For the first time in a quarter-century, a long-term tracking poll has found a clear majority of Canadians believe the country has accepted too many immigrants.
According to the results of the survey released on Thursday, 58 per cent Canadians said there’s too much immigration, up from 44 per cent in 2023 and 27 per cent in 2022.
The responses continue a trend since 2022, after years of a pro-immigration consensus.
“The latest findings suggest the balance of public opinion about the volume of immigration currently being admitted into the country has effectively flipped from being acceptable (if not valuable) to problematic,” said , which has tracked Canadian attitudes toward immigration and refugees since 1977.Â
“The increasing view that immigration levels are too high now appears to be accompanied by changes in how Canadians view immigrants themselves and how they are fitting in.”
The annual survey found an increasing minority of Canadians believe the country accepts too many newcomers from racial minority groups (39 per cent, up 15 points from 2022) and that immigration increases the level of crime (35 per cent, up 21 points from 2019).
Although a third of respondents said immigration makes their community better compared to 14 per cent who said the opposite, the balance of opinion is less positive than a year ago.
Canada’s overall population has increased significantly in the last three years, largely due to the surge of temporary residents including international students, foreign workers and asylum seekers when the border reopened after the pandemic.
Amid public pressure over the global affordability crisis, Ottawa has tried to rein in the growth by capping the number of study permits issued and tightening rules on work permits.
But those measures have not reversed the the growing unfavourable view of immigration, which is evident across the population and most pronounced in the Prairie provinces, while least so in Quebec. That sentiment was shared equally by respondents who are first-generation immigrants and those born in Canada.
There are still diverging public views about immigration along federal political party lines, with the Conservatives’ supporters most widely in agreement about having too much immigration (80 per cent). But there has also been an equivalent increase in this sentiment among those who would vote for the Liberals (45 per cent) or NDP (36 per cent).
Despite the discomfort over the level of immigration, 68 per cent of respondents agreed that immigration has a positive impact on the Canadian economy. However, the share of people with that view has declined for the second consecutive year, especially among people in the Prairies and younger Canadians between 18 and 29.
Those who said there are too many immigrants were most likely to raise concerns over the lack of housing availability and affordability, the state of the economy, overpopulation and the potential strain on public resources. The percentages of people blaming too much immigration on poor management by government has shot up from 10 per cent in 2023 to 21 per cent this year.
A growing number of Canadians are also raising doubts about who is being admitted and how well they are integrating.
The public places the most value on immigrants with specialized skills and those with a good education who settle permanently, and less on temporary foreign workers, especially those in low-skilled jobs, and international students.
Over the past year, an increasing proportion of Canadians believed that many people claiming asylum are not real refugees (43 per cent, up seven points from 2023) and that too many immigrants are not adopting Canadian values (57 per cent, up nine points).Â
The survey interviewed 2,016 Canadians ages 18 and over in September, with a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
