On November 7, 2025 the Honourable Lena Diab, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, released her department’s annual report on immigration admission levels, setting out key immigration objectives for the next three years. Like all previous reports, this one features concrete data regarding last year’s (2024) immigration levels in Canada, while setting new admission targets for the next three years from 2026 through to 2028. Readers who regularly follow our blogs already know that our government has taken an aggressive approach throughout the 2025 calendar year to cut immigration programs across the board, but there can be no doubt after reading the latest report where Canada’s immigration program is heading: a drastic reduction in temporary immigration while stabilizing permanent immigration over the next three years. Here are three key takeaways from the Minister’s report:
Temporary Immigration Levels Will See Drastic Cuts
For most of my career as an immigration lawyer, Immigration Ministers have viewed temporary immigration as a crucial part of Canada’s overall immigration strategy to attract the best and brightest to our country, regardless of political affiliation. The logic was that we ought to invite students and highly skilled workers to come to Canada and then to encourage them to apply to transition to becoming permanent residents. As such, high temporary immigration levels are usually strongly correlated with high permanent immigration levels. Those views that temporary immigration is crucial to Canada’s long-term success have not entirely dissipated but have recently been overtaken by concerns that we have accepted too many newcomers since the end of the pandemic and that more needs to be done to ensure newcomers have adequate access to jobs, services, and housing so that they can succeed in Canada.
With all this in mind, the current Minister plans to reduce the number of new temporary resident arrivals in 2026 to 385,000, which represents a massive 42% reduction from the year prior. Of these new arrivals, about 60% will be represented by foreign workers, while the remaining 40% will be represented by international students. To put things in perspective as to how deep these cuts go, the new plan aims to welcome 155,000 new international students to Canada in 2026, whereas in 2024 study permits were issued to 293,835 incoming international students.
Permanent Resident Immigration Levels Will Stay Flat
Last year permanent resident admission levels were cut by an eye watering 21% to 395,000. A further reduction will occur in 2026, with an updated target to welcome 380,000 new permanent residents, and those numbers will reduce to 370,000 for both 2027 and 2028.
Economic immigration once again features prominently in the new immigration levels plan, accounting for about 64% of all planned permanent immigration to Canada. Economic immigration includes all the major skilled worker immigration categories set out under Canada’s Express Entry system, as well as region-based immigration programs like the Atlantic Immigration Program and the Provincial Nominee Programs and even niche federal programs such as those established for caregivers and business immigrants.
Flat immigration levels have significant consequences for those hoping to qualify for permanent residence based on Canada’s economic streams because those are the pathways where there is typically fierce competition to be invited to apply based upon point-scoring schemes. With flat immigration levels expected for the next few years, this means that those who are already struggling to compete today will not likely see their prospects improve.
Almost as if on cue to address these concerns, the Minister’s latest report signals a potential lifeline for temporary residents in Canada who have been living and working in Canada for years without being able to qualify for permanent residency. The November 7, 2025 report teases a “one-time” initiative that will be implemented in 2026 and 2027 to “accelerate the transition of up to 33,000 temporary workers to permanent residency”. It is too early to speculate how the Minister might achieve this lofty goal or when further details might be released, but she would do well to remember that there are numerous bad actors in the immigration marketplace that might seek to take advantage of desperate permanent resident candidates amid the current atmosphere of uncertainty.
Options for Permanent Residency Are Shifting
Though overall permanent resident admission levels are not changing significantly for the next three years, we are seeing subtle but important shifts in the landscape. Permanent resident candidates will be interested to know that the following streams are seeing increases in immigration admission targets: A moderate increase in French-speaking admissions outside of Quebec and a substantial increase in 2026 for Provincial Nominees compared to 2025. On the other hand, there will be continued reductions in business immigration approvals (Start-Up Visa and Self-Employed persons programs) and a drastic cut to the approval of humanitarian and compassionate based applications.
Keeping up with changes to Canada’s immigration laws over the past 1.5 years has been a dizzying exercise to put it mildly, but a clear picture has emerged as to where immigration is heading and the Minister’s November 7, 2025 levels report crystallizes what many of us working in this industry already knew: Newcomers will have a hard time getting approvals to come to Canada in the first instance and those already in Canada will have a difficult time staying if they cannot find a way to transition to permanent residency. The economic pathways to permanent residency will most likely remain highly competitive, and those hoping to qualify will have stronger prospects depending on whether their occupations are prioritized by this government and/or the provinces, the places they are looking to immigrate to, and upon factors such as their proficiency in French.
