In the cur­rent eco­nomic cli­mate, is it becom­ing more dif­fi­cult to immi­grate to Canada?

Not accord­ing to Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

In 2008, while the econ­omy was still boom­ing, the immi­gra­tion agency reported that “Canada wel­comed an unprece­dented num­ber of per­ma­nent and tem­po­rary res­i­dents.”

The agency’s recent press release said:

“While other coun­tries are talk­ing about tak­ing fewer immi­grants, today, I am pleased to announce that in 2008, we increased the num­ber of new per­ma­nent res­i­dents to Canada,” said Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney.

Canada wel­comed 247,202 per­ma­nent res­i­dents in 2008, 70,000 more than in 1998.…An addi­tional 193,061 tem­po­rary for­eign work­ers and 79,459 for­eign stu­dents resulted in a com­bined total of 519,722 new­com­ers for the year.

And what’s the fore­cast for 2009?

“Our gov­ern­ment will not fol­low the advice of those who believe that Canada should take steps to reduce immi­gra­tion lev­els. In fact, we are main­tain­ing our planned immi­gra­tion lev­els for 2009,” said Minister Kenney.

So send in those per­ma­nent res­i­dence appli­ca­tions now!

Photo ©Alan Albert