February 1st, Canada’s new Immigration changes in 2022 

The Canadian federal government is about to announce new immigration changes for 2022, which will last until 2024. It gets called “Immigration Levels Plan 2022-2024”.

The program will contain updates on the number of immigrants who will enter Canada through all of the immigration programs: 

• economic
• family
• humanitarian

The last announcement by the government was Oct 2020 that they announced welcoming 400.000 new immigrants. It involved 40.000 immigrants, more than the previous program.

Under IRPA (Immigration and Refugee Protection Act), Canada’s main immigration law, the government needs to announce the new updates by February 1st.

The announcement didn’t happen in 2021 over the September election. The last deadline for making the announcement is Friday, February 11th.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) wants to welcome 411.000 new immigrants to Canada under Immigration Levels Plan 2021-2023. IRCC was able to attract 401.000 immigrants to the county, which was the highest level in the entire history of Canada. The government was able to do this by changing the temporary residents living currently in Canada to permanent residents due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The plan is to welcome 241.000 immigrants (59%) through the following: 

•  Express Entry
• the Provincial Nominee Program
• Quebec’s programs

There will be 26% of immigrants which make 103.000 ones through the family class immigrants:

• the Spouses
• Partners
• Children

Refugees and humanitarian and compassionate programs will make the rest of 15% (66,000) of the new immigrants.

The IRCC wants to compensate for the low birth rate and aging population.

Conclusion Canada’s new Immigration changes in 2022

It is estimated that the government wants to reduce the number of immigrants as there are “1.8 million permanent and temporary resident applicants waiting in the queue”.

It remains to be seen what will be announced this February. Whether the number of immigrants will be reduced to make the backlog clear. Welcoming immigrants means fewer job opportunities and more economic pressure.

On the other hand, a higher number of immigrants might be required to cover post-pandemic issues and the lack of workforce and population.