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On Wednesday, a source confirmed the permanent resident admission levels first reported by the National Post will be reduced further to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027, after years of increases since Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government was first elected. The numbers are still higher than the 272,000 permanent residents Canada welcomed in 2015.Ìý

News of the shocking permanent resident cuts came just days after a long-term tracking poll by Environics Institute foundÌý58 per cent of Canadians said there’s too much immigrationÌý— the first time in a quarter-century that a clear majority of respondents share that view.

On Thursday, Miller is expected to unveil the plan to set the number of permanent residents in the next three years under various economic, family and humanitarian programs; all will be affected to different extent by the drastic reduction.

Miller declined to comment for this story, but in aÌýrecent interview with Star contributor Simon Lewsen, he did not rule out reducing immigration numbers if needed.

“We have to be more nimble than we’ve been in the past,” Miller said. “The system needed an injection of discipline.”

For the first time, the immigration levels plan will also set targets for how many international students and temporary foreign workers will be admitted, to ensure new immigrants won’t be a drag on a stagnant economy.

“We really need to know what the federal government’s objectives are, what their rationale is, what the factors were that they considered, what the consultative process was and what the evidence was that they used to determine those levels,” said Naomi Alboim, a senior policy fellow in migration and integration at pc28¹ÙÍøMetropolitan University.

“It’s not enough just to put up a sheet of paper on one slide that has a whole bunch of numbers without any of this information,” she said. “It’s not transparent. It’s not believable. And it does not instil confidence.”Ìý

Canada’s population is inching toward 42 million by year end, up from 38 million in 2019, growth primarily attributed to immigration, which was key to Ottawa’s economic recovery strategy after the pandemic. Over the five-year period, the annual targets for new permanent residents rose to 485,000 from 330,800.

Since then, the federal government has introduced what Miller called “blunt” measures to rein in the number of study and work permit holders in Canada and tame the temporary resident population, which has ballooned from 924,850 to over three million, or 7.2 per cent of the overall population today.

Foreign workers now account for about 47 per cent of the non-permanent resident population, followed by international students (35 per cent), asylum seekers (13 per cent) and other permit holders (five per cent). Two-thirds of all temporary migrants have a work permit.

In March, Miller set a target of reducing temporary residents’ share of the overall population to five per cent over three years — a goal that the Bank of Canada recently projected to be unattainable.

Experts said the government needs to cut the number of temporary residents further to meet its target.

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“You need some quite big changes, big reductions for that five per cent (drop) to materialize,” said Claire Fan, an economist with the Royal Bank of Canada, who estimates Ottawa would need a 28 per cent reduction in temporary population between now and the end of 2027 to meet its goal.

“There are constraints in the near term that we do need to address very urgently in order for this immigration process to really help with the economy without stressing certain sectors” such as housing and health care.

So far, Miller is set to reduce the number of new study permits issued by 35 per cent (with a further 10 per cent cut in 2025), restrict access to work permits for international graduates and their spouses, and tighten the rules for employers to bring in workers under the temporary foreign worker program.

The numbers of non-permanent residents are still growing, though the growth rate has slowed, which Fan said may have more to do with the economic cycle than the policy changes.

Canada’s job vacancies peaked in 2022 as some domestic workers left low-paying, precarious jobsÌýwhile others returned to school. Employers were desperate to fill front-line jobs. Ottawa quickly relaxed work permit rules, contributing to the influx of work permit holders.

“We are stuck in a low-wage immigration conundrum,” said Robert Asselin, senior vice-president in policy with the Business Council of Canada.

“Our immigration policy has shifted to patch these short-term needs as opposed to what we’ve been doing very well over the last decades, which is to plan economic immigration, to really help nurture our economy with talent and high-skilled workers.”

Asselin said the government must not just reduce the number of low-skilled, low-wage immigrants but attract the most talented,Ìýwho can help Canada’s economy innovate.

While labour market forces and reduced international enrolment may slow the growth of non-permanent residents, the entry of asylum seekers can’t be planned unless drastic measures are taken. The same goes for holders of work permits granted under trade agreements.

“It remains to be seen how that’s going to be managed,” said Jonathan Leebosh, a director of the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association. “If you can’t control all of the levers, how do you actually manage temporary residents?”

Canada’s job vacancies have dropped significantly from one million in 2022 to under 545,000 this year. Yet he said there are still pockets of skills, sectors and regions with need for foreign workers.

“We can’t just be shutting down programs or massively curtailing programs. It has to be principled,” saidÌýLeebosh, whose practice focuses on business immigration. “I’m very concerned and interested to hearÌýhow they are going to manage temporary immigration levels. That’s a brand-new concept.”

Further complicating the planning of immigration levels are the connectionsÌýbetween permanent and temporary migration streams in the current two-step permanent residence process, which favours applicants with Canadian education and work experience.

To reduce the temporary migrant population, Canada can cut new admissions but also facilitate permanent residence for international students and foreign workers already here. In setting the permanent resident targets, TMU’s Alboim said Miller must also reveal how many temporary residents he intends to transition to permanent residents in each program.

“Moving forward, we don’t want to institutionalize two-step immigration and say everybody has to come here first as an international student or temporary foreign worker,” Alboim said. “We should use the temporary worker program for temporary jobs only.”

Chris Alexander, who served as Harper’s immigration minister (2013-15), said immigration levels may seem arbitrary but they require constant review and consultation to adapt to changes. Officials rely on years of data in the balancing act.Ìý

The system needs oversight, he said.

“Because the government was pretty lax in overseeing and managing everything, some universities and colleges and some employers got greedy,”Ìýsaid Alexander, a fellow with the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

He said the coming plan is less about setting targets for temporary residents and more about tightening rules to prevent abusing the system. A program-by-program review will be needed along with reduced temporary migration, he said.

On the asylum front, Alexander said Ottawa must inject funding to expedite processing to discourage unfounded claims and allow legitimate claimants quicker settlement. There have been 120,000 new claims this year and the refugee board’s backlog exceeds 218,500 cases.

He said the economic context is key to how immigration is perceived.

“The unspoken story of our fraying consensus around immigration to Canada is that immigration is popular in this country when we have an economy that’s floating all boats, when wages are increasing and business investment growing.”