Innovating Canada’s Immigration Regime for the Post-Pandemic Era

Introduction

Canada has a formidable reputation as one of the world’s preferred migration destinations. Managed migration is a pillar of Canada’s economic and social development planning, both nationally and locally. Canada’s ability to attract newcomers from around the world has sustained a steady supply of skilled immigrants, temporary workers, international students, and tourists. Beyond facilitating the in-bound mobility of human capital, the federally managed migration system excels at integrating refugees and other protected persons at the city and community level. Preserving the integrity of Canada’s immigration system is a coordinated responsibility that the federal government shares with provincial, territorial, and municipal partners. Maintaining the integrity and flexibility of Canada’s migration infrastructure is crucial to the country’s wealth generation capability and its future resilience. 

The devastating impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic created a new sense of urgency to grow Canada’s economy and its innovation capacity. In 2021, the federal government welcomed more than 400,000 immigrants and processed 500,000 applications from around the world, setting a historic record amid the chaos of the global health emergency¹. The near-term immigration processing targets are even more ambitious. While Canada has a unique opportunity to improve its competitive advantage as a G7 member country, it must avoid a rigid adherence to overly ambitious processing targets. Record-setting immigration levels may be politically palatable in the short-run, but they must reflect operational capabilities to avoid lengthy processing delays, inventory backlogs, and program integrity shortfalls. 

Whether Canada processes 250,000 or 500,000 immigration applications matters less in the long term than the federal government’s relentless pursuit of strong innovation performance augmented by a managerial culture which values strategic agility, anticipatory thinking, and multi-level governance coordination. An immediate enhancement of these dynamic capabilities is going to be crucial as Canada transitions out of the global COVID-19 pandemic and prepares for a much-needed reform of the country’s migration and mobility system. 

A Perfect Storm       

As a trading nation with a relatively small population base, Canada depends on large-scale immigration and population mobility to help grow the economy, sustain the cultural vitality of its cities and communities, and replenish retiring workers. Canada’s cultural diversity is illustrated by the more than 200 immigrant languages spoken at home, 80% of which are concentrated in six major cities. Ensuring that Canada’s migration and mobility infrastructure is dynamic guarantees that local businesses and service providers in critical sectors (ie., healthcare, urban planning, cyber security) can innovate, grow, and match individual knowledge and skill sets with changing occupational responsibilities. Research shows that a 1% increase in ethnocultural diversity generates a 2.4% increase in government revenue and a 0.5% increase in workplace productivity². Robust immigration networks that are business-oriented also help to facilitate international trade and investment. Immigrant entrepreneurs support two-way economic development by diversifying the investor base, leveraging relevant business skills, and activating reciprocal knowledge sharing³. 

With 20% of the Canadian workforce set to retire as early as 2026, the agile replacement of retiring workers is fundamental to the country’s global competitiveness and economic security. Natural population growth driven by in-Canada births has declined for decades. The combined effect of declining fertility rates and an aging population has created an unavoidable demographic challenge for the federal government. Between 1971 and 2012, the age-dependency ratio fell from 6.6: 1 to just 4.2: 1⁴. Canada could soon be facing a “perfect storm” if this trajectory is unaltered. It is within the realm of possibilities, absent a robust multi-level policy intervention, that the country’s age-dependency ratio could crater to 2:1 by 2036, coinciding with the retirement of 5 million Canadians⁵. These population-based scenarios raise profound policy questions for national security (ie., emergency response), economic competitiveness (ie., education), quality of life (ie., healthcare), and urban sustainability (ie., social infrastructure). Fortunately, political and popular support for large-scale-immigration to Canada remains strong.⁶

Pandemic Disruption 

Canada’s world-class immigration and mobility system was severely disrupted by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Soon after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the global health pandemic on 11 March 2022, Canada’s federal government began introducing a series of protective measures at border checkpoints aimed at mitigating the domestic spread of SARS COV-2 infections. The federal travel restrictions and social distancing measures forced Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to temporarily close its domestic and overseas offices. 

