Canada Immigration Visas

CANADA’S economy needs immigrants to support its aging native population.

Of recent immigrants, 57% been in the prime working age group of 25-54, compared to only 42% of Canada’s native population.

“It really makes Canada’s cities international. It makes them a place of global connections and global talent,” comments Ratna Omidvar, executive director of the Maytree Foundation, a Toronto-based private foundation dedicated to immigration issues.

Over 85% of immigrants qualifying for citizenship have opted to take up the opportunity. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finley said via e-mail: “It speaks to what a great country we have that so many want to be a part of it.”

Over one million migrants have arrived in Canada in the past five years, making the country a combination of people with more than 150 languages, from over 200 countries.
Currently nearly one in five people (6.2 million individuals) in Canada were born abroad – the country’s largest proportional foreign-born population since the beginning of the Great Depression (when immigrants accounted for 22% of inhabitants).

In terms of multiculturalism among western immigrant-magnet nations, Canada is now second only to Australia, where 22% of the population are foreign-born.

The vast majority of immigrants are drawn to Canada’s cities, often because of job prospects, family members or friends. This emphasizes the importance of the economic role of migrants, as without immigration the only two ways to fuel the workforce would be natural increase (more births than deaths) or movement from rural to urban areas, both of which have levelled off in Canada in recent years.