The canadian government announced a new immigration plan that seeks an increase of 500,000 immigrants a year for 3 years to achieve a total of 2025 1.5 million new residents.
The plan’s main objective reduce the labor gap that exists in the country, since nearly a million jobs have not been filled because most people do not have the tools or skills to fill those vacancies.
Similarly Canada looks for solutions to keep the population and economy growing because it has an aging population and a low birth rate, which means that if the country wants to grow and develop, it has to look for immigrants to become permanent residents.
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“Our immigration plan is focused on helping businesses across the country find the Skilled workers needed to address labor shortages”, Shared the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada through his official Twitter account.
The minister also said that help companies find the workers they needwill set Canada on a path that will contribute to long-term success and enable them to meet key commitments to vulnerable people fleeing violence, war and persecution.
Last year, the country hosted 405,000 permanent residents, the highest figure in its history. Canada has one of the highest migration rates in the world, with more than 23 percent of the population being immigrants.
Response of some Canadians to the immigration plan
When the government announced its goals of adding 500,000 new immigrants a year, the province of Quebec, which can set its own immigration limits, made it clear that would not accept more than 50,000 a year.
“Already with 50,000 it is difficult to stop the decline of French,” said the Prime Minister of Quebec, François Legault, who made it clear Worries that more immigrants will diminish the French language in the province.
In a survey conducted by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies among 1,537 Canadians, three out of four said they were somewhat or very worried because of the effect that the new plan would have on housing and social services, since large cities like Toronto and Vancouver, where about 10% of the population live, have affordable housing crisis. Almost half (49%) considered that the goal of 1.5 million new residents they were too high, while 31% claimed that it was the correct number.
