Immigrants per 1,000 residents in Canada, 1925 to 2025

This issue covers how many people Canada admitted as permanent residents each year from 1925 to 2025, per 1,000 residents. It comes in three images: the chart, the Party Scoreboard (Liberal vs Conservative / PC) and the PM Scoreboard (the average under each Prime Minister).

On the chart, each year is shaded by the federal party in office for most of that year: red for Liberal, blue for Conservative and Progressive Conservative (PC). Diagonal stripes mark minority governments.

How many people Canada admits depends on admission rules, on plans the government publishes and on world events such as wars and the Depression. So this issue shows who was in office and also tests, several ways, whether the party comparison shows anything beyond that.

In brief. In 2025 Canada admitted 393,781 new permanent residents, 9.5 for every 1,000 residents. The yearly rate was 9.0 in 1925, rose to 16.7 in 1928 and fell to 0.6 in 1942, the low of the series. It reached 16.7 again in 1957, stayed between 3.3 and 10.7 from 1961 to 2019, and was 11.8 in 2023, the highest since 1957, before falling to 9.5 in 2025. On the average, Liberal years come out higher: 7.2 per 1,000 against 6.2 in Conservative and PC years. On the median year (the middle one when the years are lined up from lowest to highest) the two are almost the same: 7.3 and 7.2. The gap shrinks to 0.6 from 1946 on and to 0.5 if the 1920s are left out, so it rests on the high 1920s, and it is not larger than chance could easily produce. On the average, Liberal years come out higher in every other span we tested too (on the median the two are equal, or Conservative and PC years are slightly higher, in some), but no gap is clearly larger than chance. Shading and ranks show who was in office, not who caused the result.

The numbered markers give context, not credit or blame:

We marked 17 of the many events that federal records, Statistics Canada, the Library of Parliament or the museums and archives of the federal government tie to how many people came to Canada or the rules for admitting them: five world events and twelve federal measures. Twelve fall in Liberal years and five in Conservative and PC years; Liberals held office in 70 of the 101 years. We considered other events and did not mark them, because we found no source that ties them to the number of permanent residents, or because they set numbers for people who are not permanent residents. The 1923 Chinese Immigration Act, which barred almost all Chinese immigration, falls before the chart starts. Two things to keep in mind: the plan for a year is usually published the autumn before it, so a plan's marker comes before the year it covers; and some markers are dated by year because the sources give no month.

An immigrant here is a person admitted to Canada as a permanent resident in a calendar year, as the federal immigration department counts them and Statistics Canada publishes them. Before 1978 the count is of "immigrant arrivals"; from 1978, of landed immigrants under the 1976 Immigration Act; from 2002, of permanent residents under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Statistics Canada defines an immigrant as a permanent resident (a landed immigrant); the older arrivals count is the closest earlier equivalent. Children and dependants are inside the count. People who already live in Canada on a temporary permit are counted in the year they become permanent residents: in 2023, 38.6% of those admitted had previously held a study or work permit, according to the Library of Parliament.

So the count records when people were granted permanent status, not when they first arrived, and that matters for comparing decades. Before the 1967 regulations, few people could apply from inside Canada. After them, the share grew: the department's yearly reports count 13,036 people landed in 1967 who had entered as visitors before July 1966 (5.8% of that year's total); by 1971, 28.6% of the total had entered Canada as non-immigrants, and in 1973, the year of a one-time status amnesty, 33.9%. The reports counted these groups differently from year to year, so the rise is approximate. Refugee groups are counted in the year they landed (1957, 1968, 1972 and 1973, 1979 and 1980); in 1957 and in 1979 and 1980 they show up as a clear rise. The count is gross, not net: people leaving Canada are not subtracted, and Canadians returning home are not counted. Temporary residents (students, workers and asylum claimants, among others) are not counted until they become permanent residents; Statistics Canada estimates their numbers only from 1971, so they cannot be shown for the whole century. New permanent residents are the only official count of immigrants that runs back to the 1920s, and they are what Statistics Canada means by an immigrant.

Births are not in the count either, so it is not the same as population growth.

The rate divides each year's admissions by the number of residents on July 1. From 1971 that is Statistics Canada's own July 1 estimate. Before 1971 we use its June 1 estimates multiplied once by 1.018, the ratio that joins them to the later July 1 series; the GDP per person issue uses the same population. The July 1 estimate counts everyone living in Canada, temporary residents included, so a rise in temporary residents lowers the rate even if admissions are unchanged. Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949 and its people entered the population that year, so the rate for 1949 is about 2.5% low. Using the published population without the 1.018 factor raises the pre-1971 rates by about 1.7% and does not change which party comes out ahead.

