OTTAWA: Canada said on Thursday it was significantly curbing immigration targets, a dramatic shift that comes as public support for new arrivals declines.

This marks a big pivot for a country with a long-standing reputation as a destination for immigrants, including economic migrants from the developing world seeking better living conditions.

Canada’s population jumped 3.2 per cent from 2023 to 2024, the biggest annual rise since 1957, and now stands at 41 million, the national statistic agency said. It said the rise was partly fuelled by an unprecedented wave of new arrivals.

Announcing the curbs, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the influx helped the Canadian economy bounce back from disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic but the time had come to make “adjustments.”

“Today, we’re announcing that we will reduce the number of immigrants we bring in over the next three years, which will result in a pause in the population growth over the next two years,” Trudeau said.

Trudeau said Canada needed to stabilise its population to give “all levels of government time to catch up, time to make the necessary investments in health care, in housing, (and) in social services to accommodate more people in the future.”

The immigration ministry had previously planned to let 500,000 new permanent residents settle in the country in 2025 and 2026. But the new targets were revised down to 395,000 next year and 380,000 for 2026. It set the 2027 target at 365,000.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller called the plan “probably the first of its kind,” in terms of its broad efforts to control population growth in Canada.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2024