While the federal government scrambled to repatriate more than 1 million Canadians who risked being stranded abroad as commercial air traffic shuttered, IRCC business lines prioritized applications exempt from travel restrictions (ie., seasonal agricultural workers). The number of immigrants reduced by half from 341,180 in 2019 to 184,006 in 2020, many of which were temporary residents already in the country. Meanwhile, temporary visitor applications fell from 5.7 million in 2019 to 906,000 in 2020⁷. A similar downward trajectory occurred with Canadian passport applications, which IRCC has delivered in partnership with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) and Global Affairs Canada (GAC) since 2013. After processing 24.89 million passport applications between FY2013-2014 and FY2017-28⁸, Canada closed 315 domestic passport offices in 2020. Only 363,00 passports were issued in FY2020 to 2021, down from 2.2 million in FY2018- to 2019⁹, as the country’s mobility focus turned to domestic “staycations.” 

Build Back Better

The global COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted all areas of economic and social life in Canada. The pandemic disruption also exacerbated sensitivities about the country’s vulnerability to the “brain drain” of computer engineers and software developers to the United States¹⁰. Strong federal, provincial-territorial collaboration helped to alleviate the worst-case fears, but the devastation – measured in declining productivity, lost lives, mental anguish, and opioid addiction – has nevertheless been unprecedented. Canada experienced multiple waves of the pandemic until late 2021 but has managed to emerge from the “crisis phase” following an aggressive campaign of distributed COVID-19 vaccinations. After the initial shock of the pandemic, IRCC embarked on a digital transformation to modernize its business lines and improve operational efficiencies. 

In October 2020, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marco Mendicino committed to raising Canada’s annual immigration levels to 401,000 in 2021 (up from 341,000 in 2019). This policy decision was aimed at compensating for the shortfall of permanent resident arrivals caused by the pandemic. In 2021, the new Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Sean Fraser further elevated the annual in-take levels to help fill critical job vacancies and to drive the economic recovery. According to the revised immigration levels plan, Canada intends to welcome about 431,645 new permanent residents in 2022, 447,055 in 2023 and 451,000 in 2024.¹¹

To meet these ambitious processing targets in the middle of the pandemic IRCC hired 500 more immigration officers, shifted the workload among its network of overseas missions and domestic processing centres, and reduced the points needed to qualify as a permanent resident from 465 to 75. This is the first time IRCC’s comprehensive ranking system (CRS) threshold dropped below 100. Additionally, the department plans to hire more staff and speed up its operations with the five-year, $827.3 million Digital Platform Modernization that will replace the aging Global Case Management System (GCMS)¹². Nevertheless, these resource commitments have not prevented a growing backlog of permanent and temporary visa applications which surpassed 2.1 million cases in May 2022¹³. 

Finalizing 400,000 permanent residency applications in a year meant that IRCC reviewed about 500,000 cases to ensure they passed on program eligibility, application fraud, and medical grounds. According to the IRCC Departmental Plan (2022-2023), between 0.02% and 0.03% of cases are referred to Canada’s security and intelligence community for a security vetting (ie., terrorism, organized crime, crimes against humanity), further delaying the decision-making process. Absent a thorough assessment by the IRCC Audit and Accountability Branch, the Auditor General of Canada (AoG), or the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICP), it is hard to know whether the above figures are sufficient from a cost benefit analysis or an effectiveness perspective. 

Besides a massive immigration backlog, the federal government has been unable to manage the growing demand for Canadian passport renewals. Canadian passport applications have doubled in the past year, as travel restrictions have relaxed globally. Furthermore, the passport backlog is not likely to ease before the summer’s end. This constitutes an analytical failure since the demand surge was not accurately assessed in IRCC’s annual passport demand forecasting exercise¹⁴. Clearly, IRCC lacks adequate in-house capacity to anticipate these operational changes and to make timely program adjustments. This situation poses a severe problem for the entire country given that an effective immigration and mobility system is what underpins Canada’s innovation-oriented economic development and the country’s social resilience. Canada’s immigration and mobility system is not broken, as some critics have argued, but all indicators suggest IRCC is operating beyond its functional capacity. 

