June 16, 2025 — With the shifting immigration landscape in Canada, Filipinos wishing to live, study, and work in the country are seeing less chances of coming over.
To illustrate, the number of new arrivals from the Philippines dropped in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year.
The reduction follows cutbacks in immigration targets that were introduced by the previous Liberal government of then prime minister Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau’s successor and now Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney is continuing on his predecessor’s track to bring down immigration levels.
A recent study by the Association for Canada Studies (ACS) reviewed the initial impact of the cutback announced by the federal government on October 24, 2024.
It may be recalled that the government lowered its permanent immigration targets from 500,000 to 395,000 in 2025; from 500,000 to 380,000 in 2026; and set a target of 365,000 in 2027.
On May 22, 2025, ACS released a study titled “Tracking the plan: Examining The early impact of the Federal Government’s Projected reduction in Immigration levels”.
Authored by president and CEO Jack Jedwab, the paper noted that the number of permanent residents who were admitted to Canada in the first quarter of 2025 totalled 104,110 individuals.
The first quarter number represents a 14.5 percent reduction compared to the 121,780 permanent residents admitted in the first quarter of 2024.
As for permanent residents coming from the Philippines, the number fell from 7,995 in the first quarter of 2024 to 7,155 in the first quarter of 2025, for a 10.5 percent decline.
For international students, the total number of study permit holders fell from 121,070 in the first quarter of 2024 to 96,015 in the first quarter of 2025, representing a reduction of 20.7 percent.
For study permit holders from the Philippines, the number decreased from 5,540 in the first quarter of 2024 to 4,555 in the first quarter of 2025, making for a 17.8 percent decline.
The ACS study also observed a decline in the number of permit holders under Canada’s International Mobility Program (IMP).
For background, the IMP allows Canadian employers to hire a temporary worker without a Labour Market Impact Assessment or LMIA.
The study showed that IMP permit holders fell from 230,405 in the first quarter of 2024 to 176,805 in the first quarter of 2025, marking a 24.3 percent decline nationwide.
For IMP permit holders from the Philippines, the number decreased from 8,315 in the first quarter of 2024 to 7,840 in the first quarter of 2025, representing a reduction of 5.5 percent.
The cut in immigration targets by the federal government came in the wake of shifting public opinion in Canada.
While Canada remains largely a welcoming country, public support for immigration has seen an erosion due to pressures on housing and economic concerns.
Then Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller announced the reduction on October 24, 2024.
“While it’s clear our economy needs newcomers, we see the pressures facing our country, and we must adapt our policies accordingly,” Miller said in a media release at the time.
In the same release, Miller presented a plan that will “pause population growth in the short term to achieve well-managed, sustainable growth in the long term”.
In his introduction to the ACS study, president and CEO Jedwab cited Statistics Canada estimates indicating that Canada's population growth slowed in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Based on the estimates, population growth in the fourth quarter of 2024 reached a quarterly growth rate of 0.2 percent, which was the slowest since the fourth quarter of 2020.
“Expect yet further declines over the course of the year 2025 in light of the projected declines in numbers of newcomers and continued low birth rates,” Jedwab wrote.
Immigration was one of the seven priorities identified by Prime Minister Carney in his Mandate Letter dated May 21, 2025.
The sixth priority read, “Attracting the best talent in the world to help build our economy, while returning our overall immigration rates to sustainable levels.”
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