By Millar Hill January 4, 2023 at 1:27 pm
Chatham-Kent is poised to welcome more newcomers as record numbers of immigrants choose to make Canada their home.
Canada welcomed a record number of new immigrants last year as the federal government made up for a lack of arrivals in the first year of the pandemic.
The country added over 430,000 new permanent residents in 2022, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). This number surpassed the previous record from the previous year.
Although data is not yet available on how many of these immigrants settled in Chatham-Kent in 2022, the latest census figures show that immigration continues to be a key driver of the municipality’s population growth.
“The welcoming community status that Chatham-Kent received is based on the community’s ability to welcome and settle immigrant newcomers,” said Audrey Ansel, Chatham-Kent’s director of community attraction and promotion.
The 2021 Canada Census shows that Chatham-Kent’s immigrant population grew by over 7.2% from 2016 to 2021. The municipality’s total population grew by about 2.3% during the same period.
“The immigrant population is outpacing the broader population growth,” Ansel said. “It speaks to the latest numbers and data across Canada. Immigration into the country drives population growth and drives labor force growth.”
The number of newcomers to Chatham-Kent during the census period was 845, a significant jump from the previous 585 newcomers in the previous 2011-2016 census.
“Overall, the absolute numbers are still relatively small, but the percentage growth is quite significant,” Ansell said. “This is very strong growth in terms of immigrants arriving in the community during this census period.”
In 2016, IRCC recognized Chatham-Kent as Canada’s first welcoming community. If a newcomer is looking for a place to call home in Canada, this information about Chatham-Kent will also come up.
More recently, Chatham-Kent was also selected as one of three communities in Ontario to launch a Provincial Nominee Immigrant Program.
“The mission of this initiative was to encourage immigrants to Canada with permanent, full-time employment to move to communities outside of larger cities,” said Ansel. “These numbers also show in our latest census data that people have come into our community linked to offers of permanent full-time work.”
In 2022, IRCC processed approximately 5.2 million applications for permanent residence, temporary residence, and citizenship. This also exceeded the number of applications processed in 2021.
“These data show that our population is definitely changing,” Ansel said.
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