However, 2022 could be a positive turning point for both the country and the department. The proposed Municipal Nominee Program (MNP) which Prime Minister Trudeau cited in his December 2021 mandate letter to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship¹⁵ offers an innovative way to build a more flexible migration and mobility infrastructure that evolves in tandem with the country’s future aspirations and changing development needs. 

First Mover Advantage  

Canada’s success in attracting and retaining newcomers has occurred in a global context of rising human mobility. The most recent estimate by the United Nations is that 281 million people or about 3.6% of the global population, reside outside their country of birth¹⁶. To put this in an historic perspective, three times as many people live outside their home country today as they did 50 years ago. These cross-border movements have been on a trajectory of increasing momentum and complexity. In the past decade, 14 countries received a net inflow of one million migrants while another 10 countries experienced a net loss of a similar amount. Remaining proactive and resilient in such a dynamic operating environment is the leadership challenge for Canada as it moves forward. 

Adaptive Leadership 

International migration provides destination countries with skilled and unskilled labour and for the source countries, a steady supply of remittances which can be vital to cover daily expenses such as food, shelter, or as investments in new business ventures. Internationally, the total amount of remittances sent home from permanent residents and workers abroad is projected  to reach $774 billion in 2022 and to surpass $800 billion in 2023¹⁷. Population mobility also functions as an important nation-building strategy as more countries benefit from the reciprocal exchange of knowledge and expertise as they compete in attracting global talent. Immigrant entrepreneurs, for example, create new labour opportunities with their business investments while also supporting existing employment and wages as market consumers. In a hypercompetitive world characterized by more dynamic population movements, traditional and non-traditional migration destinations (ie., China, Australia, United States) are thinking about how to enhance their competitive advantage using place-based visa programs. 

Before the pandemic, the Chinese city of Shanghai offered a one-year, multiple-entry business visa. Likewise, Australia supports place-based visa entry with its Skilled Regional (Provisional) Visa and the Regional Sponsored Migrant Scheme which allows employers outside the five major urban centers to fill job vacancies with foreign workers. In the United States, political and business leaders have been advocating for the adoption of place-based visas to counterbalance the economic disparity between its “superstar” cities and “rust belt” cities. Two former presidential candidates, Pete Buttigieg and Michael Bloomberg, campaigned on a place-based visa system to help revitalize struggling cities and rural communities¹⁸. Among democratic countries, the impetus for immigration policy reform is driven by regional development strategies that place a high value on devolved decision making. The logic of devolved decision making is to transfer more power on issues like transport and housing to local mayors. It also leveraged to facilitate a more connected and adaptive form of leadership. The permissive environment created by the complementary intersection of immigration and regional development policy has both practical and strategic implications for Canada. 

What this means on a practical level is that the investment returns on “passive” immigration strategies could begin to diminish as more countries in the world adopt proactive ways to  attract skilled immigrants, entrepreneurs, and business investors. Simultaneously, non-traditional migrant destinations might try to “leap-frog” their immigration and mobility programs by integrating cities as equal partners, reaping a “second-mover” advantage over traditional migration countries that are content with defending the status quo. Luckily, Canada enjoys a “first mover” advantage with place-based visas and devolved decision-making frameworks.

The Lure of Cities 

Since establishing the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) in 1998, most provinces have entered into a shared immigration agreement with the federal government. Now that the Prime Minister has re-directed the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to develop a Municipal Nominee Program (in 2019 and again in 2021), with a view to supporting economic development and social vibrancy among medium and small-sized communities, a more decentralized immigration system in Canada seems inevitable.

