Canada's immigration boom: 400k new arrivals loom as Carney's cap promise crumbles
Immigration figures for the first quarter of 2025 have been released after intense scrutiny, and they paint a troubling picture about the gap between Ottawa’s promises and reality.
Contrary to Liberal promises of reducing unmitigated immigration, the first four months of 2025 show that Canada welcomed just over 132,000 landed immigrants. The new numbers have been reported on by Blacklock’s Reporter, showing that Canada is on pace to reach nearly 400,000 new permanent residents by year’s end.
Nearly half a million is well above the sustainable immigration levels we’ve seen from previous governments, especially given that the number of permanent residents alone has absolutely skyrocketed in recent years.
Months ago, in came Trudeau’s successor, Prime Minister Mark Carney, who stood before Canadians during his campaign and promised to cap immigration at sustainable levels. He said that the system wasn’t working and vowed to keep a lid on numbers for a couple of years to build up Canada’s infrastructure to welcome newcomers.
400,000 is not exactly the “cap” many anticipated.
See, last October, the government tabled its Immigration Levels Plan pledging to cut numbers across the board. It was supposed to begin this year, yet actual figures released this week by the Senate’s national finance committee show Canada is on track to exceed that cap.
The numbers come straight from the Department of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, only after serious prodding by senators who weren’t buying vague assurances being peddled as answers.
Senator Claude Carignan, Chair of the national finance committee, was demanding the actual figures. The department’s chief financial officer, Nathalie Manseau, tried to dodge, saying she didn’t have the numbers on hand.
Carignan wasn’t having it, and Canadians finally got the truth: 132,160 landed immigrants from January to April alone.
That’s just permanent residents — it doesn’t include foreign students, visitors, and migrant workers already here, which Blacklock’s says totals over 3 million and makes up a whopping 18.5% of the private sector workforce.
So when will the Liberal government be straight with Canadians about why the numbers don’t match their promises?
The department’s budget for 2025 is a whopping $5.17 billion, even after this supposed scaling back, which begs the question: Why are we still seeing a flood of new arrivals that outpaces the plan?
Not to mention, there is a real human toll to all of this.
When the system is crumbling under the weight of backlogs and unchecked inflows, how compassionate is it to promise smooth immigration integration if it can’t deliver?
There’s the housing crisis, our socialized healthcare system isn’t far behind with staffing shortages, overflowing ERs facing closures, affordability is through the roof, and Canada is losing jobs as youth are increasingly unemployed thanks to Canada's reliance on cheap foreign labour and lax immigration.
Yet here we are, with numbers that suggest the government’s either not at all in control or, unsurprisingly, not being honest about their plans.
This isn’t about closing the door on newcomers — Canada has always been a place that welcomes those who want to build a better life. Instead, this is about truth, accountability, and making sure the system works for everyone — newcomers and Canadians alike. Right now, the proof is in the pudding that it’s not.
When senators have to beg for basic data, and the government’s numbers contradict their promises, we must ask why politicians overlook the issue of Canadian job displacement and if – or perhaps how – they and their corporate partners benefit from continued reliance on cheap foreign labour.
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COMMENTS
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Paul McConnell commented 2025-08-16 19:49:00 -0400We did do a GBA+ Analysis of this right? Some of these people might become involved in building pipelines. -
Bruce Atchison commented 2025-08-15 21:14:01 -0400Here’s a way to slow immigration to a trickle. Make it a law that every immigrant must pass the amateur radio exam and be able to send Morse code at 12 words per minute. But seriously, Carney is a liar. His twin gods are power and money. So promises made are promises broken.
