As of August 22, Canada has welcomed about 300,000 new permanent residents.
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser boasted last week that Canada has hit the 300,000 mark earlier this year than any other year. Since Confederation in 1867, Canada has welcomed more than 300,000 immigrants in an entire year only six times: in the years of 1911 to 1913 and then in 2018, 2019, and 2021.
After pandemic-related travel restrictions caused a slump of newcomers in 2020, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) ramped up immigration in 2021, ending off the year with a record-breaking 405,330 newcomers. Even so, IRCC did not surpass the 300,000 mark until the fourth quarter that year.
Publicly available data on IRCC’s open data portal has so far reported the numbers of new immigrants up until June 2022. The results for July and August will be released in the upcoming months.