Recent Environics survey results have stood out because of a negative shift in attitudes toward immigration, after more than two decades of mostly pro-immigration sentiment.Abhijit Alka Anil/The Globe and Mail
Canadians’ attitudes toward immigration are the most negative they have been since the early 1990s, driven particularly by young people linking high migrant inflows to the affordability crisis and a housing shortage.
A new report from the Institute for Research on Public Policy, written by University of Toronto researchers, shows just how suddenly and dramatically sentiment toward immigration has changed in recent years. The report is based on 26 surveys produced by the Environics Institute between 1981 and 2024.
Environics surveys the Canadian public annually on a variety of topics. Recent survey results have particularly stood out because of a pointed negative shift in attitudes toward immigration, after more than two decades of mostly pro-immigration sentiment across the country. This prompted the researchers to conduct a historical analysis of immigration attitudes in Canada to gauge when, previously, Canadians held such negative views.
“Such drastic changes in public opinion are not common,” wrote Randy Besco and Natasha Goel, political science academics at the University of Toronto. “Public attitudes are usually subject to short-term shifts, only when there are major events or sustained media coverage, and such swings usually reverse quickly,” they said.
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The set of annual surveys from Environics posed one statement to respondents: “Overall there is too much immigration into Canada” and respondents were given response options ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”
The data collected show that there was a spike in opposition to immigration in the mid-1990s, followed by a 20-year period of improvement, where most people were supportive of immigration to Canada. But starting in 2023, there was a substantial increase in the percentage of respondents who agreed that there was too much immigration into Canada. In 2024, for example, 58 per cent of respondents agreed that there was too much immigration, compared with just over 35 per cent in 2015.
“The critical thing to note is that attitudes about immigration in Canada are pretty stable. We’ve really only had two spikes since the late 1970s, and this recent one is dramatic,” Prof. Besco said in an interview.
The study also showed a change in the age group of Canadians who think there is too much immigration. Up until 2023, those aged 45 and over were more likely to view immigration negatively. But in 2023 and 2024, those aged between 18 to 29 showed the most opposition to immigration, with roughly a third of people surveyed in this demographic strongly agreeing that there was too much.
“We think that young people, who are disproportionately affected by the cost of housing, are reacting the most strongly to immigration,” Prof. Besco said.
The number of permanent resident admissions reached a record high of almost 500,000 in 2022, followed by 470,000 in 2023.
Meanwhile, the growth in the temporary resident population – mainly international students and temporary foreign workers – also soared between 2022 and 2024, reaching a peak of 7.6 per cent of the total population in September, 2024. This was a result of deliberate policy changes during the pandemic that incentivized the growth of foreign workers and students.
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The growth in immigrant numbers took place amid an affordability crisis in Canada that spawned from inflationary pressure as the country emerged from the pandemic. Major institutions such as the Bank of Canada, as well as federal and provincial opposition parties, linked immigration-driven population growth to rising rental prices and a housing shortage. Prof. Besco believes that these factors that shaped public discourse can explain why a normally pro-immigrant country quickly soured on immigration.
Several recent surveys have found that Canadians tend to think immigration levels are too high. A survey from Nanos Research, published in mid-September, found that nearly three-quarters of respondents supported reducing the number of new immigrants. Abacus Data, another polling company, found that a third of voters surveyed in September said immigration was one of their top three concerns.
There was also a substantial change in the gender of people who viewed immigration negatively, the study showed. In previous decades, women had been slightly more likely than men to think there was too much immigration, but that gender gap reversed in 2022.
Higher-income people, who tended to be more supportive of immigration, also became less enthusiastic about immigration levels in 2023 and 2024, narrowing the gap with lower-income Canadians.