Citing economic uncertainty, the Canadian government recently announced the possibility of a reduction in the number of immigrants to be admitted to Canada in 2009.

Canada's Minister of Immigration intends to meet with Federal and Provincial officials during the month of March to analyze the economic situation and to decide if changes to immigration levels are warranted. The current Canadian target for 2009 is between 240,000 and 265,000 admissions.

The Minister noted that in the face of the worldwide economic downturn, Canada is the only highly developed nation that has so far not decreased its immigration numbers. It remains to be seen if Canada can still make this claim in the weeks ahead.

What does this mean for potential new applicants?

Canada's Minister of Immigration has the authority to make changes to the immigration selection system in order to increase or decrease immigration numbers. As a general rule, such changes are made without any advance warnings or delay, out of concern that there would be a flood of new applications if applicants knew that the Canadian immigration regulations were about to change. In this instance however, the Canadian government has signaled that modifications may lie ahead in the near future.