Why Canada Is Scaling Back its Immigration Ambitions

A country that once embraced mass immigration to give it an edge in the global race to replace aging workers is now pulling the welcome mat away from newcomers. After record population gains strained housing, the job market and public services, Canada unveiled a plan Oct. 24 to drastically reduce admissions. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government wants to shrink the population of international students and foreign workers in Canada and decreased the annual target for permanent residents — an unthinkable notion just a year ago.

An inflow of immigrants has led to Canada posting one of the fastest population growth rates in the world: around 3% annually. Record entries — comparable to adding all of San Diego’s residents in just over 12 months to a country that’s slightly more populous than California — exacerbated housing shortages, inflated rent prices, strained public services and pushed up the unemployment rate. Canadians have long looked at newcomers — who are often young and highly educated — as important contributors to the sparsely populated and rapidly aging country. But attitudes have changed as the numbers have gone up, with a long-running survey showing that for the first time since 1998, a majority of Canadian respondents believe there is too much immigration. Meanwhile, Trudeau’s support rate has cratered. The prime minister has faced calls within his own Liberal Party to step down as party leader as polling shows the opposition Conservative Party well ahead as the country heads toward elections that must be held by October 2025.

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