On August 29th, I reported on a Leger poll which revealed that nearly every demographic in the country wants lower immigration. Now, a new poll has emerged echoing these findings. I have broken down the key results of the survey, which was conducted by Nanos Research for CTV News, below. You can read the CTV’s coverage of this poll here.
Canadian support for immigration is in freefall
64% of respondents said Canada should accept fewer immigrants next year, while 26% said we should let in the same number – only 5% thought we should accept more. While this is significant, even more revealing is a comparison of attitudes across time, which shows a dramatic increase in support for immigration restriction over the course of 2023:
- 2020: Fewer (40%) Same (36%) More (17%)
- March 2023: Fewer (34%) Same (46%) More (15%)
- September 2023: Fewer (53%) Same (34%) More (8%)
- December 2023: Fewer (61%) Same (26%) More (5%)
- September 2024: Fewer (64%) Same (26%) More (5%)
Nearly 3 in 4 Canadians support reducing immigration until housing becomes affordable
- Support: 49%
- Somewhat support: 23%
- Somewhat oppose: 14%
- Oppose: 9%
- Unsure: 5%
A plurality of Canadians think cutting immigration would make the economy stronger
- Stronger or somewhat stronger: 40%
- Weaker or somewhat weaker: 29%
- No impact: 20%
- Unsure: 11%
A majority of respondents to the Nanos poll believe that cutting immigration levels would be a good economic decision (40%), or that doing so would be entirely unrelated to the economy (20%). This is a particularly interesting result, since it appears to show that Canadians are largely not buying the most common argument for immigration, namely that population growth helps the economy by increasing GDP.
2 in 5 Canadians think we should accept fewer refugees
“As part of the 485,000 immigrants Canada aims to accept as permanent residents in 2024, about 76,000 or about 15% are to be refugees and protected persons. Should Canada accept more, about the same or fewer refugees and protected persons in 2025?”
- Accept fewer: 46%
- Accept about the same: 35%
- Accept more: 15%
- Unsure: 4%
As Canadian immigration attitudes continue to harden, the Liberal government is cracking down on temporary immigration streams. In August, Justin Trudeau announced new restrictions on the number of low-wage, temporary foreign workers. Last Wednesday, Ottawa revealed that it plans to cut the number of international student visas by another 10% next year, on top of a 35% reduction earlier this year.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the Trudeau government will touch the number of annual permanent residents, which is still currently slated to rise to 500,000 in 2025.
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