent of the entire Canadian population. This year’s plan also includes targets for family class and refugee class with 105,000 and 8,250 immigrants respectively.
After the announcement of the 2023 to 2025 immigration plan, there will be no need to have an estimate of immigration targets. This is because the numbers will more likely change.
Future expectations
The new Immigration Levels Plan will likely comprise higher-level immigration targets. For instance, according to the 2016 plan, the target was to simply welcome around 250,000 immigrants. Last year, IRCC set a new record for permanent residents by breaking the previous one with a figure of 405,000. This figure emerged despite the pandemic.
Currently, 2023’s target remains at 447,055. This figure will increase up to 451,000 in 2024.
The outcome of the immigration plan is a combined effort of various other government departments and stakeholders. Their objective is to form a more balanced plan for the target levels of immigration. This plan also focuses on the permanent resident’s allocation for each class of the programs.
As per official reports, Fraser even discussed his idea to meet the different provinces to better understand their labor market requirements. Initially, there were reports about people’s unhappiness about not distributing adequate spots to Provincial Nominee Programs. People believed that PNPs had more potential to bring in appropriately skilled workers to contribute to the workforce. They were better suited to bridge the existing labor shortage gap.
The immigration minister even predicted the upcoming immigration targets to rise to 500,000 new permanent residents in one year. He didn’t talk about when this figure is likely to actualize.
He believes that they will achieve this target based on the requirements of the communities.
According to IRCC’s data, the number of pending permanent residency applications for processing accounts for 513,923. The latest declaration by IRCC stated their efforts to improve client services and expedite the processing times. The department further revealed its measures for the same. It talked about recruiting around 1000 employees, transforming the process into 100 percent digital form, and investing in modernizing the technology.
Canada needs to receive more immigrants
IRCC generated the Immigration Levels Plan by collaborating with several other governmental departments. It required their support and validation for welcoming the immigrants with warmth to contribute significantly to the Canadian economy. The department aimed at fostering family reunions, and humanitarian assistance.
New immigrants play a major role in Canada’s thriving economy due to the income tax payment and labor contribution. The tax paid by these newcomers contributes to Canada’s infrastructure, education, healthcare, pensions, etc. The Canadian population will soon be meeting their retirement age at 65. However, the immigrants will only contribute to a higher standard of living in the country.