Just as the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) has facilitated large-scale migration to less populated regions of Canada, the objective of the MNP would be to create opportunities for local communities, chambers of commerce, and local labour councils to directly sponsor permanent immigrants. So far, IRCC has released few details about the proposed MNP notwithstanding that this is ministerial mandate commitment. As an example, the department has not confirmed whether the MNP will commence in 2022 nor has it provided relevant background information such as eligibility criteria. Despite this information gap, regional planners and local business associations should not refrain from “future-ready” policy discussions about place-based and sector-based immigration strategies. Anticipating the challenges and opportunities associated with a planned federal policy initiative is never easy. But engaging in anticipatory thinking about the broad parameters of the proposed MNP is a practical way for city administrators to inspire and to fast-track policy innovation. 

Setting realistic aims and expectations is going to be a primary consideration for both IRCC policy makers and municipal governments. Even though a primary objective of the MNP will be to facilitate immigration to medium and smaller urban centres, the lure of “gateway” cities (ie., Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver) may be hard to overcome at the onset. The experience that “gateway” cities have with the economic and social integration of ethnically and linguistically diverse population groups from around the world gives them a distinct advantage which must be addressed upfront. Furthermore, Canada’s economic security demands that “top-tier” cities be given priority attention. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecasts that Canada’s real per capita growth between 2020 and 2030 will only be 0.7%, and just 0.8% between 2030 and 2060, placing it at the bottom among the world’s high-income countries.¹⁹

A second challenge confronting MNP policy planners and medium-sized Canadian cities is their limited “brand name” recognition internationally. A 2021 survey of more than 200,000 early and mid-career professionals in 190 countries found that while Canada is perceived as the world’s preferred work destination, only Toronto ranked among the top 15 best cities to work²⁰. Vancouver placed 20th while Montreal ranked 24th in the world. Given the demographic and economic imperative to attract talented newcomers to Canada, it seems advisable to leverage the global appeal of “gateway” cities in phase one of the MNP development process and to design a complementary but different strategy for “second-tier” and “third-tier” cities.

Smarter Together 

From a competitive standpoint a productive first step might be for IRCC policy specialist to consult regionally on how to embed the MNP as part of an existing transportation-oriented housing program (TOHA) or a city-wide planning initiative. Integrating immigration with regional transportation and housing strategies has the potential to create a “force multiplier” effect, setting Canada apart from its peer competitors while ensuring that it is not “outflanked” by developing countries in the coming decade. Two examples of urban planning initiatives to think about in this regard are the Vancouver Plan and the Peel Regional Development Plan. 

An added advantage of using a multi-phased strategy is that it has the greatest chance of delivering “quick wins,” making it easier to gain public buy-in for what is essentially a paradigm shift in Canada’s migration and mobility regime. The staged planning approach would also give national and local policy-makers time to build the institutional capacity (ie., agility, interoperability) and cultivate the organizational learning (ie., strategic intelligence) currently lacking at the city level. Proactive “scouting” of prospective migrants that possess the human capital needed locally is a good example of an institutional competency that may be useful in overcoming the low international profile of Canada’s middle-sized cities. 

Facilitating dynamic knowledge exchanges through temporary staff deployments to “gateway” cities, as IRCC does with its offices  abroad, might be another way to fast-track the requisite planning expertise among “second-tier” and “third-tier” cities. If IRCC is serious about developing a more decentralized and resilient migration system, thoughtful consideration must also be given to replacing some of the 19 domestic immigration offices that were closed after the federal budget cuts a decade ago. Multi-level governance coordination that extends to local service providers (ie., local immigration agents, economic development agencies) is most conducive when conducted in team-based operating environments. For their part, MNP candidate cities can progressively deepen inter-agency collaboration by co-designing a place-based action plan with IRCC that integrates newcomers to create new sources of social and economic value. 

A New Multilateralism 

The social and economic disruptions cause by the global health emergency illustrate how important multilateral institutions are to effective policy coordination, restoring global migration and mobility, and safeguarding human security. The value of multilateralism increases when countries with competing values manage to overcome their self-interest to engage meaningfully on complex international issues. Multilateralism, which is advanced both formally and informally in various places and venues, remains fundamental to making progress in strategic areas like global peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development. 

