Half of Canadians want Trudeau to accept fewer immigrants

Immigration has become the most pressing political problem in Canada as rising issues related to housing and the cost of living have gripped the country. Many see a reduction in immigration as a possible solution to the situation. 

However, there is another group of Canadians who still believe immigration is a positive according to news from Research & Co., whose President Mario Canseco revealed what his firm discovered in Business Intelligence for B.C. 

According to Canseco, 42 percent of Canadians still see immigration as a positive effect on the country whereas 44 percent see immigration as negative for the country, a figure he noted was up three percentage points from research considered in October 2023. 

The more interesting insights from the data showed that it was the younger generations of Canadians—those between the ages of eighteen to thirty-five—who were more likely to view the nation’s immigration as a positive for the country.  

Canseco explained that 58 percent of younger Canadians believed immigration was positive but those numbers fell off sharply in older generations. Only 32 percent of people aged thirty-five to fifty-four thought immigration was positive. 

The figures for those thirty-five to fifty-four saw a twelve-point decrease from polling that Research & Co. conducted in 2023. For those aged fifty-five and older, the decrease in positive views towards immigration declines seven points. 

Only 37 percent of those aged fifty-five and older had a positive view of immigration, but the numbers revealed a lot more about what is going on in Canada based on the party that an individual supported in the previous federal election. 

People who voted for the Liberal Party were 58 percent more likely to view immigration positively, while only 30 percent of those who voted for the Conservative Party thought the same, a number which was down by four points from 2023. 

Canseco added three in five Conservative voters—or 59 percent—reported immigration has been mostly negative for Canada, a number which he explained was up 10 percent. 

The most important discovery of the new research found that 46 percent of the country thought the number of legal immigrants being allowed to come into Canada is too high and should be reduced—up seven points from 2023 and twenty-one points from 2022. 

Only 15 percent of Canadians would increase the number of immigrants being allowed into the country, which was up by only one point since 2023, whereas 31 percent would keep immigration levels the same, which was down by six points. 

“The shift in attitudes that began in 2023 has solidified in 2024. In just over two years, we went from about a quarter to practically half of Canadians wanting to reduce the level of immigration,” Canseco explained in Business Intelligence for B.C. 

“Young adults, who are greatly affected by the housing crunch, do not appear to be blaming immigrants for their current situation. It is mostly middle-aged and older Canadians who are starting to wonder if the country is already full,” Canseco added. 

In September 2023, polling from Nanos made similar findings to Research & Co. when it discovered 53 percent of Canadians wanted to accept fewer immigrants than the federal government's target of 465,000 for 2023. 

Moreover, Nanos found that 55 percent of Canadians wanted to accept fewer international students than the 900,000 target the government planned to bring into the country in 2023. 

According to the Government of Canada, the federal government’s 2023-2025 Plan is targeting to welcome 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025 before plateauing at 500,000 in 2026.   

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