Canada's Immigration Minister Says Immigration Levels Will Be Going Up, per CTV
Two years of restraint are ending
Canada's immigration minister says immigration levels will be going up, per CTV News, signalling an end to the two-year slowdown in population growth that followed the Trudeau-era intake surge. Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab made the comments on October 16, and Prime Minister Mark Carney had already said in September that his government would pursue a controlled increase in population.
Canada's immigration minister says immigration levels will be going up, per CTV News, signalling an end to the two-year slowdown in population growth that followed the Trudeau-era intake surge.
No new target numbers have been announced yet. The official figures will land in the 2027 to 2029 Immigration Levels Plan, which Ottawa is required to table by a statutory November 1 deadline. The current 2026 to 2028 plan holds permanent resident targets at 380,000 a year, a sharp step down from the half-million-a-year pace at the peak, and the same plan aims to shrink non-permanent residents to 5% of the population by the end of 2027, a target the new plan will have to keep, extend or abandon.
The shift is toward high earners
The levels signal came the same day Diab announced a rebuild of the Express Entry system that takes effect November 3. Candidates with Canadian work experience or job offers in high-wage occupations, defined as jobs paying at least 1.3 times the national median wage of about $57,000 a year, will get substantial additional ranking points, and Ottawa is dropping the Labour Market Impact Assessment requirement for those qualifying high-wage job offers. The eligible occupations run through health care, skilled trades, engineering, technology and education.
The framing from Ottawa is that any increase is conditional on investment in housing, health care and infrastructure keeping pace, the pressure points that turned public opinion against the earlier intake surge. For applicants, higher targets in the federal high skilled and provincial nominee streams would likely mean more invitations and lower cutoff scores in Express Entry draws.
Do you want to see how to make more plays? Do you want to find gains yourself? Unusual Whales helps you find market opportunities through our market tide, historical options flow, GEX, and much, much more. Create a free account here to start conquering the market with Unusual Whales
Options market and stocks to watch
There is no direct US-listed Canada immigration trade, but renewed population growth is a demand story for Canadian housing, rentals and consumer credit, and the cleanest US-listed expressions are EWC, the iShares MSCI Canada ETF, and the big Canadian banks that trade in New York, RY and TD, whose mortgage and consumer loan books are the first place faster population growth shows up.
The November 1 levels plan is the catalyst to watch: the headline permanent resident target for 2027, and whether the 5% non-permanent resident cap survives, will set the tone. Follow Canadian data on the Unusual Whales news feed.
Want more market intelligence? Create your free Unusual Whales account for options flow, market tide, GEX, and the full toolkit.