Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
Canada is expected to unveil its next Immigration Levels Plan for 2027–2029 in early November, setting new targets for permanent resident admissions and temporary resident arrivals, including international students and temporary foreign workers. The forthcoming plan will establish Canada's first official target for permanent resident admissions in 2029 and will confirm or revise the indicative targets for 2027 and 2028 contained in the current 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan, which was released on November 5, 2025.
Under Section 94(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship is required to table the annual immigration report containing the levels plan in each House of Parliament on or before November 1. November 1, 2026, falls on a Sunday, meaning Parliament will not be sitting that day. The plan is therefore expected to be tabled when Parliament next sits, likely in the first few days of November. The announcement will be closely watched by prospective immigrants, international students and temporary workers as the federal government determines the future scale and composition of immigration.
The political context surrounding the new plan is charged. Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a recent interview with The New York Times that with Canada's immigration system back under control, the question now is when to begin a "controlled increase" of the country's population. "Now the question starts to become, when do we resume some controlled increase in the population, which is the nature of Canada?" Carney said. "So that will happen, and we just want to make sure that we've got it under control." His remarks, reported on September 29, have prompted renewed attention to the possibility of future increases in immigration levels, although the government has not announced specific targets for 2027–2029.
The government had planned to increase the number of permanent residents being admitted to Canada annually to 500,000 under the previous administration of Justin Trudeau. It changed course with the 2024/25 immigration plan and started reducing the intake. The government also began capping the number of temporary workers and students being admitted to Canada after it said major increases in those populations had contributed to strains on the housing and job markets, health care and other services. The government has set a goal of reducing the temporary resident population to five per cent of the total population by the end of next year. The most recent immigration levels plan called for 385,000 permanent resident admissions this year and 370,000 in both 2027 and 2028.
The current 2026–2028 plan represents a significant departure from the expansive immigration targets that defined the post-pandemic period. Under the plan, Canada admitted 380,000 new permanent residents annually from 2026 to 2028, with economic immigration accounting for 239,800 admissions in 2026, family reunification for 84,000 and refugees and protected persons for 56,200. The plan also set temporary resident admissions targets for 2026 at 385,000, comprising 230,000 workers and 155,000 students, before declining to 370,000 in 2027 and 2028. The temporary worker intake was divided between 170,000 admissions through the International Mobility Program and 60,000 through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in 2026, with the latter falling to 50,000 in 2027 and 2028. The plan also boosted permanent residency spots under the Provincial Nominee Program to 91,500 in 2026, an increase of 66 per cent from the previous target of 55,000.
The results of the reduced targets have been visible in the data. Statistics Canada reported that the number of non-permanent residents dropped by 154,614 people between July 2025 and July 2026, the largest decline since data collection began in 1971. Canada's population grew by only half a percentage point over the same period, with the statistics agency attributing the slowdown in part to the decrease in new permanent and temporary residents admitted. By mid-2026, Canada had admitted 155,800 new permanent residents, amounting to only 41 per cent of the annual target. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada admitted 89,200 new permanent residents under its economic category by June 30 against its 2026 target of 239,800, falling behind by 30,700 admissions.
The opposition Conservatives have seized on Carney's comments to argue that immigration levels must be reduced further. Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, the party's immigration critic, said Canada's immigration targets need to go "way down." "The Liberals keep allowing too many people in too fast for housing, health care and jobs to keep up," she said. Rempel Garner said her party is calling on the government to drop its immigration targets even further than previously set. "We would restore order and fairness. We would remove people with no legal reason to be in the country and we would get back to the principles of integrating people into the Canadian economy," she said. She criticised the Prime Minister for discussing a potential immigration increase in a foreign news outlet without addressing housing, health care and jobs. "To have the prime minister go to a foreign news outlet and announce a potential immigration increase on the horizon without discussing housing, health care and jobs — it's just irresponsible," she said.
The C.D. Howe Institute's immigration targets council, which includes several top academics who study immigration policy, a Trudeau-era deputy minister and former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, recommends the government continue to reduce the number of arrivals over the next three years. The council recommends admitting 380,000 permanent residents next year, 350,000 in 2028 and 340,000 in 2029. It also says the government should track all permanent resident admissions in a single target number and treat the five per cent target for the temporary resident population as a ceiling, with the goal of reducing temporary residents to three per cent of the population. The council says Ottawa must do a better job of tracking work and study permit renewals and outflows of temporary residents.
The 2027–2029 plan will provide the clearest indication yet of how Canada intends to balance permanent immigration, temporary migration, labour-market needs and population growth over the next three years. The permanent resident target will be one of the major figures to watch, but the allocation of admissions across different immigration categories could prove equally significant. The new plan is expected to provide details on economic immigration, Express Entry, provincial nominee programmes, family reunification and Francophone immigration. The government has committed to increasing the share of French-speaking permanent residents outside Quebec to 12 per cent by 2029. The approach to temporary residents will also be closely watched, particularly the targets for international students and temporary foreign workers. For prospective immigrants, the distribution of available spaces among the various programmes could determine the opportunities available through specific immigration pathways. As Carney put it, the system is under control, and the question is when the controlled increase begins. The answer will come in November.
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