Canada Plans To Maintain High Immigration Levels… 05th May 2020

Don’t worry, Canada’s open immigration policies are going nowhere and the country will once again be able to welcome plenty of new permanent residents, families, foreign workers, and students.

That’s the message delivered by Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Marco Mendicino in a webinar the morning of May 5, aimed at members of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) who represent many of those wishing to move to or settle in Canada.

“Immigration will absolutely be key to our success and economic recovery going forward,” said Mendicino, a Toronto-based Liberal MP who took over as Minister of Immigration in late 2019.

Despite the challenges presented by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Mendicino pointed out that Canada’s longer-term challenges remain in play. This includes the fact that more people are retiring at ever-increasing rates, and that the ratio of workers to retirees is shrinking. Canada’s birth rate is not high enough to meet the increasing demands on public services without immigration as a big part of the solution.

“This is not the first time Canada has faced a pandemic,” stated Mendicino, whose colleague on Parliament Hill, Senator Ratma Omidvar, wrote in an opinion piece earlier this week: “It is not whether this [a pandemic] will happen again but when.” Both Mendicino and Omidvar advocate for immigration as a key economic driver in Canada.

Immigration levels plan

Back on March 12, Minister Mendicino unveiled Canada’s immigration levels plan for 2020-2022. Under this plan, Canada would again increase immigration levels, targeting over a million new permanent residents over the three-year period. The lion’s share of new permanent residents would be admitted through economic programs such as those managed through Express Entry and the Provincial Nominee Program, with the remainder admitted through Family Class programs, as refugees or asylum seekers, or on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Then the true scale of the coronavirus pandemic became apparent. Just four days later on March 16, Canada announced unprecedented travel restrictions.

These restrictions have had the predictable effect of reducing immigration rates, not quite down to zero — some people approved for arrival before the restrictions came into effect can still travel to Canada — but far closer to zero than would have been expected in normal times. The Minister hinted at possible edits to his plan to come this fall, but the bigger picture is that Canada aims to be back welcoming hundreds of thousands of immigrants annually when it is safe to do so, with Mendicino pointing out that he is “quite excited about the future.”

COVID-19 and travel to Canada

Minister Mendicino touched on a range of subjects relating to groups affected by the current travel restrictions, including temporary foreign workers, parents and grandparents hoping to be sponsored, international students, and the family members of essential workers who, though they may themselves be eligible to arrive in Canada, may not be able to bring family members with them upon their initial entry to Canada.

Overall, Canada’s immigration department is towing a government party line that the most important priority is to maintain the safety of Canadians, even if it means restricting family reunification in the short-term.

Minister Mendicino said that “we are far from being over COVID-19”, pointing out that second waves of the virus have hit other countries — an outcome that the Government of Canada wishes to avoid if at all possible. As such, the current restrictions will remain in place for the time being.