IRCC Minister Transition Binder 2021:Public Opinion Research on Canadians’ Attitudes Towards Immigration

Views of Immigration Levels

IRCC has conducted telephone tracking surveys with the Canadian general population on a regular basis since 1996. These surveys cover a wide range of topics, but the cornerstone has been Canadians’ views of immigration levels.

• Over the past 25 years, the number of immigrants who landed in Canada each year has increased from around 200,000 to over 300,000, yet we have not seen a rise in opposition to the number of immigrants coming to Canada.
• In fact, support for immigration levels has been relatively stable over the past 15 years, following a substantial positive shift that took place in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

Perception on Immigration from Canadians

Source: IRCC Telephone Tracking Survey (January 1996 through March 2021)

Question: In your opinion do you feel that there are too many, too few or about the right number of immigrants coming to Canada?

Please note: To account for the decreased rate of immigration to Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, the question text in September 2020 and March 2021 was altered to ask about views of Canada receiving “the same number of immigrants” as before the pandemic, “once travel restrictions are lifted.”

Understanding of Immigration Levels & Mix

IRCC also conducts focus groups on a regular basis, which provides insight into how Canadians perceive and understand immigration and immigration levels.

• Most Canadians do not know how many immigrants Canada admits each year.
• Canadians tend to underestimate the share of economic immigrants, while overestimating the share of refugees and family class.
• As annual levels targets increased from 250,000 in 2014 to over 300,000 in recent years, opposition to these targets has not increased.
• Some Canadians experience a form of “sticker shock” when informed of Canada’s annual levels target as hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
• Contextualizing the target as around 1% of Canada’s current population, or explaining how the target relates to previous years’ targets, tend to eliminate this “sticker shock.”

Source: IRCC Tracking Surveys and IRCC Focus Groups

Views of Immigration in Online Surveys

Since 2018, IRCC has conducted tracking surveys both by telephone and online.

• Online surveys conducted with Canadians consistently find less support for immigration, in part the result of social desirability bias.
• Conducting online surveys is a useful counterbalance to potentially overly-positive telephone results, and allows the Department to compare our findings against online surveys conducted by third parties.

The chart below shows the difference in views of an annual levels target of 401,000, between IRCC’s March 2021 telephone survey and online survey.

Telephone survey results:

• 12% say too few
• 64% say about right
• 21% say too many
• 3% say not sure

Online survey results:

• 7% say too few (decrease of 5 compared to telephone)
• 46% say about right (decrease of 18 compared to telephone)
• 36% say too many (increase of 15 compared to telephone)
• 11% say not sure (increase of 8 compared to telephone)

Source: IRCC Telephone & Online Tracking Survey (March 2021)

Question: Currently, Canada aims to admit 401,000 immigrants as permanent residents this year, many of whom are already in Canada as temporary residents. Do you feel that this would be too many, too few, or about the right number?

Views of Local Immigration

• Canadians’ views of immigration levels to Canada do not always correlate with their views of the number of immigrants coming to their city or town.
• Canadians who believe that immigration is beneficial to Canada do not always see the same benefits at a local level.
• Those living in large cities and in smaller centres alike often believe that it is important to see immigrants spread more evenly across the country, generally agreeing that smaller centres would benefit from more immigrants, and that large cities are overpopulated.
• Those living in Toronto and Vancouver are particularly concerned about the impact of continued population growth on housing, transportation, and social services.
• Many Canadians, particularly in Quebec and Atlantic Canada, see immigration as necessary to help fill skill and labour shortages in their local economy.
• Quebecers and Atlantic Canadians are most likely to support increasing the number of immigrants moving to their city or town.

Source: IRCC Tracking Surveys and IRCC Focus Groups

Views of Immigration during the COVID-19 Pandemic

• The majority of Canadians are supportive of the 2021 levels target of 401,000 permanent residents in 2021, particularly in light of the focus on offering permanent residency to temporary residents already in Canada.
• Views of immigrants and immigration’s impact on Canada have moved in a positive direction during the pandemic.
• Canadians have generally been supportive of border closures, though concerns about increased transmission of COVID-19 specifically related to immigration seem to be limited.
• Canadians are more likely to see immigration during Canada’s economic recovery as positive for the economy rather than negative, and in particular, as positive for Canadian businesses.
• Those who do have concerns about immigration during Canada’s economic recovery tend to be worried about the availability of jobs.

Source: IRCC Tracking Surveys and IRCC Focus Groups & Environics Institute’s Focus Canada Telephone Tracking Surveys