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2005-23

IMMIGRATION MINISTER TABLES THE 2005 ANNUAL REPORT TO PARLIAMENT ON IMMIGRATION

OTTAWA, October 31, 2005 — The Honourable Joe Volpe, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, today announced that Canada reached its targeted annual immigration levels for the fifth consecutive year, attracting 235,824 new permanent residents in 2004. The details on the immigration levels reached, as well as the Department’s activities in 2004 to attract and welcome newcomers, are outlined in the Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration tabled today.

The report presents the overall immigration ranges for 2006, including the commitment to admit from 225,000 to 255,000 newcomers to Canada as permanent residents. It also provides the target ranges for permanent residents to be admitted in each immigration class for 2006.

The report speaks to the need for a new long-term approach to immigration planning. Strengthened partnerships to improve the current immigration system so that applicants can be processed more quickly, and ensure a modern service delivery system that is efficient and responds to the needs of all Canadians, are a priority.

“Canada needs the drive, ambition and skills many newcomers bring to our country every year and we need to make sure they succeed once they arrive,” said Minister Volpe. I am fully committed to delivering the results Canadians need and want to secure the economic and social prosperity of our country for this and future generations.”

The department’s annual report, and its performance report for 2004-05, is available at www.cic.gc.ca.

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For more information (media only):

Stephen Heckbert
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister
(613) 954-1064

Greg Scott
Media Relations
Communications Branch
(613) 941-7028

Reports:

• Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration — 2005
  HTML | Acrobat PDF (236 K)
• Departmental Performance Report for the period ending March 31, 2005
  HTML | Acrobat PDF (791 K)

BACKGROUNDER
2005 Annual Report to
Parliament on Immigration

The 2005 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration announces the government’s immigration plan for 2006; provides information on immigration activities for the calendar year 2004 (for both permanent and temporary residents); gives a mid-year update on the permanent residents admitted in 2005; and summarizes key activities undertaken in collaboration with the provinces and territories. Under section 94 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) must table the report on or before November 1 of each year.

Highlights of the Report

This year’s report provides information on the following:

• Canada’s immigration plan for 2006. The report gives the overall immigration range for the coming calendar year and provides the target ranges for permanent residents to be admitted in each immigration class in 2006. Overall, the government is committed to admitting between 225,000 and 255,000 permanent residents in 2006 and plans to have a 56%/44% balance between the economic and non-economic classes.
• CIC’s partnerships with provincial and territorial governments. This overview includes a list of the federal/provincial-territorial agreements currently in force and summarizes the key joint initiatives. In 2004, 6,248 permanent residents were admitted under the Provincial Nominee Program to fill regional or local needs.
• The 235,824 new permanent residents admitted to Canada in 2004. This section includes breakdowns by immigrant class, province of destination, country of origin and linguistic profile.
  • 133,746 newcomers admitted under the economic class in 2004 (57% of the total). This includes skilled workers, business immigrants, provincial nominees and live-in caregivers.
  • 62,246 newcomers admitted under the family class in 2004 (26% of the total).
  • 32,685 refugees and other protected persons admitted in 2004 (14% of the total).
  • 6,945 people granted permanent resident status on humanitarian and compassionate grounds in 2004 (3% of the total).
• The 13,598 temporary resident permits issued in 2004 to persons seeking to enter Canada but found to be inadmissible.
• Key information on the temporary residents admitted in 2004. In 2004, CIC admitted 90,688 foreign workers, granted 56,536 new study permits to international students, and issued 684,341 temporary visitor visas.
• A mid-year report for 2005 on the number of permanent residents admitted from January to June, by immigrant class. There were 130,906 newcomers admitted in the first half of the year, based on a planned target range of 220,000 to 245,000 new permanent residents.
• An overview of gender-based analysis activities. A gender-based analysis (GBA) is an analytical framework that assesses the different impacts of proposed or existing policies, programs, legislation and regulations on women and men. This section describes CIC’s policy framework for GBA, reports on key GBA activities undertaken by CIC and provides gender breakdowns for the key immigration statistics provided in the report.

For more information, including historical landing patterns, see the publication entitled Facts and Figures on Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Web site at www.cic.gc.ca.