Carney says new immigration levels plan is 'sustainable' as it draws ire of Conservatives
Canada will grant permanent and temporary residency to a combined total of more than a million people next year as part of the federal government's new immigration levels plan laid out in the budget.
Almost 660,000 new permanent residents expected next year, 380,000 in 2028
Peter Zimonjic · CBC News
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Canada will grant permanent and temporary residency to a combined total of more than a million people next year as part of the federal government's new immigration levels plan laid out in the 2026 budget.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre criticized the plan to give permanent residency to 657,250 people next year, saying Canada can't absorb that many new people — even though many of them are already living and working here.
"We love immigration for people in numbers that we can absorb, where there are jobs, health care and housing but not when the numbers exceed our capacity to absorb people," he said in Brampton, Ont., on Friday.
Budget 2026 announced that Canada would grant permanent residency to 380,000 people and temporary residency to 370,000 every year for the next three years.
WATCH | Carney on permanent residency numbers:
Path to permanent residency for temporary residents 'in line with sustainable immigration': Carney
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Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada has 'taken back control of immigration' by reducing the number of asylum seekers, temporary foreign workers and students. He says granting permanent residency to 200,000 temporary residents is in line with a sustainable immigration system."Our youth are desperate. They can't find homes. They can't find jobs and now [Prime Minister] Mark Carney wants to bring in more temporary foreign workers to make it even harder," Poilievre said.
Carney defended his immigration plan, saying believes the new levels are "in line with sustainable immigration" and that his government has "taken back control of immigration."
The prime minister pointed to the budget, which said that since 2024, the number of international students is down 71 per cent, temporary foreign workers down 57 per cent and asylum seekers down 68 per cent.
Temporary boost to the numbers
While the new levels plan calls for the addition of 380,000 new permanent residents next year, when combined with two other one-time streams, that number reaches almost 660,000.
That's in part because Budget 2026 also announced the federal government plans to grant permanent residency in 2027 to another 200,000 temporary residents already living and working in the country, on top of the regular intake streams.
About half of that 200,000 will come in through the Express Entry and Provincial Nominee Program streams for workers and their family members. Federal officials said on Friday that provinces will be able to select workers from this group to meet regional and economic needs in their respective jurisdictions.
Carney said these are "people who have been temporary workers, who have been workers in the same firms, in the same communities, for years — and every year the firm goes through the process of renewing their temporary permit."
The other half will be given permanent residency on humanitarian and family reunification grounds. Officials said these are people already in Canada and whose applications are currently in the system, including almost 32,000 from Hong Kong and about 19,000 from Ukraine.
"These are people who are not permanent in terms of the classification, but are effectively permanent residents, and we're recognizing that," Carney said. "It's the right thing to do and … it's within the context of a sustainable immigration system."
The budget commits $302 million over four years starting in 2027-28 to help with their transition from temporary to permanent residency.
The federal government has also committed to completing a two-year "one-time initiative" announced in last year's budget that will add almost 80,000 more permanent residents in 2027.
Births, deaths and population growth
The 380,000 new permanent residents sits at about 0.9 per cent of Statistics Canada's most recent population estimate.
When the temporary boost to permanent residency coming next year is factored in, the increase amounts to about 1.5 per cent of the population.
The permanent resident level for the next three years is only slightly higher than the number of total births each year in Canada, which was about 372,000 in 2025 and 366,000 in 2024.
The number of deaths each year in Canada is slightly below that at about 326,000 in 2024 and 327,000 in 2023, making for a small natural increase to the population each year.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Zimonjic is a senior writer for CBC News who reports for digital, radio and television. He has worked as a reporter and columnist in London, England, for the Telegraph, Times and Daily Mail, and in Canada for the Ottawa Citizen, Torstar and Sun Media. He is the author of Into The Darkness: An Account of 7/7, published by Vintage.
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