CIMM – 2023-2025 Multi-Year Levels Plan – February 8, 2023

Key Messages

• The 2023-2025 Immigration Levels Plan (Levels Plan), tabled on November 1, 2022, increases immigration targets to support Canada’s economic growth and address labour market shortages.
• The Levels Plan prioritizes economic immigration to help build a resilient economy, with a regional focus to distribute the benefits of immigration across Canada.
• Immigration is essential to Canada’s economic growth as the population continues to rapidly age. It also provides many important social, cultural, and humanitarian benefits.
• Canada is committed to welcoming and supporting newcomers, and helping them to settle into communities across the country and contribute to Canadian society.

Supplementary Messages

• The 2023-2025 Levels Plan set the following permanent resident admission targets:
  • 465,000 in 2023 (range: 410,000-505,000);
  • 485,000 in 2024 (range: 430,000-542,500); and,
  • 500,000 in 2025 (range: 442,500-550,000).
• The Levels Plan increased admissions to support a range of priorities: economic growth and addressing labour market shortages; upholding humanitarian commitments in response to global crises (including Afghanistan); and family reunification.
• Recognizing the role of immigration in addressing labour market needs and economic growth, the 2023-2025 Levels Plan increases the economic proportion to 60.3% by 2025.
• The Levels Plan has three overarching objectives: (1) achieve long-term benefits to Canada; (2) contribute to short-term economic growth and addressing labour market needs; and (3) ensure a well-managed migration system that can maintain public confidence.

Achieving Targets

• In 2022, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) exceeded our Immigration Levels Plan target and welcomed over 437,000 new permanent residents to Canada. In 2022, IRCC also reached the 4.4% proportional target of French-speaking immigrant admissions, ahead of the 2023 deadline.

Supporting Facts and Figures

• Immigration made up close to 86% of overall population growth in 2019, and is projected to account for 100% by 2032. The worker to retiree ratio is projected to shift from 4:1 to 2:1 by 2035.
• While public support for immigration in Canada remains relatively strong, some stakeholders have expressed concerns about Canada’s ability to absorb high volumes of new immigrants.
• Generally, Canada’s integration outcomes are strong for first generation immigrants – particularly in the economic class – and become even stronger in future generations. However, in previous periods of economic downturn, immigrants have taken longer than usual to converge with average Canadian earnings.
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