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Rabat – Canada has set ambitious new immigration targets, hoping to welcome more than 1.2 million new immigrants in the coming three years. “The key to both short-term recovery and long-term prosperity is immigration,” Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino told the press on Friday. The immigration minister visibly beamed with pride as he announced the historic targets.
It was clearly a day of pride for Canada’s immigration minister who stated he was “honored” to announce the 2021-2023 immigration plan. He described it as a “vision to increase our numbers a little every year over the next three years.”
The immigration minister said that Canada needs the historic number of new immigrants to fill a shortage created by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Travel restrictions and other constraints have led to a shortfall in admissions this year,” Mendocino highlighted as a key reason for the expanded targets.
Historic targets
Canada aims to make up for this shortfall in admissions by setting its targets to 401,000 new permanent residents in 2021. In 2022 this number will rise to 411,000, followed by 421,000 in 2023. ”Our plan will continue to focus on Canada’s economic growth,” the immigration minister stated at the press conference announcing the program.
“Communities with the most immigration consistently see the fastest growth,” he said as he announced Canada’s intentions to expand recent successful pilot projects. These projects aimed to use community-based selection models to attract newcomers to Canada’s smaller cities and rural regions.
Canada will continue to set its immigration policy around “important” family reunification programs, according to the minister. “We will uphold our Canadian values by broadening economic pathways for refugees with the skills to hit the ground running and maintaining our global commitment to protecting the world’s most vulnerable,” he said.
Sound policy
Canada is mindful of its rapidly aging population, similar to many Western countries, and sees immigration as the key solution. There are simply not enough young people working relative to every retiree, a trend that will see healthcare costs in Canada rise by 40% without sufficient young people to balance out the large number of retiring Canadians.
“We need more workers, and immigration is the way to get there,” said the minister to sum up Canada’s predicament. Mendocino listed several important contributions that citizens who immigrated provide to Canada, including starting new businesses and bringing in highly skilled new workers.
Canada’s scientific approach to immigration as an economic positive will come as a shock to the growing number of anti-immigrant voices across the West. Yet, Immigration Minister Mendocino’s irrefutable list of positive effects of immigration reflects a decades-old scientific consensus.
Empty rhetoric and xenophobia drive an increasing fear of immigration, which often makes Western politicians afraid of opposing this growing block of voters. Canada’s pragmatic stand amid growing fear of the “other” testifies to Canadian politicians’ bravery to withstand the temptation to appease xenophobic constituents rather than meet citizens’ interests.
