I have a piece today in the Globe and Mail outlining the advantages of immigration to Canada but also explaining that it has to be done right. That is, that we have to keep an eye on productivity and per capita GDP and there needs to be increased investment including infrastructure investment to accommodate the larger population. In retrospect, one of the things that might have been useful to accompany the piece would have been several charts illustrating some of the statistics quoted. Using data from Statistics Canada and Historical Statistics of Canada, I have plotted two figures.
Figure 1 plots annual immigration to Canada all the way from 1852 until 2023 (a forecast) and it is indeed a very striking picture showing immigration for 2023 reaching nearly 600,000. This of course is only immigration and does not include people on temporary work permits, people on student visas, etc...That type of data really cannot be extended back to the 19th century and so this chart tries to make an "apples to apples" comparison. Nevertheless, there are a lot of people coming into Canada in absolute numbers and indeed the totals are the highest ever and yes it is straining our current infrastructure and capacity to accommodate.
However, in relative terms, the current population boom is actually modest if one takes current immigration as a percentage of current population totals and compares it to the past. It is a legitimate comparison and not some type of statistical "trick." Whereas in 1912 we had approximately 8 million people and were letting in 400,000 immigrants a year, today we are a nation of 40 million people letting in over 500,000 immigrants annually (though one can add to that with temportary residents and visa holders). Figure 2 presents annual immigration to Canada as a percentage share of annual population and it shows that relatively speaking, the current immigration boom is more modest compared to that of the early twentieth century.
At its peak, the annual immigration flows into Canada topped five percent of the population while today they are at about 1.5 percent and perhaps over two percent if you want to start including everybody who has been allowed to enter Canada. Could we do a better job of accommodating the current immigrant influx? Yes, indeed. Is infrastructure being strained? Yes, indeed. All of that still does not eliminate the fact that in the past, we let in relatively more people given the population and seemed better able to accommodate them. Not only did we have a larger annual immigrant to population share than the present circa 1912 as mentioned in the Globe piece, but we also did in the early1880s, the late 1920s, and the late 1950s. A key question still remains as to why we cannot do better in accommodating and managing the current inflow?