Canada wants to help immigrants and combat the troubles of an aging population and birth rate decline.
Canada gained more than 286,000 permanent residents in 2017, according to an annual report to Parliament, and it wants to welcome more than 1 million as permanent residents by 2021.
“Immigrants and their descendants have made immeasurable contributions to Canada, and our future success depends on continuing to ensure they are welcomed and well-integrated,” said Ahmed Hussen, minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, wrote in a message within the report.
The report includes an immigration plan for 2019 to 2021, which targets to admit about 330,800 immigrants in 2019; 341,000 in 2020; and 350,000 in 2021.
“Under this plan, Canada will welcome more talented workers with the skills and expertise our economy needs, reunite more family members and accommodate more refugees looking to start new lives,” the report says.
Immigration accounted for 80 percent of Canadian population growth between 2017 and 2018, according to the report, and about one in five Canadians are immigrants.
Hussen, who immigrated to Canada from Somalia in the 1990s, noted in his message that immigrants entering Canada’s labor force will help offset the country’s new challenges of “an aging population and declining birth rate.”
The number of forcibly displaced people reached 68.5 million as of 2017, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. Canada’s welcoming attitude toward immigrants, especially refugees in need of resettlement, comes as other countries – including the United States – are enforcing a tougher stance
By Katelyn Newman,
USNews
