Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for having me, committee members. I'd like to begin by acknowledging that I'm joining you from the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
I'm pleased to provide an overview of the immigration system and its role in addressing labour and skills shortages. As we know, Canada is currently facing labour shortages across the country. Each sector is feeling the impact. As noted by my ESDC counterparts in their appearance before this committee, most of the solutions to meeting these challenges are made in Canada and include school leavers, training and skills development of the labour force, and addressing barriers to under-represented groups.
Immigration, though, is one tool that helps provide additional labour and complements efforts to build domestic capacity. It's an increasingly important contributor to Canada's prosperity and economic growth. IRCC manages a number of temporary and permanent economic immigration programs that support the development of a strong Canadian economy and ensure that the benefits of immigration are shared across all regions.
On the permanent side, the immigration system has multiple pathways to welcome economic immigrants, who bring skills to our economy and help fill gaps in our labour force. They are typically educated, fill targeted labour and skills shortages, contribute to innovation and workforce diversity, and are able to integrate into the Canadian labour market with ease.
Our high-skilled programs, managed through an application management system known as express entry, help Canada stay competitive and attract talent from around the world. IRCC has also implemented several pilots and programs to support rural and remote regions across a range of skill levels. Immigration is a shared responsibility among the federal and provincial and territorial governments, and almost all jurisdictions operate provincial nominee programs that cater to their specific labour force needs.
Regional immigration programs and pilots, such as the rural and northern immigration pilot and the Atlantic immigration program, allow jurisdictions to respond to their unique conditions, prioritizing the attraction and retention of skilled workers in the sectors and occupations with identified needs. The government also announced plans to attract record numbers of immigrants to help Canada grow. In 2021 Canada welcomed a record number of permanent residents, at 405,000, and Canada aims to continue welcoming immigrants at a rate of just over 1% of Canada's population. This means targets of just under 432,000 in 2022 and just over 447,000 in 2023.
On the temporary side, foreign workers and international students play a significant role in Canada's economy. They address immediate workforce needs of diverse employers, provide a wide range of skill levels and educational attainment, and facilitate business growth, innovation and productivity. Canada's temporary worker programs are demand-driven, flexible and responsive to the changing labour market landscape. There are no caps on the number of foreign workers who can be authorized to work temporarily. Employers can use temporary worker programs to tap into global pools of labour and talent to fill vacancies in any occupation.
The number of students and temporary residents who are authorized to work, including a portion of ESDC's TFW program, has been growing year over year, reaching around 1.5 million temporary residents in Canada in each of the last three years. Their contributions have been even more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic and during Canada's economic recovery, as they help employers in essential industries fill jobs when no Canadian citizens or permanent residents are available. In recognition of their importance to Canada's recovery and to respond to border restrictions, in 2021 a time-limited temporary resident to permanent resident pathway was introduced to help us retain the talent of over 90,000 essential workers and international graduates. Many of these new residents work for small and medium-sized enterprises and continue to support them.
Some jobs are temporary in nature, and it's not the desire of every student or migrant worker to remain permanently. Our system also is limited in the number of individuals who can become permanent residents in a year. In the case of permanent immigration, individuals are selected based on factors that will contribute to their economic success. Whatever the labour market looks like in the future, and however it evolves or gets disrupted, our economically selected migrants need to be able to weather downturns and have transferable skills and attributes.
To ensure that the immigration system continues to adapt to an evolving economy, the government announced a number of new measures to further contribute to meeting labour market needs and support SMEs. Through the budget, the immigration minister will have the authority to better select candidates who meet a range of economic and labour force needs. Additional measures to address Canada's labour shortages have also been recently announced. These include faster processing of permanent resident applications and more flexibility around work permits for students and visitors.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My colleagues and I would be happy to take questions.