IRCC Projects Immigration Will Drive All of Canada’s Population Growth

(CANADA) — Statistics Canada reported that international migration accounted for all of Canada’s population growth in the first quarter of 2025 after the country recorded a negative natural increase, underscoring how births and deaths now shape immigration policy as much as jobs and services do.

The agency said Canada had 5,628 more deaths than births in that quarter, leaving population gains to come entirely from people arriving from abroad.

For the full year of 2024, international migration made up 97.3% of Canada’s population growth, official data show, a shift that has put Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, at the center of debates over housing, healthcare capacity and the pace of change in communities.

As fertility falls and deaths rise with an aging population, Canada’s natural increase has moved toward near-zero or below-zero territory, a turning point that makes immigration levels and the mix of temporary and permanent residents the primary levers for whether the country grows at all.

That reality has become politically consequential because immigration supports labour-force growth, but rapid population gains can strain rental markets, schools, clinics and settlement services, especially in fast-growing urban regions.

The federal government has tried to balance those pressures by planning for stable permanent resident admissions while tightening the number of people arriving on time-limited permits, shifting emphasis toward transitions for those already in the country.

Statistics Canada has also pointed to a demographic backdrop that makes the reliance on immigration hard to avoid. The agency reported that Canada’s total fertility rate reached a historic low of 1.25 children per woman in late 2024, reinforcing the longer-term trend that births alone no longer sustain growth.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer added a fiscal and planning lens in a report dated February 26, 2026, projecting that Canada is expected to see “zero population growth” for the second consecutive year in 2026 as Ottawa moves to reduce the share of non-permanent residents.

That projected pause in overall growth does not mean the country stops admitting newcomers. It reflects a policy choice to lower the number of non-permanent residents, even as immigration remains the main driver of longer-term population change.

The PBO wrote that “population growth is driven almost entirely by immigration” and projected that “natural increase in Canada is going to hit zero really soon. by 2029 or 2030.” at which point “100 per cent” of growth will be immigration-related.

Ottawa’s stated objective is to reduce the non-permanent resident share to 5% of the total population by late 2027, a target that ties together population growth, service capacity and public confidence in the immigration system.

IRCC set out how it intends to manage that shift in the Notice – Supplementary Information for the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan, released on November 4, 2025, as part of a broader effort to stabilize the population after a surge in the years following the pandemic.

The 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan freezes permanent resident admissions at 380,000 per year for 2026, 2027, and 2028, while reducing inflows in other channels that have driven faster short-term growth.

Alongside that cap on permanent resident targets, the plan aims to reduce new temporary resident arrivals, including international students and temporary foreign workers, as Ottawa tries to align demand for housing and services with the pace of population change.

The government outlined a 45% reduction in new temporary arrivals, focusing on the student and temporary foreign worker streams, while putting more weight on “in-land” applicants already living in Canada to transition to permanent residency.

That operational shift changes who makes up future immigration flows without necessarily requiring the same scale of new arrivals at the border or airport, because transitions from temporary status to permanent residency can maintain labour supply while easing short-term pressures linked to rapid increases in headcounts.

The policy direction also reflects a demographic squeeze that does not disappear with slower growth. Nearly 9 million baby boomers will reach retirement age by 2030, official analysis said, tightening labour markets even as demand for healthcare grows.

Housing and healthcare have become the most cited constraints in the growth debate, particularly after Canada recorded population growth of 3.2% in 2023, a pace that governments and service providers have linked to sharper competition for rentals and added pressure on clinics and hospitals.

Over the long run, demographic ratios also frame the stakes. Without immigration, the old-age dependency ratio is projected to rise to 50 retirees for every 100 workers within 50 years, a measure that captures how many people of working age may need to support those past retirement age.

Federal agencies and analysts have emphasized different parts of the picture, but they are drawing from the same core data and targets: Statistics Canada’s population estimates, the IRCC planning documents tied to the 2026–2028 plan, and the PBO’s demographic and fiscal analysis, including its Demographic Implications of the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan.

The minister’s annual reporting to Parliament has also framed the policy goal as one of sustainability as Canada adapts to lower natural increase. In the 2025 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration dated Nov 20, 2025, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship wrote: “By building a well-managed and sustainable immigration system, we will work with employers, provinces and territories to attract top global talent and grow our economy, while staying within our capacity to welcome and integrate those who choose Canada as their home.”

Cross-border dynamics also appear in the conversation, particularly where asylum claims and irregular crossings create regional pressure points, but Canada’s population totals and targets are driven by Canadian decisions and Canadian data, not U.S. agencies.

Officials have noted that USCIS and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security primarily focus on U.S. domestic policy while maintaining bilateral cooperation through the Canada-United States Safe Third Country Agreement and regional migration dialogues, mechanisms that can shape how asylum processing and enforcement affect border communities.

For Canada, the central question is increasingly how to manage immigration as the main source of growth in a country where natural increase no longer provides a demographic buffer, leaving IRCC’s targets to do more than set admissions levels — they now help determine whether the population rises, holds steady, or falls.