Country Resource - Canada
- Population........................................................................38,794,813 (2024 est.)
- Population growth rate ...............................................................0.71% (2024 est.)
- Birth rate.........................................................10 births/1,000 population (2024 est.)
- Death rate.......................................................8.2 deaths/1,000 population (2024 est.)
- Net migration rate........................................5.3 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2024 est.)
- Ethnic groups*.........................................Canadian 15.6%, English 14.7%, Scottish 12.1%, French 11%, Irish 12.1%, German 8.1%, Chinese 4.7%, Italian 4.3%, First Nations 1.7%, Indian 3.7%, Ukrainian 3.5%, Metis 1.5% (2021 est.)
* Percentages add up to more than 100% because respondents were able to identify more than one ethnic origin
CIA World Factbook
Canada has long been viewed as a global leader in creating welcoming immigration policies. But amid pressures on housing and services, as well as a surge in admission of temporary migrants, most Canadians now say there is too much immigration. With the government lowering its targets for new arrivals, this country profile examines the factors behind Canada's policy evolution.
Recent Activity
Many countries have sought to encourage immigrants’ participation in sports as a pathway to integration. These efforts have followed broader social policy shifts and evolved as policymakers have reconsidered the process of integration. This article examines how sports programming has been used to aid newcomers' settlement in their communities.
Canada has long been viewed as a global leader in creating welcoming immigration policies. But amid pressures on housing and services, as well as a surge in admission of temporary migrants, most Canadians now say there is too much immigration. With the government lowering its targets for new arrivals, this country profile examines the factors behind Canada's policy evolution.
Historically close cultural and economic ties have prompted Canadians to move to the United States for generations. Canadians once accounted for one-tenth of all U.S. immigrants, although this share is now much smaller. This article offers easy-to-access statistics on the current and historical Canadian immigrant population in the United States.
Immigration trends in countries such as Canada are pushing some to reconsider how they think about integration. More than half of Canada's population could be immigrants or children of immigrants by 2041, prompting a significant question: What does it mean to “fit in” when there is no clear single group in which to fit? This article outlines the policy and demographic changes in Canada and explores how they complicate prior views of integration.
The international humanitarian protection system built amid the ashes of World War II has come under increasing strain, as record numbers of people flee internationally and travel farther distances. New barriers to protection in destination countries have captured public attention, but governments are also experimenting with ways to offer sanctuary, which could signal a remaking of the global system, as this article explains.
Hong Kong finds itself in the middle of opposing trends. Amid political unrest, Beijing's increasing security pressure, and pandemic disruptions, many Hong Kongers have left and been replaced by a new group of immigrants, largely from mainland China. The dynamic has raised questions whether Hong Kong will remain a global cosmopolitan hub or instead turn inward to Asia, as this article discusses.
Canada's ambitions to dramatically increase immigration have met resistance in Quebec, the country's only majority-French province, where many worry their identity is under threat. Provincial officials have sought to fortify the role of the French language in society through academic, immigration, and linguistic policies, but the language nonetheless faces demographic threats, as this article explains.
The revised U.S.-Canada Safe Third Country Agreement closes what critics call a loophole that incentivizes unauthorized border crossings of asylum seekers. While responding to Canadian concerns of increasing irregular arrivals from the United States, the change—taken in tandem with U.S. moves at the U.S.-Mexico border—suggests that the Biden administration increasingly wants to rely on neighboring countries to respond to rising asylum claims.
Migrant millionaires are once again on the move, though headed to new destinations amid fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While wealthy new arrivals can help provide a healthy tax base and invest in local economies, they can upset housing markets and exacerbate wealth disparities, as this article describes.
In 2022, the United States joined a growing list of countries that allow for a third gender option (the “X” marker) in passports. This article examines the introduction of the X marker, the impacts of third gender markers for transgender and nonbinary travelers and migrants as well as border management systems, and the evolving policy landscape ahead.
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When refugees can access mainstream work visas, this offers opportunities to find safety while also helping destination countries meet pressing labor needs. Yet the design of many work visas puts them out of reach for well-qualified refugees. This visa evaluation framework and scorecard highlight how different characteristics can make a visa more or less accessible, transparent, and predictable.
International education has become a lucrative business, with more countries competing to attract tertiary-level students. But after years of growth, attitudes appear to be shifting in some major destinations, amid concerns about the sustainability of large admissions of international students. This report explores these evolving mobility trends and attitudes, as well as pressing questions about the future of the international education sector.
