CALGARY — For decades, Canada's embrace of immigration was one of the few things that united the country across political lines. Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP all broadly supported high immigration levels. Business wanted the workers. Communities wanted the growth. And the Canadian identity — multicultural, welcoming, open — was built on the premise that immigration was an unalloyed good.
In 2024, that consensus shattered.
For the first time in modern polling history, a majority of Canadians — 58%, according to an Environics survey — said immigration levels were too high. In Alberta, the number was even higher: 64%. The shift was dramatic, rapid, and crossed demographic lines. It wasn't just conservative rural voters. It was urban progressives, immigrants themselves, and young people of all backgrounds who were saying: something has to change.
The Numbers That Changed the Conversation
Canada's population grew by approximately 1.27 million people in 2023 — the fastest growth rate since 1957. The vast majority of that growth came from immigration, including permanent residents, temporary foreign workers, and international students. By early 2024, Canada's population had reached 41 million — up from 38.2 million just three years earlier.
In Calgary, the impact was visceral:
- Population growth of approximately 5.9% between 2021 and 2024 — the fastest among major Canadian cities
- Rental vacancy rates below 2% — meaning virtually no available rental housing
- Homeless shelter usage at record levels, with newcomers making up an increasing share of shelter residents
- Healthcare wait times increasing, with family doctor shortages affecting both established residents and newcomers
- School portables deployed across the city as enrollment surged beyond building capacity
The Housing Collision
The most tangible flashpoint was housing. Canada was already in a housing crisis before immigration accelerated — decades of underbuilding, restrictive zoning, and population growth in a handful of major cities had created a structural deficit. Adding 1.2 million people per year to that deficit was, critics argued, like pouring gasoline on a fire.
"We are adding the equivalent of a mid-sized city to Canada every year, and we are not building housing at anywhere near the rate required to accommodate them," said Mike Moffatt, a housing policy researcher at the University of Ottawa. "This isn't anti-immigrant. It's math. If population grows faster than housing supply, prices go up and availability goes down. For everyone."
In Calgary, the collision between immigration and housing was especially sharp because the city had been a refuge for people fleeing unaffordable Toronto and Vancouver. Those domestic migrants arrived to find that Calgary's housing market was tightening rapidly — in part because it was attracting international newcomers for the same reasons.
The Temporary Foreign Worker Question
Much of the immigration debate centred not on permanent residents — who go through a selective, points-based system — but on temporary pathways that had expanded dramatically.
International student enrollment in Canada nearly quadrupled between 2015 and 2023, reaching approximately 1 million. Many of these students were drawn less by educational quality than by the work permits and immigration pathways that accompanied study visas. Reports of diploma mills — low-quality institutions that charged high tuition while providing minimal education — generated significant public backlash.
The Temporary Foreign Worker Program also faced scrutiny, with reports of workers being exploited by employers, driving down wages in sectors like food service and retail, and living in overcrowded housing because they couldn't afford the local rental market.
"The system was being gamed from multiple angles," said Andrew Griffith, a former director general of citizenship and multiculturalism at Immigration Canada. "Students who weren't really students. Employers who weren't really offering jobs Canadians wouldn't do. And a government that was chasing population growth targets without building the infrastructure to support it."
The Political Response
The shift in public opinion was too significant for politicians to ignore. In late 2024, the Trudeau government announced dramatic cuts to immigration targets — reducing the 2025 permanent resident target from 500,000 to 395,000, capping international student permits, and tightening temporary foreign worker pathways.
For immigration advocates, the cuts were alarming. "Canada's economy needs immigration. Our aging population needs immigration. Our fiscal sustainability depends on immigration," said the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association. "Cutting numbers in response to a housing crisis that was caused by decades of underbuilding, not by immigration, is scapegoating newcomers for policy failures that long preceded them."
For critics, the cuts didn't go far enough. "Reducing from 500,000 to 395,000 when the country can't house the people already here is not a solution," said Pierre Poilievre, leader of the federal Conservative Party. "It's a half-measure designed to look like action without fundamentally changing a system that is failing Canadians."
Calgary's Complex Reality
In Calgary, the immigration debate plays out with particular complexity. The city's economy genuinely needs workers — construction, healthcare, and technology sectors all face significant labour shortages. Immigrant entrepreneurs have started thousands of businesses. Cultural diversity has enriched the city immeasurably.
But the strain is also real. Emergency rooms are overcrowded. Schools are over capacity. Rents have surged. And long-time residents — including immigrants who arrived a decade ago — express frustration at a system that seems to be growing the population without growing the capacity to support it.
"I came to Canada 12 years ago from the Philippines," said Grace Santos, a Calgary nurse. "I support immigration — I am immigration. But when I see 15 people living in a three-bedroom house, when my patients can't find a family doctor, when my daughter's school has 35 kids in a class — I don't think the system is working. Not for newcomers. Not for anyone."
The Conversation Canada Needs to Have
The immigration debate in 2024 revealed a country that had been avoiding honest conversation for too long. Canada can be both welcoming and realistic. It can value immigration while acknowledging that the pace must match the country's capacity to absorb newcomers — in housing, healthcare, education, and social services.
That conversation requires nuance in a media environment that rewards extremes. It requires politicians willing to discuss trade-offs rather than slogans. And it requires Canadians to resist the temptation to blame newcomers for systemic failures that are the responsibility of governments at every level.
The immigrants are not the problem. The lack of planning is.
WestNet News covers immigration and demographic change in Calgary and Alberta. Contact us at news@wnactionnews.com.
