Canada welcomed a record 45,000 new immigrants in September, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has confirmed.
This number of new immigrants is the highest Canada has welcomed in its modern history and one of the biggest in all of Canadian history.
Welcoming such a large number of new immigrants to the country has allowed Canada to be firmly on track to meeting its immigration target of landing 401,000 new permanent residents this year.
Welcoming 45,000 new immigrants in September alone marks a significant improvement to Canada’s immigration numbers over the last few years, as IRCC struggled to process applications during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Prior to the pandemic, Canada welcomed between 25,000 to 35,000 new immigrants on average per month.
Lockdowns and border closures after the coronavirus outbreak caused this number to dwindle even further; at the start of the pandemic, Canada welcomed as little as 4,000 new immigrants in April 2020.
As a result, Canada’s intake capped at only 184,000 new arrivals in 2020.
To compensate for such a low intake, the Canadian government announced it would welcome 1.2 million new permanent immigrants to Canada over the next three years, with 401,000 new arrivals being the target for 2021.
As travel restrictions still prevented offshore applicants from travelling to Canada, IRCC worked on allowing onshore temporary residents to obtain Canadian PR, as they would be less likely to be impeded by travel restrictions and other delays.
In June of this year, Canada’s immigration system picked up pace as IRCC welcomed 35,000 new immigrants to the country.
After landing 45,000 new immigrants in September, Canada has now welcomed 267,000 new permanent residents in 2021 and needs to land another 134,000 new permanent immigrants by the end of this year.
This would mean welcoming around 45,000 new permanent residents to the country per month for the rest of the year, which now looks increasingly likely based on the momentum Canada’s immigration system currently has.
IRCC held its biggest-ever Express Entry draw on February 13, in which 27,332 applicants were invited to apply for Canadian permanent residency.
Moreover, Canada also introduced six new temporary immigration streams in May that would allow up to 90,000 existing temporary residents to apply for Canadian permanent residency.
