Backgrounder - 2004 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration

The 2004 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration provides information on immigration activities for the calendar year 2003 and includes the government’s immigration plan for 2005. The report is a requirement of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which came into effect on June 28, 2002. Citizenship and Immigration Canada must table the report on or before November 1 of each year.

Highlights of the Report

This year’s report provides information on the following immigration activities.

• The 221,352 immigrants who became permanent residents in 2003. This includes breakdowns by immigrant class, gender and province of destination, and the top 10 source countries of origin.
• The linguistic profiles of the permanent residents welcomed to Canada in 2003. The report indicates that 56% (123,018) stated they spoke English and/or French, while the remaining 44% (98,334) stated they spoke neither language on arrival.
• The 39,551 permanent residents admitted to Canada under the Canada-Quebec Accord in 2003. The Quebec plan calls for 44,400 permanent residents for 2005. More detailed information by class is also provided.
• The 5,265 individuals granted permanent resident status on humanitarian or compassionate grounds in 2003.
• The 12,069 temporary resident permits issued to persons seeking to enter Canada and found to be inadmissible.
• Key information on the temporary residents of 2003 (foreign workers, students and visitors) has also been included to provide a more complete picture of the government’s immigration activities. In 2003, there were 244,922 entries as temporary residents and refugee claimants. Among these, 34% were foreign workers, 25% were foreign students, 12% were humanitarian cases and the remaining 29% were from other categories (primarily individuals who had only visitor records).
• A status report on the number of permanent residents admitted in 2004 (from January to August), by immigrant class. There were 165,691 new permanent residents admitted in that time period, representing 75% of the annual target for 2004.
• Plan for 2005: to land 220,000 to 245,000 new permanent residents. This number is further broken down into the number of people the government plans to accept in Canada as protected persons or under the economic or family class.
• A gender-based analysis section. A gender-based analysis is an analytical framework that assesses the different impacts of proposed or existing policies, programs, legislation and regulations on women and men and on different groups of men and women. It compares how and why men and women might be affected differently by public policy.
• The minister of Citizenship and Immigration has the authority to sign agreements with the provinces and territories that will facilitate the coordination and implementation of immigration policies and programs. In recent years, bilateral agreements have been signed with nine provinces and one territory. The report includes a complete list of federal-provincial-territorial agreements currently in effect.

For more information, including historical landing patterns, see the publication entitled Facts and Figures on Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s website at www.cic.gc.ca.