Canada Takes In 320,000 Immigrants The Past Year, Highest Since 1971

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OTTAWA – More than 300,000 immigrants arrived in Canada in the past year, the highest number since comparable record-keeping began, new estimates show.

In the last year to July, 320,932 immigrants landed in the country, the largest annual number since July, 1971, when current record-keeping started, Statistics Canada said Wednesday in its annual population count. That amounts to a 33.3-per-cent increase over the prior year, when 240,844 immigrants came to Canada, reported Globe and Mail newspaper.

“The country had not received such a large number of immigrants in a single annual period since the early 1910s during the settlement of Western Canada,” the agency said.

The arrival of Syrian refugees, which began in November, 2015, partly explains the sharp increase. At last count, 30,862 refugees had landed in the country, with thousands more still due to be processed. Immigration Minister John McCallum has recently said he wants to boost the number of newcomers to Canada in the coming years, to alleviate the demographic challenges of an aging population.

Canada’s total population rose 1.2 per cent in the year to July 1, reaching 36.3 million people, according to the preliminary estimates. That amounted to an increase of 437,815 people – the biggest gain, in absolute numbers, since 1988-1989.

The agency’s current system of demographic accounts, which began in July, 1971, shows the last previous record for immigrants was set in 2009-2010, when 270,581 people arrived in Canada.

Canada received higher numbers of immigrants in 1911, 1912 and 1913, Statscan said. However, it added, those numbers “are not fully comparable with today’s estimates” as data from the 1910s were not produced using the current system of demographic accounts.