As a middle-income country that derives enormous benefit from a politically and economically stable world, it is in Canada’s strategic interest to actively engage with governance institutions that facilitate migration and mobility internationally. However, more multilateral effort is needed to facilitate labour and human capital mobility to productive places beyond Canada’s territorial borders. Canada has a shared duty to make sure that “migration works for all” given that it is a signatory to both the United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). 

The federal government’s engagement with these intergovernmental agreements is based on a consensus-based understanding that managed migration enables innovation, economic growth, and social stability. At the same time, Canada recognizes from its “brain drain” experience that the emigration of highly skilled and productive workers is a downside risk of global mobility. Large-scale emigration among developing and low-income countries can be particularly disruptive for labour supply chains, human capital formation, government taxes, and institutional development. There is also a moderate risk of migrant source countries turning into “passive” recipients of remittances if a critical mass of the population become too comfortable with the status quo.²¹ 

Migration and Mobility Inclusion

Canada has emerged from the chaos of the global pandemic with more time than most countries to imagine the future of migration and mobility on a global scale. Migration and mobility are closely interconnected with changes in global development and security (ie., food, energy, water) so it is incumbent that the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship consider more comprehensive policies that sustain the former without compromising the latter. In that regard, IRCC can play a leadership role by engaging its multilateral partners on innovative ways to diversify migration and mobility pathways, strengthening policy frameworks, and improving human security. The ability to travel safely and securely across international borders is crucial for the world to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Innovating Canada’s multilateral contribution to global migration so that it becomes more reciprocal, and less extractive presents a unique policy innovation opportunity in the coming years. Diaspora engagement is a practical and convenient way of leveraging migration in support of inclusive development worldwide. Until recently, the size of the Canadian diaspora worldwide was not well known. Even today, the number of Canadians who have emigrated is roughly estimated at between 2.9 million and 5.5 million²². This means that up to 11% of Canada’s population may have emigrated (as of 2016). The federal government’s engagement with the country’s diaspora population has mostly been ad hoc (ie., emergency-induced mass evacuations)²³ and limited by the absence of a formal strategy.²⁴ 

The migration-development nexus is a bigger challenge facing Canada that is likely to outlast the COVID-19 pandemic. Although IRCC provides modest support for the development of managed migration systems abroad, an internal evaluation of the International Migration Capacity Building Program conducted in 2020 showed that the policy outcomes were too broad and too ambitious to be achieved with a modest budget²⁵. This assessment is consistent with research on diaspora-based development programs more generally: They tend to be narrowly defined (ie., temporary return of diaspora members) and financially incapable of supporting the reciprocal development of origin and destination countries.²⁶ 

Facilitated migration cooperation is the central focus of the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) hosted by the United Nations between 17 and 20 May 2022²⁷. It is a multilateral stocktaking exercise on the progress of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. Established in 2018, the GCM is a non-binding agreement designed to protect the human rights of migrants and lead the development of a whole-of-society approach to migration governance. Among the topics covered in the IMRF panel discussions is the sustainable and dignified reintegration of returned migrants. The removal of foreign nationals from Canada is an aspect of migration governance that has been overshadowed by the global pandemic response and recovery. 

Each year the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) deports more than 10,000 foreign nationals from the country. In fact, the CBSA removed more individuals from Canada in 2020 than in 2019. The removal target for 2022 is 15,500²⁸. Many deportees are removed after being convicted of a serious criminal offence in Canada and then returned to a low-income country with limited capacity for retraining and rehabilitation. Since the economic and security conditions upon arrival can be worse than when the migrants originally departed, there is a systemic risk of mass deportations to low-income countries becoming a catalyst for future emigration, immigration application fraud, and human smuggling. 

