Canada Immigration Statistics Facts

The Canadian organization responsible for immigration in Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, compiles many interesting facts and figures for your perusal.

Canada is sometimes known as the Land of Immigration because of the very large numbers of immigrants who come to the country every year.

Canadians and the Canadian government are very supportive of the influx of foreign residents as migration is seen as being beneficial to the economic and cultural health of the country.Canada Statistics

Canada is, of course, one of the most multicultural countries in the world and is quite proud of that fact.

Below we have some facts about immigration in Canada. The source for all of these statistics is Citizenship and Immigration itself. All figures are for the year 2012. Statistics for 2013 have not been released yet as the year is not over.

• • 65,008 immigrants were granted Permanent Residency based on a family application. This class of immigrant files for entry into Canada with the sponsorship of a Permanent Resident or Citizen relative that already lives in the country.
  • A whopping 160,819 immigrants entered Canada on an economic type permanent Resident Card. As was mentioned previously, immigrants contribute to the health of the economy. These immigrants filed for entry into Canada by being sponsored by a job already in the Country.
  • 23,094refugees were accepted into Canada and given Permanent Residency to protect them against persecution in other countries.
  • Overall, 257,887 people were granted Permanent Residency in Canada in 2012. An interesting fact to add here is that this number is higher than the yearly average over the past 20 years! Canada really does take in a lot of immigrants!

A good question to ask here is where, exactly, are all of these immigrants coming from? That can be answered easily enough:

• • People from Asia and the Pacific contribute the highest number immigrants compared to any other continent at 129,592. They are also the highest contributors to the family and work category of immigrant visas.
  • People from Africa and the Middle East contribute the most to the total number of refugees accepted into Canada in 2012 at 9,967.
  • However, there were quite a few refugees from all of the other continents. Asia and the Pacific had 5,539. South and Central America (including Mexico) contributed 1,945 refugees. The United States had 1,041. Europe contributed 4,567 refugees in 2012.
    For a bonus fact: Canada allows its students to transfer their temporary resident status to Permanent Resident Status. In 2012 1,359 students became Permanent Residents and continued their lives in the Land of Immigrants: Canada!