ARCHIVED – Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration, 2005

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Introduction to the Report

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) came into effect on June 28, 2002, replacing the Immigration Act of 1976. By introducing a wide range of provisions to modernize Canada’s immigration policy, IRPA and its Regulations offer a comprehensive and coherent approach to achieving the maximum social, cultural and economic impact from the immigration program. In addition to new tools to facilitate the entry of admissible persons and to attract workers with flexible skills, IRPA includes new measures to prevent persons who pose potential threats to the safety and security of Canadians from entering the country.

Under section 94 of IRPA, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is required to table in Parliament an annual report on the Department’s immigration activities and initiatives (see Annex A). The report focuses primarily on the selection of foreign nationals as permanent and temporary residents during the preceding calendar year (2004 in this case). The legislation also requires an overview of federal-provincial/territorial agreements and joint initiatives, as well as a gender-based analysis of the impact of IRPA. The annual report also serves as the vehicle for announcing Canada’s immigration plan for the upcoming calendar year (2006 in this case).

This year’s report builds on previous reports and provides expanded information on key activities relating to immigration. It is divided into seven sections based on CIC’s new strategic outcomes.

Section 1 outlines the vision for building Canada’s future and the role of immigration and the immigration program in nation building and ensuring Canada’s future economic prosperity. This section also provides a summary of Canada’s immigration levels plan, and indicates a target range for the number of permanent residents that CIC expects to welcome in each immigration class in 2006.

Section 2 focuses on CIC’s partnerships with the provinces and territories. It outlines the bilateral agreements currently in force between the federal and provincial/territorial governments and describes major joint initiatives.

Section 3 summarizes activities and initiatives relating to the selection of permanent and temporary residents. It provides information on the economic and family classes of immigration; key statistics relating to the new permanent residents admitted in 2004 (by selection category, source country, province of destination and linguistic profile); the status of landings for the first half of 2005 (from January to June); and the projected number of permanent residents for the entire year. This section also explains the basic categories of temporary residents (foreign workers, international students and visitors), describes temporary resident permits and provides a statistical overview of the temporary residents admitted in 2004.

Section 4 focuses on Canada’s humanitarian tradition and the protection of refugees and others in need of protection resettlement, including a statistical overview of the refugees and protected persons admitted in 2004.

Section 5 addresses the settlement and resettlement programs, special initiatives to facilitate the economic and social integration of newcomers, and activities relating to the promotion of Canadian citizenship.

Section 6 describes CIC’s policy framework for gender-based analysis (GBA), reports on key GBA activities, and provides a statistical overview of gender differences relating to key immigration statistics.

Section 7 offers concluding remarks.

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