The 2020’s immigration report was sent to the parliament of Canada last week.
The report helps the population as well as the government to know the status of immigration in a year. It is released when Canada’s Immigration Levels Plan is declared.
The country is hoping to onboard around 400,000 immigrants every year, according to the 2021-2023 Immigration Levels Plan. The report discloses some of the practices followed by the federal government to achieve the numbers.
Find below the four highlights from the immigration 2020 report.
1. Canada accommodated more than a million new immigrants in 2019.
The number of immigrants and study/work permit holders together crossed the 1 million mark. In 2019, around 341,000 immigrants arrived as permanent residents. Around 400,000 individuals were able to obtain a study permit, and another 400,000 got a work permit in 2019.
This reminds us that most of the new immigrants do not get permanent residence (PR); they come on a temporary basis.
However, with the new immigration strategy for 2021-23, Canadian PR admission will ramp up.
Source for the visuals: IRCC
2. Around 200,000 immigrants were welcomed through the economic class in 2019.
The country accepts around 60% of the new permanent residents through the economic category, and the same will remain the same between 2021-23.
Around 200,000 immigrants arrived in Canada through the economic category, of which only around 90,000 were from the Express Entry system.
Most of the immigrants from Express Entry chose Ontario (71%), B.C. (17%), and Alberta (8%). Because of such a disproportionate selection of large provinces, Canada launched the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). The agenda behind launching this program was to encourage newcomers to settle in smaller provinces.
The PNP is accountable for the majority of the economic category immigration in various Provinces of Canada. Provinces and territories such as Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories rely heavily on the PNP.
Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia had a fair and comparable share of immigration count in 2019 through the PNP.
3. IRCC is handling the family class backlogs.
The report reflects that IRCC was working to tackle the family class backlog before the COVID-19 outbreak. Around 90,000 individuals arrived in Canada through Family class in 2019. Almost all of the 90,000 newcomers entered through the spouses, partners, and children plan.
IRCC’s standard procedure should take around 12 months to process the applications received under Family class.
But the report mentioned that by the end of 2015, IRCC had 77,000 applications under this category with 21 months processing duration. By the end of 2019, IRCC managed to bring that down to 13 months.
The COVID-1o outbreak interrupted the pace, but IRCC stated in September that they would increase the processing of the applications. By the end of 2020, they said that they would be processing 6,000 spousal sponsorship applications every month.
4. Canada is focusing more on Francophone immigrants.
IRCC’s one of the priorities is to strengthen the French-speaking population through immigration. In the past few decades, IRCC has struggled to invite Francophone immigrants to the other population than Quebec. But in the last few years, it is working to attract more Francophone immigrants.
Furthermore, IRCC stated that the French-speaking applicants in Express Entry would get additional points.
In the increased efforts, IRCC created a separate immigration strategy for Francophone candidates. They are also allocating more funds to the settlement of French-speaking candidates. In 2019, Francophone immigration witnessed a one percent rise in immigration other than Quebec. The percentage may seem quite low, but in comparison to recent years, the increase is quite significant.
Based on the progress that Canada made in 2019 for Francophone immigration, they might be able to achieve their 4.4% target by 2023 of settling new French-speaking immigrants in other provinces than Quebec.
