A year and a half after winning a minority government in the April 2025 election, Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberal government are already reversing course on their campaign promise to significantly reduce the rate of immigration within Canada.
asserted
Carney → win → Canada
Budget 2026 keeps the official target for new permanent residents (PRs) at 380,000 a year for 2027 through 2029, in line with the 2025 budget’s pledge to “stabilise permanent resident admission targets at 380,000 per year for three years.”
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Budget → keep → years
But Ottawa is also converting up to 200,000 temporary residents to PRs by the end of 2027, on top of last year’s one-time measure to convert about 148,000 more in 2026 and 2027, roughly 82,000 of them next year.
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Ottawa → convert → them
In 2027 alone, the roughly 282,000 conversions of temporary immigrants to permanent residents would add 74 percent on top of the 380,000 levels plan, none of it counted in the official number.
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conversions → add → number
Add these together and Canada could grant PR status to as many as 662,000 people in 2027, although many of them already live here.
uncertain
many → add → them
But moving them outside the 380,000 cap still matters: when people already in Canada no longer take up spots in the main PR stream, those spots can go to new arrivals from abroad instead, which RBC says adds upside to population growth.
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RBC → move → growth
The result is more people overall, at a time when Ottawa promised to stabilize immigration.
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Ottawa → promise → immigration
The 662,000 would be about 1.6 percent of Canada’s population (roughly 41.8 million as of July), well above the 1 percent ceiling the Liberal platform promised to hold to after 2027.
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platform → promise → 2027
Is the Carney government cooking the numbers?
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government → cook → numbers
Carney says the pathway simply recognizes reality.
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pathway → say → reality
“These are people who are not permanent in terms of the classification, but are effectively permanent residents, and we’re recognizing that,” he said last week.
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he → recognize → that
The 2025 Liberal platform—“Canada Strong”—included an immigration section that at the very top of its list of priorities stated it would “return immigration to sustainable levels” in order “to ease the strain on housing, public infrastructure, and our social services
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it → strong”—include → housing
It promised to do so, in part, by bringing temporary residents below 5 percent of the population by the end of 2027.
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It → promise → 2027
The plan Carney inherited aimed to get there through a mix of departures and transitions to permanent status.
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Carney → inherit → status
The departures largely haven’t happened: RBC Economics found the planned outflow of temporary residents fell roughly half short in 2025 and is tracking similarly behind this year.
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outflow → happen → year
In September, Statistics Canada revised its population estimates back to 2021, adding about 300,000 people.
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Canada → revise → people
Roughly 80 percent were temporary residents who, as The Hub reported, stayed in Canada waiting on permit extensions rather than leaving.
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Hub → report → extensions
Temporary residents still make up 6.7 percent of the population, down from a revised peak of 7.2 percent in October 2024.
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residents → make → October
Rather than wait for people to leave, Ottawa is reclassifying them.
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Ottawa → wait → them
Each temporary resident granted permanent status drops out of the 5 percent calculation while the population stays the same.
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population → grant → calculation
The Parliamentary Budget Officer noted that last year’s one-time pathways for 148,000 people shrink the temporary population “without affecting the number of people present in Canada.”
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pathways → note → Canada
The new 200,000-person measure does the same thing on a larger scale.
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measure → do → scale
And the Carney government claims a levels plan that keeps
The math behind ‘controlled’ growth
During the 2025 campaign, Carney distanced himself from the Century Initiative, a registered charity that envisions 100 million Canadians by 2100, saying its co-founder would not advise him on immigration.
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founder → claim → immigration
Yet his government’s arithmetic appears to be aligning with that target.
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arithmetic → appear → target
Reaching 100 million from today’s 41.8 million requires compound growth of about 1.2 percent a year.
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Reaching → reach → percent
That’s barely above Canada’s 1972–2015 average of 1.1 percent, which would get Canada to roughly 94 million by 2100.
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which → ’ → 2100
It’s also below the pre-pandemic Trudeau years, when growth averaged about 1.3 percent from 2015 to 2019.
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growth → ’ → 2019
Sustained for the rest of the century, that pace would bring Canada to about 108 million by 2100.
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pace → sustain → 2100
Prime Minister Carney told the New York Times last month that Canada “consistently takes around 1 percent of our population in terms of immigration.”
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Canada → tell → immigration
He then told reporters that after his government got immigration under control in the past year, the question arising is “…when do we resume some controlled increase in the population, which is the nature of Canada.”
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which → tell → Canada
The Parliamentary Budget Officer had projected medium-term population growth of just 0.8 percent a year.
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Officer → project → percent
But RBC says the new pathway adds upside, since conversions can free up regular PR spots for new arrivals from abroad.
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conversions → say → arrivals
From today’s higher base, a return to historically normal growth would put Canada back on a Century Initiative pace, whatever the prime minister calls it.
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minister → put → it
A recipe for resentment
The Environics Institute’s latest survey found 48 percent of Canadians believe there is too much immigration.
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percent → find → Canadians
That’s down from 58 percent in 2024, but up from 27 percent in 2022.
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That → ’ → 2022
Poor management of the system was tied as the most-cited reason, a concern a headline number omitting nearly 300,000 permanent residents won’t address.
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number → tie → residents
Meanwhile, housing supply is moving backward.
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supply → move → ?
Actual starts in larger urban centres fell 11 percent year over year in September, and CMHC projects starts will slip to about 223,400 in 2027, roughly half the 417,000 to 469,000 homes it says are needed annually to restore affordability.
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it → fall → affordability
As of Nov. 3, qualifying Express Entry job offers in 186 high-wage occupations also no longer require a Labour Market Impact Assessment, the test of whether hiring a foreign worker will hurt Canadian workers.
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hiring → qualify → workers
That exposes Canadians in those fields to more competition and potentially weaker wage growth.
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That → expose → competition
…and 11 more, not listed.
The Aporia