Consequently, a broader policy aperture is needed if the Canadian federal government is to address migration and development holistically. Canada’s use of multidimensional policy analysis is much less advanced than the European Union (EU) which has been a pioneer in migration-development programming for more than a decade²⁹. While successive Canadian federal governments have boasted about the country’s international leadership role, the shortfalls are glaring. The Canadian federal budget for 2022 allotted $8.15 billion for international assistance which is a modest sum in a time of converging global risks. The GCM and the IMRF will undoubtedly push forward the high-level policy agenda on two-way migration and mobility programs. Canada’s ability to secure a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in the medium-term future may depend on the coordinated priority attention it gives to the global migration-development nexus in the short-term. 

Conclusion 

Canada is respected worldwide as a preferred migration destination because of its ability to attract and retain newcomers. The country’s “diversity dividend” is a source of considerable pride and competitive advantage. But the devastating impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic has produced a new sense of urgency to grow Canada’s economy along with IRCC’s innovation capacity immediately. Moreover, the process of transitioning to a more flexible and innovative design framework has revealed major organizational shortcomings. These weaknesses are formidable but not insurmountable. Much depends on how IRCC responds to the Prime Minister’s policy directive on the Municipal Nominee Program and whether the department takes a leadership role on the global migration-development nexus. Ultimately, the COVID-19 pandemic may not be the only seismic event to impact Canada’s migration and mobility system.

¹Government of Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), “Canada Welcomes the Most Immigrants in a Single Year in its History,” News Release (23 December 2021). https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2021/12/canada-welcomes-the-most-immigrants-in-a-single-year-in-its-history.html/ 

²Bessma Momani and Jillian Stirk, “Diversity Dividend: Canada’s Global Advantage,” Special Report, Centre for International Governance Innovation (2017). https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/documents/DiversitySpecial%20Report%20WEB_0.pdf. 

³Zsoka Koczan, Giovanni Peri, Magali Pinat, and Dmitriy Rozhkov, “Impact of International Migration on Inclusive Growth: A Review,” IMF Working Paper, International Monetary Fund (March 2021). https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/03/19/The-Impact-of-International-Migration-on-Inclusive-Growth-A-Review-50169.

⁴Government of Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), “Backgrounder: Growing Canada’s Future,” (1 November 2017). https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2017/11/growing_canada_seconomicfuture.html. 

⁵Government of Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), “Backgrounder: Growing Canada’s Future,” (1 November 2017). https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2017/11/growing_canada_seconomicfuture.html. 

⁶Keith Neuman, “Canadian Public Opinion About Immigration and Refugees – Fall 2021,” Environics Institute (22 October 2021). https://www.environicsinstitute.org/projects/project-details/canadian-public-opinion-about-immigration-and-refugees—fall-2021. 

⁷Government of Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), “2022-2023 Departmental Plan” (2022). https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/departmental-plan-2022-2023/departmental-plan.html. 

⁸Government of Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), “Evaluation of the Passport Program,” Research and Evaluations Branch (March 2020). https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/reports-statistics/evaluations/evaluation-of-the-passport-program.html. 

⁹ Andrew Weichel, “Service Canada Received 500,000 Passport Applications in March and April” iHeart Radio (6 May 2022). https://www.iheartradio.ca/ctv-news-content/service-canada-received-500-000-passport-applications-in-march-and-april-1.17733055.

¹⁰Zachary Spicer, Nathan Olmstead, and Nicole Goodman, “Reversing the Brian Drain: Where is Canadian STEM Talent Going?” Delvina (May 2018). https://brocku.ca/social-sciences/political-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/153/Reversing-the-Brain-Drain.pdf. 

¹¹ Government of Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), “New Immigration Plan to Fill Labour Market Shortages and Grow Canada’s Economy,” New Release (14 February 2022).  https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2022/02/new-immigration-plan-to-fill-labour-market-shortages-and-grow-canadas-economy.html.

¹²Government of Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), “2022-2023 Departmental Plan” (2022). https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/departmental-plan-2022-2023/departmental-plan.html. 

