So, like, between 2021 and 2024, both the U.S. and Canada went totally wild with immigration numbers — but guess who went harder? Yup, Canada.
According to The New York Times, about 8 million people immigrated to the U.S. during President Joe Biden’s term — the biggest surge since Ellis Island days. Even the Congressional Budget Office was like, “Actually, it’s closer to 8.8 million in just three years.” That’s double or even triple what used to be normal. No wonder it turned into a political meltdown during the 2024 election.
But while America was arguing about border walls, Canada was throwing the doors wide open — and doing it three times faster, relatively speaking. For decades, Canadians were super chill about immigration. Everyone from liberals to conservatives basically agreed it was a good thing. Polls showed nearly 70% of Canadians thought immigrants made the country stronger, the most positive number in the entire developed world. Basically, immigration was as boring as plumbing — until it totally wasn’t.
When Justin Trudeau took over in 2015, Canada’s economy was kinda meh — slow growth, falling oil prices, productivity gap with the U.S. So, his government (plus a bunch of business and consulting bigwigs like McKinsey’s Dominic Barton) decided that more people = more prosperity. Groups like the Century Initiative literally wanted 100 million Canadians by 2100.
The problem? Canada was already an immigration powerhouse. Its population had been growing faster than the U.S. for over a century. But after 2020, Trudeau’s team hit the gas. COVID temporarily slowed things down, but when the borders reopened, it was like, “Let’s gooo!”
By 2023, Canada added 1.3 million immigrants in a single year — five times more than in 2015, and way more than even their own targets. And here’s the twist: most of them weren’t permanent residents. They were temporary students and workers, flooding in through what experts called the “side door.”
The international student program became a total cash grab. By 2023, Canada had over a million foreign students — the same as the entire U.S. Conestoga College in Ontario ballooned from a few thousand international permits to nearly 32,000, while legit universities got way fewer. Students were basically told, “Pay tuition, work full-time, and maybe you’ll score permanent residency!” Spoiler: most didn’t.
By 2024, Canada had three to four million temporary residents, many in low-wage jobs. Economist Benjamin Tal warned that the real number might be even higher because tons of people just… didn’t leave when their visas expired. Meanwhile, housing costs soared, doctors were impossible to find, and GDP per person fell — even though the economy overall looked bigger. Like, the pie was bigger, but there were way more forks digging in.
So yeah, the “more people = more prosperity” math didn’t quite math. Between 2015 and 2024, Canada’s per-person GDP rose only 2% total (compared to nearly 20% in the U.S.). Yikes. By late 2024, Canadians were finally like, “Wait, what are we even doing?” Polls showed that immigration went from being a non-issue to a top concern for one in five voters — a total flip from just two years before.
Turns out, cranking up immigration without limits didn’t make everyone richer — it just made everything way more complicated. Trudeau’s experiment showed that immigration works best when it’s balanced and selective, not when it’s a free-for-all. Because honestly, Canada learned the hard way: you can’t just add people, stir, and call it prosperity.
XOXO,
Valley Girl News
Where population booms meet political busts
