Canada’s Immigration Exodus Kicks Off W/Record NPR Outflows

Canadian policymakers worried about temporary residents overstaying their visas can rest easy. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) data shows that non-permanent residents left the country in record volumes in Q3 2024. New limits announced in Q4 has elected officials publicly voicing concerns that these residents may overstay their visas. However, that concern seems overblown considering the exodus of non-permanent residents reached its target outflow right before the changes were announced. Impeccable timing, as always.

Canada’s Non-Permanent Resident Outflow Hit 250k People In Q3

The quarterly volume of non-permanent residents that left Canada.

Source: Statistics Canada; Better Dwelling. 

Canada is seeing a big uptick in non-permanent residents leaving the country. About 249.7k non-permanent residents left in Q3 2024, an 85% increase compared to last year. Canada only has data readily available going back to 2021, but it’s safe to say this is by far the largest outflow the country has ever seen in a single quarter.  

Note this outflow was back in Q3 though, before the Government of Canada (GoC) made immigration changes. At the time, policymakers were still trying to attract more temporary residents and churn more people. Consequently, the net flow was still positive—296k more non-permanent residents arrived than left in the quarter. A decline of 35% from last year, but still positive. 

However, this reveals that policymakers were already struggling with growth. Fewer arrivals to churn and a lot more people opted to leave instead of transitioning to other visas, which is historically why so many people come to Canada. 

Canada Limits Temporary Residents, Expects Big Outflows This Year

Canada’s population has grown too quickly in recent years, and the GoC hopes to shrink it soon. Since 2021, it has grown 150% to 2.96 million people—a number virtually no country could easily accommodate. The population reduction plan primarily involves cutting ~450k non-permanent resident visas and not replacing much of the outflow. 

Canada expects a whopping 1.2 million of these visas to expire this year. Up to a million of these visa holders won’t be eligible for permanent residency, with policymakers expressing fears of removing those who remain on expired visas

It’s nice (or delusional?) that policymakers can’t imagine young adults voluntarily leaving Canada. However, that doesn’t appear to be a significant concern right now. The volume of people who left voluntarily in the quarter before the changes is already on target—assuming it doesn’t grow further. Perhaps it’s time to start shifting focus and ponder whether Canada still offers enough to retain domestic talent. 

8 Comments

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  • Reply
    Mortgage Guy 7 days ago

    Okay, but seriously what do we expect young people to stay for? Canada is great for us in our 40s and 50s—we own a home, it makes more than the average family, our healthcare is largely guaranteed, and we’re guaranteed a pension we contributed significantly less for over our career.

    If a young person does well, they get to live in a dog crate. More of their income is taxed, they can’t find a doctor, and their pension contributions are twice the rate we had to pay. They also have $50k+ in student debt to get that, and an elevated unemployment rate to pay it off.

    A scam only works for so long before it becomes obvious what’s happening.

  • Reply
    RW 7 days ago

    Now do the outflow of Canadian citizens. I bet it’s higher.

  • Reply
    EmJay 7 days ago

    My tenant who does taxes for those on work permits claims that the ones who are leaving are the highly educated, skilled folks who have figured they will never get ahead here due to housing costs. He says the many who are staying probably shouldn’t have been let in to begin with. He came here as a teen with his father who was on the investor immigrant program and who did very well. His opinion is many who arrived from his home country in recent years are economic migrants. From my own experience, those I’ve met leaving to go “home” are doing so due to not being able to find either decent housing or a doctor. These include professionals from France, Romania, Australia. But as usual, our data doesn’t really paint an accurate picture of the various groups or their reasons.

  • Reply
    ed 7 days ago

    Yes but how do we know they actually left, I thought we don’t have any exit controls?.. there will be hundreds of thousands who will still overstay there visa..

  • Reply
    Vin Seunath 7 days ago

    First… trust no data from StatsCan…. they are walking back numbers too often. And good question Ed… How do we know they left…. and yes, hundreds of thousands will go underground.

    Stephen’s numbers… About 249.7k non-permanent residents left in Q3 2024… net 296k more non-permanent residents arrived than left in the quarter…. so that means a total of 545K non-permanent residents arrived in Q3! Add permanent residents… I wonder what the final number for 2024 will be.

    NONE of these numbers make any sense!

    Fact is, the majority of people who ‘fall out of status’ will go underground! The implications are staggering.

    • Reply
      Itchy Bear 6 days ago

      People from Western Europe come to Toronto and wonder why it looks so much like Eastern Europe in Soviet times. People from Asia come and ask how it could possibly be so dull and villagy.

      The people coming in on student and temporary resident visas are quickly disabused of any thought that this is a land of opportunity. Legitimate students with PhDs, Canadian work experience and who are fluent in the languages are having trouble getting PR status.

      Of students at strip mall schools or here as temporary foreign workers, many were cheated out of life savings by unscrupulous immigration agents that Canada supported or turned a blind eye to and these people need to work multiple jobs (many while studying) to pay debt and trying to send something home or save something up… but if their plan is to stay in Canada when their status expires, we can be sure that it’s not because they have things so good here — Blame the politicians who brought them here, but have a little compassion for the people who had their hopes and dreams exploited.

      • Reply
        steve 24 hours ago

        Have you ever been to Toronto? I was born here and detest what its becoming but outside from a few areas its quite beautiful. The city is full of trees, take a drive on the DVP in the fall and you would be amazed at the fall colours.

  • Reply
    Gurjeet Singh 6 days ago

    Canada need more international student

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