¹³Kareem El-Assal and Shelby Thevenot, “IRCC’s Application Backlog Grows Beyond 2.1 Million People,” CIC News (10 May 2022). https://www.cicnews.com/2022/05/irccs-application-backlog-grows-beyond-21-million-people-0525204.html#gs.059v1u. 

¹⁴Government of Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), “Evaluation of the Passport Program,” Research and Evaluations Branch (March 2020). 

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/reports-statistics/evaluations/evaluation-of-the-passport-program.html.

¹⁵Government of Canada, Office of the Prime Minister, “Minister of Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada Mandate Letter,” (16 December 2021). https://pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2021/12/16/minister-immigration-refugees-and-citizenship-mandate-letter.

¹⁶United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), “International Migration Highlights” (2020). https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2020_international_migration_highlights.pdf. 

¹⁷World Bank, “Remittance Flows Register Robust 7.3 Percent Growth in 2022,” Press Release (17 November 2021). https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/11/17/remittance-flows-register-robust-7-3-percent-growth-in-2021. 

¹⁸Matthew Yglesias, “Pete Buttigieg’s Plan to Use Immigration to Revitalize Shrinking Communities, Explained,” Vox (15 August 2019). https://www.vox.com/2019/8/15/20804284/place-based-visa-heartland-visa-community-revitalization; Caroline Kenney, “Michael Bloomberg Unveils Immigration Plan Including Place-based Visas,” CNN News (10 February 2020). https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/10/politics/michael-bloomberg-immigration-plan/index.html. 

¹⁹Organization for Co-operation and Economic Development (OECD), “The Long Game: Fiscal Outlooks to 2060 Underline Need for Structural Reform,” Policy Paper No. 29 (October 2021). https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/a112307e-en.pdf?expires=1652632239&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=05892B14D14F30DC26E578DB406FC92D. 

²⁰ Orsolya Kovács-Ondrejkovic, Rainer Strack, Jens Baier, Pierre Antebi, Kate Kavanagh, and Ana López Gobernado, “Decoding Global Talent, Onsite and Virtual,” Boston Consulting Group (March 2021). https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/virtual-mobility-in-the-global-workforce.

²¹Zsoka Koczan, Giovanni Peri, Magali Pinat, and Dmitriy Rozhkov, “Impact of International Migration on Inclusive Growth: A Review,” IMF Working Paper, International Monetary Fund (March 2021). https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/03/19/The-Impact-of-International-Migration-on-Inclusive-Growth-A-Review-50169. 

²²Julien Bernard-Chagnon and Lorena Canon, “The Canadian Diaspora: Estimating the Number of Canadians Who live Abroad,” Statistics Canada, Demographic Documents (13 April 2022). https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91f0015m/91f0015m2022001-eng.htm. 

²³The Senate of Canada, Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “The Evacuation of Canadians from Lebanon in July 2006: Implications for the Government of Canada.” (May 2007). https://www.mobinajaffer.ca/pdf-reports/evacuation-canadians-lebanon-july-2006.pdf. 

²⁴John Stackhouse, Planet Canada: How Our Expats Are Shaping the Future (2020). Toronto: Random House Canada. 

²⁵Government of Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), “Evaluation of the International Migration Capacity Building Program – Funding Component,” Evaluation and Performance Management Division (December 2021). https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/documents/pdf/english/corporate/reports-statistics/evaluations/e2-2020-imcbp-eng.pdf. 

²⁶Kathleen Newland, “Destination-Country Policies to Foster Diaspora Engagement in Development,” Migration Policy Institute (May 2022). https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-diaspora-policies-2022_final.pdf. 

²⁷United Nations General Assembly, “International Migration Review Forum,” (17-20 May 2022).  https://www.un.org/en/migration2022/. 

²⁸Government of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada, “Immigration Removals,” Independent Auditor’s Report (2020). https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_202007_01_e_43572.html. 

²⁹European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, “The Global Approach to Migration and Mobility” (2011). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52011DC0743.