Humanitarian admission, sponsorship, and education- and employment-based mobility programs are becoming important tools for refugee protection, alongside traditional resettlement. Yet even as these complementary pathways gain in popularity, they have generally remained small. This report explores strategies and forms of support that could help these programs grow and better fulfill their objectives.
Refugee labor pathways offer a potential win-win solution for displaced people with in-demand skills and industries facing acute labor shortages. Why and how do employers engage with these programs? This first-of-its-kind study examines the experiences, motives, and constraints of employers who have recruited workers through these pathways, and what those insights mean for discussions about scaling these programs up.
Countries across the Americas are grappling with how to effectively manage migration. The aim is to facilitate movement in a way that benefits receiving societies, migrants, and their origin countries, while discouraging irregular arrivals. But creating legal pathways that represent real alternatives to irregular migration remains a challenge and will require concerted effort, as this report explores.
Los países a través de las Américas intentan gestionar eficazmente la migración. La meta es facilitar el movimiento a beneficio de las sociedades receptoras, los migrantes y sus países de origen y a la vez disuadir las llegadas irregulares. Pero como explora este informe, crear vías legales que sean alternatives reales a la migración irregular requerirá un esfuerzo concertado.
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Helping refugees and others in need of international protection understand what life will be like in a new society is an important part of any sponsorship or complementary pathway program. This fact sheet considers emerging good practices related to when and how expectations management happens.
Sponsorship and complementary pathway programs take different approaches to matching refugees and others in need of international protection with receiving communities, sponsors, or employers. This fact sheet identifies key elements of successful matching strategies and the many benefits of a good match.
Community members play an important part in sponsorship and complementary pathway programs, acting as volunteers who welcome and support refugees and others in need of international protection. This fact sheet explores the benefits and key components of effective volunteer engagement.
This fact sheet examines the trilateral relationship between the United States, Canada, and Mexico in the decade since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and provides facts and figures relating to trade and migration among the three countries.
This fact sheet provides a snapshot of the demographics, trade relationships, and migration flows between the United States, Canada, and Mexico in 2003.
Even as advanced economies with aging populations are increasingly reliant on immigrant workers, concerns have grown about how immigration could affect the cost of living and public infrastructure, causing support for even lawful immigration to wane. This issue brief explores why long-term planning is so challenging—yet essential—in the migration policy sphere, and identifies ways to create room for this strategic thinking.
As the scale and costs of climate change and environmental disasters grow, so do their impacts on migration and displacement. Tackling climate mobility will thus require well-designed investments. This issue brief examines the landscape of bilateral government funders and multilateral funds working to address this challenge, how funding is being used, and opportunities to grow the resources available for climate mobility solutions.
The time-critical work of cutting global emissions depends on countries’ ability to cultivate a workforce with the skills needed in sectors such as clean energy. Immigrants are already playing a role in this green transition. But a more proactive strategy is needed to balance smart admissions policies with investments in (re)training and leveraging the skills of local workers, as well as international cooperation to build the global talent pool.
In community sponsorship and other programs that directly involve communities and individuals in supporting refugees’ arrival and integration, where and with whom refugees are matched matters a great deal. This policy brief explores the ongoing evolution of approaches taken to matching refugees with sponsors or receiving communities, highlighting innovations and opportunities for further improvements.
For most Central Americans forced to flee their homes, traveling to Mexico or the United States to apply for asylum is their only option to seek international protection. To date, refugee resettlement has been used only sparingly in the region. This brief explores what role resettlement and other humanitarian pathways play in meeting these protection needs, and whether and how they could be scaled up.
Para la mayoría de las personas centroamericanas que se ven forzadas a abandonar sus hogares, viajar a México o Estados Unidos para solicitar refugio o asilo es la única opción para buscar protección internacional. A la fecha, el reasentamiento de personas refugiadas ha sido utilizado de manera limitada en la región. Este informe explora el papel que el reasentamiento y otras vías de protección humanitarias desempeñan en atender estas necesidades.
A growing number of countries, particularly in Europe, have piloted or implemented refugee sponsorship programs in recent years. Yet there is limited evidence of how well these programs, which tap community members and civil society to take key roles in refugee resettlement, are working and how they can be improved. This issue brief explores how building monitoring and evaluation activities into sponsorship programs can help answer these and other critical questions.
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