OTTAWA — As U.S. President Donald Trump says Canada is “destroying itself” with its immigration policies, new data from Statistics Canada show the number of newcomers is going down. “Canada is destroying itself by allowing millions and millions of people into the Country, essentially unchecked and unvetted, and who are causing problems that will soon be too big to handle,” Trump wrote in a social media post Wednesday. “It is a Liberal takeover that will end very badly. Already showing up in their numbers. Big unemployment.” The comment is the latest in a still-escalating trade war, which heated up over the summer and has seen the U.S. president and his administration lob personal attacks at Canadian officials, including the prime minister. According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s population rose slightly by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter, while immigration is down 4.2 per cent year over year, and the number of non-permanent residents is down 0.7 per cent. Statistics Canada data also shows 2026 has seen the lowest population growth in percentage in more than a century, even lower than when COVID-19 pandemic-era border restrictions were in place. “Let’s put some facts on the table,” Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Wednesday morning, when asked by reporters in New York City about Trump’s comments. “Canada has had a revised immigration policy since 2024, and we are certainly ensuring that our immigration levels, including in terms of temporary foreign workers, are reduced in order to stabilize the supports that are available to all Canadians,” Anand added. The Canadian government under former prime minister Justin Trudeau pledged to cut its immigration targets following years of criticism that they were putting too much pressure on the housing market and other sectors. Immigration levels in Canada reached a record high in 2024. According to the federal government, 483,640 immigrants were admitted as permanent residents that year, which was in line with targets set out in the Government of Canada’s Immigration Levels Plan at the time. In 2025, that number dropped to about 393,500 new permanent residents. In Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget in late 2025, the Liberals set new targets, promising to “responsibly manage immigration to alleviate pressures on housing demand.” “The 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan will return immigration to sustainable levels by stabilising new permanent resident admissions at less than one per cent of the Canadian population beyond 2027 and reducing the total number of temporary residents to less than five per cent of the population by the end of 2027, down from a peak of 7.6 per cent in 2024,” the budget stated. Trump and Carney are both in New York City this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly, and the leaders did not meet on the sidelines of the gathering. With files from CTV News’ Abigail Bimman and David Smith
