Canada has been the fastest to recover from the pandemic, largely thanks to its approach to immigration. Newcomers enrich communities and contribute to Canada’s economy by creating jobs and supporting local businesses. Realizing its value, the Canadian government plans to absorb 431,645 new permanent residents in 2022.

In late December 2022, Sean Fraser, Secretary of State for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced that Canada had met its target, beating the previous record set for 2021. This is the highest number of people enrolled in a single year in Canadian history. Prior to the 2021 record, the last time Canada received such a large number of new arrivals was in 1913.

In 2022, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) staff processed approximately 5.2 million permanent residency, temporary residency and citizenship applications. This is almost double the requests processed in 2021.

Over the next few years, Canada expects to continue to welcome a significant number of newcomers. IRCC added resources and introduced new technologies to streamline processes and move more processes online. As the Canadian government focuses on tackling today’s severe labor shortages and building a strong economy for the future, the immigration minister said “immigration is an essential part of the solution”.

“We are marking an important milestone for Canada: reaching a new record number of admitted newcomers in a single year. This speaks to the strength and resilience of our country and its people. Newcomers play an important role in addressing labor shortages, bringing new perspectives and talent to our communities and enriching our society as a whole,” said Sean Le, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship