A survey conducted for the Association for Canadian Studies and the Metropolis Institute has found that 50 per cent of Canadians agree that “there are too many immigrants coming into Canada.”
This represents a more than doubling of the number of people who say they shared such concerns since January 2023.
According to the National Post, last January, only 21 per cent of Canadians said there were too many immigrants in the country, but at that that point they were outnumbered by the 24 per cent of Canadians who believed there were too few newcomers to Canada.
Speaking in response to the survey findings, Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies and the Metropolis Institute, said, “this concern about immigration has traction and certainly it constitutes a challenge to this consensus…. This suggests it’s a departure from what we’ve seen in the previous decade.”
Canada’s population has now reached 40 million after an “unprecedented 1.1 million people, most of them permanent and temporary immigrants” entered the country in 2022.
The current Liberal government has previously indicated that it would cap Canada’s annual immigrant intake at 500,000, starting in 2026.
As reported by the National Post, “thirty-nine per cent of those who believe there is too much immigration in Canada believe immigrants are making the housing situation worse, while a further 21 per cent believe immigrants are “draining the system.”
In assessing the impact on housing that is being created by the numbers of immigrants arriving, BMO economist Robert Kavcic has asked “in the context of Canada’s affordability crisis if supply is really to blame here,” says BMO economist Robert Kavcic.
Kavcic added, “Despite many commendable efforts, in no version of reality can housing supply respond to an almost overnight tripling in the run-rate of new bodies. This is (still) the case of a demand curve running loose.”
The National Post further notes that “in terms of Canada’s immigration strategy, less than 10 per cent of those who feel there are too many immigrants rank highly the importance of taking in refugees.”
It says that 59 per cent of people surveyed think that Canada’s focus should be on importing skilled workers:
“Those who believe Canada’s immigration numbers are about right tend to favour family reunification (40 per cent) and refugees (22 per cent), while still believing (38 per cent) that skilled workers are important. Support for temporary foreign workers and international students are low across the board.”