Stats Canada data shows immigration still out of control

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More than 250,000 people were added to Canada’s population between April 1 and July 1 of this year. It’s another massive increase at a time when the country simply can’t handle this kind of rapid growth.

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The latest Statistics Canada report on population showed that between July 1, 2023, and July 1, 2024, we recorded a 3% increase in population – more than 1.2 million.

Our population of non-permanent residents, people who are in Canada on a study or work visa, continues to climb. As of July 1, StatsCan estimated the non-permanent population at 3,002,090, which works out to 7.3% of our population.

Last spring, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government would move to reduce that to just 5% of the population being temporary residents; instead, that number has increased.

While the population continues to increase, our housing starts are down, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. So far this year, housing starts are down 14% in Toronto and 20% in Vancouver.

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This is what Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been warning about: People are coming into Canada faster than we can build homes.

“If you add people faster than you build homes, you’ll have a housing shortage and that’s what’s happened,” Poilievre said in a recent interview with the Sun.

“Last year we had the biggest population growth in Canadian history, 1.2 million, and we built fewer homes than we did back in 1972.”

Poilievre said that if elected, he will tie immigration levels to housing starts and ensure we get back to a balance rather than ever-rising housing costs.

The last time Canada had this level of sustained population growth was in the late 1950s and back then homebuilding was keeping up with supply.

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One of the oddities of the change in population due to the mass influx of temporary foreign workers and students is the gender imbalance. It’s normal for there to be a nearly equal number of men and women and in the general population that remains the case.

“On July 1, 2024, among non-permanent residents, there were 126.6 men for every 100 women and that ratio has varied from 126.6 to 133.1 since 2021,” StatsCan reported.

This is an unhealthy gender gap in a growing part of our population.

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The entire StatsCan report is just more confirmation that when it comes to the immigration system, the Trudeau Liberals continue to mess things up.

Letting immigration, specifically for temporary foreign workers and students, get out of hand is adding to the housing crisis. As StatsCan has shown over the last year, we are also bringing in people at a faster rate than the economy is creating jobs, which is why unemployment has risen from 5% to 6.6%.

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Now we have the gender gap being confirmed and a growing problem with people coming here on student visas claiming asylum.

New data from the Immigration Department shows that 12,915 people in Canada on student visas have already claimed asylum this year. It’s an abuse of the system by people trying to skip the usual immigration system or receive lower tuition while in Canada due to their asylum claim.

Under the Trudeau Liberals, Canada’s refugee system has been overrun with people who are economic migrants trying to use the back door to get into the country and it needs to stop.

“We need to properly be able to identify who needs most help, who is there as a true asylum-seeker and other people using the asylum path as a shortcut to gain Canadian permanent residency or citizenship is something that we need to continue to push back against,” Trudeau told reporters in New York on Tuesday.

If only Trudeau knew someone with power and authority who could do something about it.

Sadly, while Trudeau likes to make pronouncements about fixing his mistakes, he and his government don’t like putting in the work to make it happen.

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