Canada could see a "controlled increase" in population according to prime minister Mark Carney who has raised the prospect of an imminent shift in Ottawa's policy after years of trying to reduce newcomer numbers.
Carney told The New York Times that Canada's immigration system was "back under control" after reductions that followed a post-COVID pandemic population surge driven by student visas.
By November 1, Canada's government has to reveal its permanent and temporary resident targets under what is called the Immigration Levels Plan.
Carney did not announce specific numbers nor any changes to current targets which would only be confirmed when the next levels plan is tabled in Ottawa's parliament.
But his comments mark a shift in tone from the Liberal government's last three plans which focused on reducing newcomers, especially temporary residents like international students and foreign workers.
However, a migration and economics expert has told Newsweek that given the three-year length of Canada's immigration plans, any move to increase migrants is unlikely to produce results before the end of the decade.
"If there is a ramping up of the immigration levels, it won't happen before 2029," said Mikal Skuterud, economics professor at the University of Waterloo, Ontario.
Newsweek has contacted the Canadian government for comment.
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What Did Carney Say About Canadian Immigration?
In The New York Times interview published on September 27, Carney was asked whether his government was planning to reverse immigration policy after he had said earlier in the year that Canada faced a shrinking labor force.
The prime minister replied that there had been a surge of postsecondary institutions granting visas for foreign students and temporary foreign workers, putting pressure on housing and other infrastructure.
Carney described this as "a huge shift" in immigration and following "big overshoots" in immigrant numbers, he added, "what we’ve basically been doing is first getting the system under control."
"Now the question starts to become—when do we resume some controlled increase in the population, which is the nature of Canada?" Carney said. "That will happen, and we just want to make sure that we’ve got it under control."
What Are Canada's Immigration Targets?
Canada’s population reached 41,798,407 on July 1, 2026 which was an increase of 189,425 people, or 0.5 per cent, over the previous year. This is the smallest July-to-July population increase since 1944/1945 and the lowest percentage growth since 1915/1916, according to Immigration. Ca.
Among these numbers are 2,779,774 non-permanent residents, or 6.7 per cent of the population. While above the government's five percent goal, it is down from a peak of seven percent in October 2024, a figure Skuterud said was "just enormous, unheard of in Canada."
He said this increase in migration inflows was not from new permanent residents but those given temporary status, mostly international students guaranteed three-year post-graduation work permits.
Tertiary institutions ramped up enrollments because of the higher fees paid by foreign students attracted by the promise of immigration attached to their visa.
"They were very clearly not paying for education—they were paying for a promise of immigration," Skuterud said.
"Then the question is, what happens to those folks if they can't all transition to permanent status," he said, "in 2024 the Liberal government realized 'my God, what do we do with this?'"
"The Liberal government is working very hard to try and incentivize this population to leave without using the U.S.-style ICE approaches to getting people out," he added.
The last Immigration Levels Plan for 2026–2028 that was released on November 5, 2025, continued to cut temporary arrivals while keeping permanent resident admissions flat.
Targets for new temporary resident arrivals, including temporary workers and students, are set at 385,000 for this year, going down to 370,000 in 2027 and 2028.
The plan also prioritizes admissions under the Federal High Skilled and Provincial Nominee Program (PNP).
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Could Carney's Proposal Face Opposition?
As the Canadian government weighs up its immigration policy, the Toronto-based C.D. Howe Institute’s Immigration Targets Council has recommended a continued reduction in arrivals over the next three years.
It said in September there should be further reductions to the non-permanent resident share of Canada’s population to five percent by next year and then three percent over the medium to longer term.
It has recommended annual permanent-resident admissions of 380,000 in 2027 to go down to 350,000 in 2028 and 340,000 in 2029 and has called for better tracking of when temporary residents leave Canada.
While there has been significant progress in reducing the non-permanent resident population, it is premature to treat the adjustment as complete, Parisa Mahboubi, associate director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute, told Newsweek.
"Public confidence has improved only modestly and has not fully recovered," Mahboubi said, adding Canada's immigration policy should not focus on population growth or GDP growth alone, but higher productivity and living standards.
"Immigration can support labor-force growth, attract skills that are difficult to develop domestically in the short term, and help meet Canada's investment ambitions," she said, "but it is not a substitute for productivity growth or better use of the skills of people already in Canada."
"Nor does the government's emphasis on investment and building productive capacity, important as it is, necessarily justify higher overall immigration levels."
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Trevor Davies