Canada's Minister of Immigration, John McCallum, today stated his belief that most Canadians want to boost the overall number of immigrants coming to Canada.
Speaking with reporters following a cabinet meeting in Ottawa, McCallum summarized the results of his recent cross-country consultations on Canadian immigration.
“I have been hearing a lot of input, and all the hundreds of people I’ve spoken to across the country, most of them, almost all of them, have advocated more immigrants, whether for demographic reasons or for job-shortage reasons,” said McCallum, who added that “we as a government will not decide our proposal until November.”
Mr. McCallum said he has received a “huge amount of input” on the topic of immigration over the summer months.
The government is scheduled to announce Canada’s new immigration targets in November, 2016, in the annual immigration levels plan. The previous plan, which was unveiled earlier this year, had the highest projected immigration level in decades, with an increase of about 20,000 in the total number of new permanent residents to be admitted year over year. This represented around a 7 percent increase on the 2015 plan.