Canada will limit the entry of immigrants to 500,000 in 2026, after a decade of steady annual increases, to reduce the impact of new arrivals on the real estate market, health care system and other infrastructure, the government said Wednesday.
Canada’s Immigration Minister Mark Miller acknowledged that the influx of immigrants in recent years has caused problems across the country.
“Canadians and economists are telling us that we need to look at the microeconomic impacts of immigration,” he said at a news conference where he revealed the Canadian government’s goals on immigration.
The decision to limit immigrant arrivals from 2026 represents a change in policy that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has so far championed.
In 2022, Canada allowed 431,645 immigrants into the country. This year the country will accept 465 thousand immigrants. In 2024, their number will increase to 485 thousand, and a year later it will reach 500 thousand. But in 2026, the number of new immigrants per year will freeze at half a million.
Miller noted that limiting immigration into the country will help maintain the pace of economic and population growth, “and also mitigate its impact on critical systems such as infrastructure and housing.”
In 2015, when Trudeau took office, Canada accepted fewer than 300,000 immigrants.
In 2022, immigrants boosted Canada’s population to a record one million people.
Canada is currently the G7 country with the highest population growth at 2.7% per year. That’s the highest level since 1957, when a post-war baby boom and immigration pushed the rate to 3.3%.
The Canadian executive has defended its policy of continually increasing immigration to support economic growth. Wednesday’s announcement marks the first time Ottawa has acknowledged that the large number of people coming to the country each year is also causing problems.
A recent study found that Canada needs to build about 5.8 million homes to meet market demand.
Population growth and housing shortages have caused housing prices to skyrocket.
If in 2015 the average price of a house in the country was 413 thousand Canadian dollars (about 282 thousand euros), then at the end of 2021 the cost doubled – to 811.7 thousand Canadian dollars.