The famous favorable consensus of Canadians for immigration is indeed a thing of the past. Two new polls confirm the historic about-face: for the first time since 1998, a clear majority judges that there is too much immigration in the country.
In the annual Environics survey on immigration, 58% of respondents agree that Canada welcomes “too many immigrants”, up 14 points compared to 2023… which already showed an increase of 17 points compared to 2022.
This massive 31% turnaround is “the largest” seen in a two-year window since Environics began asking these questions in 1977.
At Abacus Data, the finding is even more scathing: 72% of its respondents believe that the number of immigrants welcomed is “too” (25%) or “much too” (47%) high.
The Trudeau plan
As recently as 2022, 69% of Canadians were comfortable with then-immigration levels, an all-time high in Environics records.
Building on this stable consensus, the Trudeau government wanted to double the permanent immigration targets since 2015 to today, from 250,000 to 500,000. And this, without counting a massive increase in temporary immigration at the same time.
However, over the past year, the unprecedented backlash in public opinion and pressure from provincial premiers have forced the new Minister of Immigration, Marc Miller, to slow down.
For the Liberals, it is late to save the day: 34% of Canadians believe that the Conservative Party is best placed to tackle immigration problems, more than the Liberal Party and the NDP combined.
The economy in troubled waters
The Canadians’ about-face is above all a matter of wallet.
According to Abacus, 73% of Canadians today consider that immigration has a “negative” or “very negative” impact on access to housing, and 62% think the same about health care and 59% on services. social.
A quarter (26%) of Canadians believe immigration has an overall negative impact on the economy, the highest figure since the late 1990s, according to Environics. Those who believe that the impact is positive remain in the majority, at 68%, but have been in free fall for two years.
Integration, a new problem
Beyond the economy, pollsters report new trends on integration into the country and security.
The last two years have been marked by a remarkable rise in the number of Canadians judging that “too many immigrants do not adopt Canadian values”. They are now 57%, compared to 48% just a year ago, according to Environics.
More Canadians also believe that immigration increases the level of crime in the country: 35% share this opinion, up 14 points since 2019, which puts an end to a downward trend that has been underway since the 1990s. .
Despite these fundamental changes, a very large majority of Canadians continue to believe that multiculturalism contributes positively to Canadian identity.
METHODOLOGY: The Abacus web survey was conducted on October 3 or 9 among 1,915 Canadians. It is not possible to calculate a margin of error on a sample taken from a web panel, but for comparison, the margin of error for a similar sample is +/- 2.24%, 19 times out of 20.
METHODOLOGY: This survey is based on telephone interviews with 2016 Canadians aged 18 and over between September 9 and 23, 2024. The margin of error is +/- 2.24%, 19 times out of 20.
Do you have any information to share with us about this story?
Write to us at or call us directly at 1 800-63SCOOP.
