the CanadaVisa Team - 23 July, 2015
Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Canada Minister Jason Kenney has announced that a record level of newcomers were admitted to Canada in 2008.
"We welcomed an unprecedented 519,722 newcomers to Canada in 2008, the largest number in Canada's history," said Minister Kenney at a recent conference geared towards helping immigrants find work in Canada in their fields. "This number includes over 247,000 Permanent Residents, 193,000 temporary foreign workers, and over 79,000 foreign students."
However, the high total is largely a reflection of greatly increased temporary foreign worker numbers over the past several years. Permanent Resident numbers have remained relatively constant, within the lower range of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's maintained targets of 240,000 to 265,000.
Opposition Party members are critical of the increase of temporary workers. They are calling for a greater focus to be put on Permanent Resident applicants instead, who will settle permanently in Canada and thereby more effectively contribute to the Canadian workforce and Canadian society.
Minister Kenney has recently announced that CIC may need to decrease its immigration targets for 2009, citing rising unemployment and economic uncertainty. He will be meeting provincial and territorial counterparts at the end of March to review this.
Regardless of this outcome, Minister Kenney has stated that there will be a significant reduction in the number of temporary foreign workers admitted to Canada in 2009.
On the other hand, he intends to increase the number of international students in Canada.
