Evidence of meeting #9 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Centre for Demography, Statistics Canada
Births among non-permanent residents are included in demographic estimates, yes.
Director, Centre for Demography, Statistics Canada
They're also in births recorded in Canada every year, yes.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay.
For non-permanent residents.... This would not be visitors to Canada. This would be—
October 23rd, 2025 / 3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
How many births occurred among non-permanent residents in the last year?
Director, Centre for Demography, Statistics Canada
I don't know that number off the top of my head right now. So I can't give you that information.
Director, Centre for Demography, Statistics Canada
Yes, we can follow up and provide you with that information.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
Does your agency track how many individuals are currently in Canada on an expired work permit or visa?
Director, Centre for Demography, Statistics Canada
I don't have the specific number, but people whose permits are being renewed are factored into the population estimates program.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay. You don't track how many people are here on an expired....
A recent Sun article discussed this, saying that Canada's population growth might be three times higher than Ottawa has estimated “because a large number of people who were supposed to leave the country aren't being tracked.”
How hard would it be for your agency to get a list of expired permits from IRCC each week to run against your entry and exit system?
Director, Centre for Demography, Statistics Canada
The entry and exit database is currently being evaluated at Statistics Canada. We also receive IRCC data on a monthly basis. There is currently no agreement between Statistics Canada and IRCC to obtain this data on a weekly basis.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay.
Mr. Martel, there was an article on blogTO that cited a video you are in. You said Canada's population is skyrocketing to 42 million people.
Based on your analysis, does Canada have adequate infrastructure to accept the continued level of temporary residents we've seen in recent years? By “infrastructure”, I'm particularly talking about housing and health care. How would you know?
Director, Centre for Demography, Statistics Canada
In 2023 and 2024, Canada's population growth was nearly 3%, which is extremely high compared with other countries. That obviously poses some challenges in terms of Canadian infrastructure.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
I note that a lot of analysis suggests that wage growth for temporary residents is quite a bit lower than for permanent residents.
Would that be a correct assessment, based on your analysis?
Director, Centre for Demography, Statistics Canada
I can't confirm that. However, we know that, between 2001 and 2021, the gap in employment rates between immigrants and the rest of the population narrowed considerably.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay.
Based on that extrapolation, if Canada continues to accept high levels of temporary residents or residents who are unable to get credentialed, would that continue to be a drag on wages and, as such, economic growth?
Director, Centre for Demography, Statistics Canada
I cannot answer that question, but I can say that the number of non-permanent residents currently being admitted to Canada has been declining for three quarters, significantly slowing Canada's recent population growth.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
However, the levels are still quite high year over year. Perhaps it's not year over year, but they're high for what Canada can support.
If we have a delta, as your analysis suggests, between wage growth for temporary residents and per capita GDP growth, has the government asked you for any advice on how to model out whether or not the Canadian economy benefits from this bit of a myth that we need high levels of immigration to sustain economic growth?
Liberal
Director, Centre for Demography, Statistics Canada
We have not received any such requests.
That said, Canada's population growth has slowed significantly over the past three quarters. If we extrapolate, Canadian population growth over a 12-month period could be less than 0.5%, which would be a significant slowdown, compared to the 3% growth in 2024.
Liberal
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thanks to all the witnesses for coming before the committee today.
My first question is for Ms. Calverley from Hong Kong Watch.
From your organization's perspective, what are the main factors contributing to the processing delays in the Hong Kong pathway program? Is it primarily a resource issue within IRCC, security screening bottlenecks or document verification challenges specific to Hong Kong?
Co-Founder and Chair, Hong Kong Watch
The problem, actually, is not resources. It's the admissions targets. That's very obvious. A lot of Hong Kongers have received AIP. Their applications are actually ready to go. They just need to have that slot in terms of the quota. Then IRCC will send them CPP and they can start the PR process.
I think the problem was that when the whole temporary public policy started in 2021, we were told there was no limit. To me it was like, “How could you possibly have no limit? There must be a limit.” There was no limit for work permits. If you come in as a student, after you fulfill the requirement, you have to apply for PR via stream A or stream B, but then there's a limit. Suddenly there's a limit. We were told that the limit for this year was 10,000, but that also covers the other special policies that came after the Hong Kong pathway, such as for Sudan, Ukraine and also Afghanistan.
All these public policies should have their own allocations rather than all the newly created public policies put under H and C. H and C has always had a very limited admissions target. Last year it was 13,800. This year it's 10,000. Next year it could be 5,000, but then we got at least 50,000 or 60,000, maybe more, in the stream under H and C. It's unsustainable.
Hong Kongers didn't expect this. When they applied, if Canada had said the limit was only 10,000, first come, first served, and that was it, that would have been much easier, but they said there were no limits. A lot of them have spent four years here already. They're paying taxes, they're working, they're studying and they're paying tuition fees. When they apply to H and C and start from there, they need to wait for 10 years. This is really a big problem for all the applicants. As well, they are only on temporary work permits.
