Canada has three immigration realities, not one
Canada operates through three distinct “absorption systems” when it comes to immigration policy: high-pressure urban corridors facing housing and service strains, underused growth regions with capacity and labour demand and low-retention peripheral regions where newcomers often leave after arrival. Qi Wu writes that future immigration plans should align admissions and settlement supports with local housing, infrastructure, labour-market conditions and retention outcomes, rather than relying primarily on a single national immigration target. “The real issue is not whether Canada is too full or too empty. It is that Canada is locally overburdened, regionally underused and peripherally unable to retain enough of the people it attracts. A better immigration policy should begin from this geography,” he writes.
