A historically high number of immigrants left Canada between 2017 and 2019, a new study that is shining a spotlight on the nation’s long-term retention issues, has discovered.
On average, 0.9 percent of people granted permanent residence in or after 1982 leave Canada each year, a study by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) and the Conference Board of Canada has found.
The number of immigrants choosing to leave the country after being granted permanent resident status has been on the rise since the 1990s, but the first major spike didn’t occur until 2017.
The average migration rate, which sat at 0.8 percent in 2016, shot up to 1.15 percent in 2017, a 43 percent increase. The number rose again in 2019 to hit a record high of 1.18 percent, 31 percent higher than the average migration rate.
That works out to approximately 60,000 people leaving Canada in 2017 and another 67,000 people leaving in 2019.
“While the fairy tale of Canada as a land of opportunity still holds for many newcomers, this study points to burgeoning disillusionment,” ICC chief executive Daniel Bernhard said in the report. “After giving Canada a try, growing numbers of immigrants are saying ‘no thanks,’ and moving on.”
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Data from 2020 through 2023 won’t be available for a few years, but Mr. Bernhard said the numbers are unlikely to improve given the ongoing housing crisis and rising cost of living.
“An increasingly tense discussion has broken out over whether Canada has sufficient capacity—particularly in housing and healthcare—to accommodate the growing number of people moving here each year,” he said. “Reading these debates, one could be forgiven for thinking that every immigrant to Canada stays for life, as though passing through a one-way door. They don’t.”
Mr. Bernhard called the results of the study “sobering,” adding that the steady increase in migration rates, “punctuated by severe spikes” in 2017 and 2019 “have no historical precedent.”
“As Canada relies more and more on immigrants to fill acute shortages in key sectors like housing and healthcare, our ability to retain them is becoming a matter of vital national interest,” he said in an Oct. 31 statement. “Simply put, if Canada cannot deliver for newcomers and help them become Canadian in their passports and in their hearts, we may soon be discussing our prosperity in the past tense.”
The study was based on those who were granted permanent residence between 1982 and 2018 and who filed taxes in Canada at least once during that time. People were counted as onward migrants if they didn’t have a T1 Family File for two consecutive years and didn’t file one again by 2020, the end of the study period.
The researchers used T1 filing as an indicator because the Canadian government doesn’t track the number of immigrants leaving the country. That is something that needs to change, the report writers said.
The report urges Canada’s policymakers to start monitoring the migration rate of immigrants and to do more to retain those who have yet to leave. It also urges more investment in infrastructure to provide for a growing population and support employers who recruit, hire, and retain immigrant workers.
Services to make immigration to Canada “rewarding and enjoyable,” are also a necessity, the report states, adding that the programming should focus on the first decade after arrival.
Support for Immigration in Decline
The results of the ICC and the Conference Board of Canada study come on the heels of another report that indicates 44 percent of Canadians currently believe immigration levels are too high.A recently released survey by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, in partnership with the Century Initiative, found that 27 percent more Canadians are worried about the number of new immigrants this year than they were in 2022.
The increasing number of financial woes this year—from rising inflation and interest payments to the soaring price of purchasing or renting a home—has altered the sentiments of many this year, the survey found.
The 17 percent upswing in respondents speaking against current immigration levels is the most significant attitude change since Environics started polling Canadians annually in 1977.
“Before the recent debate about immigration levels erupted, it was generally assumed that immigrants’ experiences of (and commitment to) Canada must be generally positive,” Mr. Bernhard said. “We all knew that immigrants faced a certain degree of discrimination and disadvantage, but we were confident that those who moved to Canada tended to fare better than those who didn’t. This study shows those assumptions may no longer be as universally true as we thought.”
As of June, Canada’s population had surged to 40.1 million, an increase of 1.2 million people since the beginning of last summer. The three percent increase is the largest rise in Canada’s population since 1957.
The lion’s share of the growth was attributed to international migration and is tied to the federal Liberals plans to steadily increase immigration levels. Ottawa has said it plans to welcome 500,000 permanent residents annually by 2025.