The reasons below are the ones official sources support. They are about admissions of permanent residents, not total population growth, which includes temporary residents.

Each year's plan, the government's published target for how many permanent residents to admit, is usually presented (tabled) in Parliament the autumn before; the law has required tabling since 2002, and the government also tabled one in 1994.

The Party Scoreboard counts the years 1925 to 2025: 101 years, 70 Liberal and 31 Conservative and PC. The board's first two rows are the average and the median number of new permanent residents per 1,000 residents: 6.9 and 7.2 across all years, 7.2 and 7.3 in Liberal years and 6.2 and 7.2 in Conservative and PC years. The median is the middle value when the years are lined up from lowest to highest; a few extreme years pull an average a long way, and the median is less affected. The gap in the average is 1.1 per 1,000 (7.22 against 6.16 before rounding, which is why the rounded figures look 1.0 apart); in the median it is 0.1.

The board adds two rows as a test. "Since 1946" counts only the years after the Depression and the Second World War: 54 Liberal years and 26 Conservative and PC years. The average was 7.6 in Liberal years and 7.0 in Conservative and PC years, and the median 7.4 and 7.3.

The gap between the parties' averages is 1.1 per 1,000. We tested it several ways.

Chance. The yearly level runs together from year to year: it was low through the whole Depression and high through most of the 1920s. To see how large a gap chance alone produces, we shuffled the party labels across the years 100,000 times. Half of the shuffles gave a gap of about 0.5 or more, and one in ten a gap of about 1.3 or more. Gaps at least as large as the board's 1.1 came up in 17% of the shuffles. Neighbouring years resemble each other, so we also kept each party's unbroken stretches in office together and tried all 462 ways of assigning the parties to those 11 stretches. A gap at least as large came up in 241 of them (52%). Both say the gap is within what chance could easily produce.

Timing. Compared with each decade's own average, Liberal years ran 0.1 above their decade's average and Conservative and PC years 0.3 below: a gap of 0.4. A gap that large came up in 25% of the run arrangements and in 37% of the shuffles.

Eras. On the average, Liberal years come out higher in every span, and the size of the gap varies a lot:

Policy takes time. Crediting each year's level to the party in office the year before gives 7.3 for Liberal years and 5.9 for Conservative and PC years; with a two-year delay, 7.2 and 6.0.

The number of people, not the rate. The party order depends on how the number is expressed. In absolute numbers of immigrants a year, Conservative and PC years average 167,100 and Liberal years 166,400: the order reverses, and shuffles gave a gap that large 98% of the time. One reason the rate and the count disagree is that the population grew more than fourfold, from 9.5 million residents in 1925 to 41.6 million in 2025, so the same number of immigrants is a larger rate in the earlier years.

The United States. For a world check, we compared the number of people who obtained permanent residence in the United States each year, per 1,000 US residents, for 1925 to 2023 (US fiscal years re-cut to calendar years). The two series move together to a modest degree, with a correlation of 0.44 (1 would be perfect). The US rate averaged 2.0 per 1,000 in Canada's Liberal years and 2.7 in its Conservative and PC years: the opposite order to Canada's. We then removed the part of Canada's rate that moves with the US rate. The gap that remains is 1.8 per 1,000 (Liberal years 0.6 above what the US rate predicts, Conservative and PC years 1.2 below), against 1.0 before on the same years (1925 to 2023); a plain shuffle test gives about 1%, which would be unusual, but because years next to each other are linked we rely on the stricter run-arrangement test, which gives 12%, within what chance could easily produce. The US series is a different count (it ends in 2023, both countries include people already in the country, and its fiscal-to-calendar re-cut is unreliable around 2019 and 2020), so this is a rough check only.

Volatility. The level moved 1.4 per 1,000 from one year to the next on average, up or down, in Liberal years and 1.3 in Conservative and PC years: no real difference.

What is left: Liberal years had a higher average level than Conservative and PC years, mostly because of the high 1920s under Mackenzie King (without them the gap is 0.5); on the median year the two are almost equal. No gap is clearly larger than chance could easily produce, and the order depends on whether the number is counted in people or per 1,000 residents. The number depends on wars, admission rules and plans, and the comparison cannot separate those from who held office. That describes who was in office when the number moved. It does not show that either party caused it.

The PM Scoreboard sorts each term by the average number of new permanent residents per 1,000 residents over the whole term, from the lowest to the highest. Rank 1 is the lowest level, not the best or worst result: the level reflects wars, recessions and the rules in each term.

