Immigration Announcement
An Overview of Canadian Budget 2023 and Its Impact on Immigration
Recently, Canada has published its 2023 budget. Every year, Canada publishes a budget that serves as a guide for the coming fiscal year’s spending. It has a significant impact on both natives of Canada and recent immigrants in all facets of life. The budget outlines Canada’s spending goals and reveals Canada’s expenditure plans. Also, it displays Canada’s budgetary and economic forecast. These two elements have a significant role in Canada’s immigration policy.
What Does Canadian Budget 2023 Say?
- In order to support Canada’s Immigration Levels Plan and welcome 500,000 new permanent residents annually by 2025, Budget 2022 invested $1.6 billion over six years and $315 million continuing.
- The budget for this year places a greater emphasis on healthcare spending, sustainable energy programs, and affordability measures for Canadians who are most affected by high inflation.
- The budget includes measures that affect both native-born Canadians and recent immigrants, such as the establishment of a tax-free home savings account and a national dental care program for households earning under $90,000.
- The budget reveals that beginning on April 1, banking institutions will be permitted to establish these accounts, enabling first-time homeowners to save up to $40,000 by making annual contributions of up to $8,000.
- The budget suggests giving Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) $10 million over five years, beginning in 2023–2024, with $14.6 million still owed in amortisation.
- The budget also suggests extending the Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) Program’s eligibility to visitors from low-risk nations.
- The budget also offers more information on how Canada intends to assist Ukrainians who want to immigrate to Canada in order to flee the present conflict. The government will contribute an additional $171.4 million over a three-year period, beginning in 2022–2023 to finance this extension.
- Current CUAET permit holders now have until March 31, 2024, to enter Canada. Participants in the CUAET may prolong or modify their temporary status without charge until the same date if they are already in Canada.
- The budget suggests spending $123.2 million to increase the number of Francophone immigrants to Canada, furthering the government’s stated goal of promoting the French language outside of Quebec.
An Overview of Canada’s Economy Through Bank of Canada
Although the Canadian economy is steady, the Bank of Canada anticipates a slowdown in economic growth in 2023 due to an increase in interest rate and persistently high inflation over the desired level of 2%. The BOC anticipates that by the end of the year, inflation will have decreased for the past seven consecutive months and will reach 2.6%. The BoC also emphasised that hiking interest rates will have a favourable long-term effect alongside the most recent increase in rates. Canada’s economy is one of the G7’s most stable overall. Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister and minister of finance, claims that the number of employed Canadians has increased by 830,000 since the COVID-19 pandemic, or by 126%. According to the minister, Canada will have the G7’s best economic growth in 2023.
