New Permanent Residents
Immigration level increases for the first half of 2004, including a special look at recent trends from the Philippines.
During the second quarter, 67,193 people became permanent residents of Canada. This brought the total number of new immigrants to 122,112 in the first half of 2004 and represented a 17% increase over the same period of 2003. Among immigrant classes, refugees increased the most—almost doubling from 5,430 in last year’s second quarter to 10,186 landings in the same period of this year. While numbers in all categories of refugees increased, refugees landed in Canada (successful refugee claimants) represented the largest increase, rising to 5,519 new immigrants in the second quarter compared to 2,467 in the second quarter of 2003.
Principal applicants in the economic class increased by 10% for the quarter, to 15,476 new permanent residents. Including dependants, the economic class constituted 54% of immigrants for the quarter, or a total of 36,270. While base numbers remain relatively small, landings of live-in caregivers continued to register significant increases during the quarter, as did provincial nominees. The number of skilled workers also increased.
Family class immigration declined by 2% in this quarter compared to the same quarter of 2003. Some 18,923 family class immigrants landed in the second quarter, 67% of whom were spouses and partners. The number of parents and grandparents and other family class immigrants (mainly dependent children) declined.
Source Countries
The top five source countries of immigrants remained unchanged from the first quarter of this year. In descending order, they were China, India, the Philippines, Pakistan and the United States. New permanent residents from China (10,144) and India (7,230) recorded modest declines for the quarter, while the other three countries sent significantly more immigrants. Immigration from the Philippines increased by 25% (4,153), Pakistan by 37% (4,054) and the United States by 49% (2,067). Among U.S. immigrants, the largest increases were for skilled workers and their dependants, and spouses in the family class.
The importance of the Philippines is reflected not just in the current quarter’s figures, but over the most recent four quarters. Immigration from the Philippines rose steadily between July 2003 and June 2004, to almost 14,000. This was a 56% increase over the same period of the year before. Fifty-nine percent of these new immigrants were female, a fact that is largely attributable to immigrants who qualify for permanent residence as part of the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP). The LCP primarily attracts women, and the Philippines is the most prominent country of origin for LCP participants. Whereas principal applicant live-in caregivers accounted for just 2% of all immigrants to Canada in the first half of the year, they represented 18% of immigrants from the Philippines.
In the last four quarters, just over half of Filipino immigrants in the economic class were live-in caregivers and their dependants. Other categories of Filipino immigrants well represented in the economic class included skilled workers and dependants (37%) and provincial nominees and dependants (7%). Overall, the economic class accounted for 64% of Filipino immigrants and the family class for most of the balance, with 35%.
Immigrants from the Philippines were also more likely to settle outside Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver in the last year. Thirty-eight percent of Filipino immigrants (compared to 28% of all other immigrants) were destined to areas outside the three major cities in the last four quarters compared to 30% in the preceding year. Recent Filipino settlement patterns support immigration to smaller census metropolitan areas such as Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton.
Destination
All provinces and territories took in more immigrants than in the second quarter of 2003. Atlantic Canada saw the highest percentage increase, exceeding 100% for Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick also exceeded the national average of 14%, with quarterly increases of 44% and 43%, respectively. All the Atlantic provinces take in a small number of immigrants compared to most other provinces, so quarterly percentage increases should be interpreted with caution. Ontario’s increase matched the national increase with 36,450 new immigrants compared to last year’s second quarter number of 31,858, increasing by almost 4,600 the number of immigrants coming to the province.