Most rows are a term: one unbroken stretch as Prime Minister, however many elections it spans. Each year counts in proportion to the days in office that year, so 1957 counts partly for Louis St-Laurent and partly for John Diefenbaker. The "Years counted" column adds up those shares. The board starts in 1920, the first year of data, so Arthur Meighen's first term and Mackenzie King's first term are counted whole. The 18 ranked rows are 15 terms plus 3 combined rows. A combined row repeats terms already listed; it is not another government.

R.B. Bennett's term ranks first, at 2.3 per 1,000 (1930 to 1935, the worst years of the Depression), then Mackenzie King's third term (2.4: the rest of the Depression, the war and the first post-war years) and Pierre Trudeau's second term (4.7). The highest single terms are Mackenzie King's second term (15.2, 1926 to 1930, the 1920s boom that the department's history links to the railway agreement), Arthur Meighen's first term (12.1) and Mackenzie King's first term (11.3). The ranking follows the eras: the two lowest terms are the Depression and war years, the three highest are in the 1920s, Louis St-Laurent's (9.8) is the next highest, with the 1950s boom, and Justin Trudeau's (9.3) is the highest ranked term since (Mark Carney's months in 2025, too short to rank, average 9.5). Reading it alongside the chart shows how much of a term's average is the era's.

Three Prime Ministers have a combined row, shaded grey, which weights each term by its years counted: Mackenzie King (all three terms 6.6), Arthur Meighen (both terms 12.4) and Pierre Trudeau (both terms 6.1).

Five rows are listed below the ranking without a rank: Arthur Meighen's second term (14.1), Joe Clark (4.9), John Turner (3.5), Kim Campbell (9.0) and Mark Carney (9.5). Each rests on less than one year of data, and the yearly figures they draw on also cover months when someone else was in office. Mark Carney took office in March 2025 and was in office for 0.8 of 2025, the latest full year of data. His row joins the ranking when 2026 is counted.

The right-hand column of the PM Scoreboard names the federal laws, regulations, orders in council and published levels plans that changed who could be admitted as a permanent resident or how many (a ministerial public policy that opened a permanent route counts), counted in the term in which they took effect (a levels plan in the term in which it was tabled). The same test was applied to every Prime Minister where a verified date or plan existed, so about half of the rows are blank.

Left out for every term: rules for temporary residents (students, workers, visas), citizenship, fees, settlement funding, and numbers of refugees set by cabinet decisions or ministers' announcements with no regulation or plan behind them (Hungary in 1956, Indochina in 1979 and the 1947 displaced persons program appear on the chart as events, not here, and neither does the 1925 railway agreement, a contract). Provincial nominee programs created by agreements are left out too. Terms with nothing that passes the test have no comment, among them the terms of Arthur Meighen, Mackenzie King's second term, Louis St-Laurent, Joe Clark, John Turner, Kim Campbell and Paul Martin (whose plans changed nothing we could verify). Comments give context. They do not assign credit or blame. Sources for every comment are in the source list at the end of the web version of this issue.

From 1946 each year is the sum of the four quarterly counts of immigrants in Statistics Canada's table of the components of population growth; from 1925 to 1945 it is the annual count of immigrant arrivals in Statistics Canada's table of immigrants and population, the same numbers the Historical Statistics of Canada and the Canada Year Books print (we checked every year from 1920). For 1946 to 1977 the two tables are equal in every year. We checked the series against the immigration department's own historical figures: all but one year before 2015 (1969, off by 1.9%) agree within 0.4%, and 2015 to 2025 agree within 0.01%. All of these trace to the same federal records, so agreement shows consistent copying, not an independent count.

Population: the July 1 estimate from 1971 (Statistics Canada, tables 17-10-0005-01 and 17-10-0009-01); the June 1 estimate multiplied by 1.018 for 1920 to 1970 (table 17-10-0063-01), on the same basis as the GDP per person issue. The rate is immigrants divided by that population, times 1,000.

The comparisons with the United States use the Department of Homeland Security's yearbook of immigration statistics (persons obtaining lawful permanent resident status, fiscal years re-cut to calendar years) and the Census Bureau's population estimates.

More on the method: How the charts work

Who we are: About Gov Scoreboard

Spot an error? Write to [email protected].

Adapted from Statistics Canada, Tables 17-10-0063-01, 17-10-0040-01, 17-10-0005-01 and 17-10-0009-01 (retrieved 2026-10-14). This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.

Dates in office: House of Commons, Procedure and Practice (4th ed., 2025), Appendix 6.

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