CANADA INCREASES IMMIGRATION TARGETS INTO 2021

Ottawa, October 31, 2018

Following the tabling of the 2018 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration on October 31, 2018, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is pleased to release details on the Government of Canada’s immigration levels plan for 2019-2021.

The 2019-2021 plan includes a small number of adjustments to previously-announced targets in 2019 and 2020. These adjustments are identified below. The new plan also commits to increasing admissions to 350,000 in 2021, which will be equal to nearly 1% of Canada’s population.

Summary of adjustments to levels targets in 2019 and 2020 and levels in 2021

• 2019: In the 2018 federal Budget the Government of Canada committed to resettle an additional 1,000 vulnerable women and girls as refugees. Both the Government-assisted Refugee target and the overall levels target have been adjusted upwards by 800 admissions to align with this commitment (since 200 of these admissions are expected in 2018).
• 2020: The target in the Protected Persons and Dependents Abroad category is increased by 1,000 admissions to help address growing demand, and the overall target is increased by the same amount, from 340,000 to 341,000. An additional adjustment is made by exchanging 700 spaces from the Blended Visa Office Referred Program to the Government-assisted Refugee Program, with no net change to the number of resettled refugees Canada intends to accept. This is an opportunity to better plan for meeting resettlement objectives in light of challenges in meeting the Blended Visa Office Referred Program target.
• 2021: The plan increases by an additional 9,000 admissions, with 6,500 allocated to the Economic Class and 2,500 to humanitarian streams to address demand pressures in these categories.