Canada welcomes more immigrants per capita than any other immigrant-receiving nation in the world. Last year, Canada received over 260,000 newcomers and newly-appointed Immigration Minister Monte Solberg has expressed his desire to “see the numbers stay about where they are right now”.
Demographically, Canada is being re-shaped by immigration. Assuming no changes occur to the current levels of immigration, fertility rates, or internal migration patterns, the next twenty years, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) will swell from five million to day to seven million people; Vancouver will see its population almost double in size from its current 1.6 million citizens to 2.8 million, and Ottawa’s population will also hover above 1.2 million from the 830,000 people it now has.