Canadian authorities have announced plans to cut down the influx of Nigerians and other immigrants by 21 per cent in 2025 to curb the population explosion.

“The Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan: a plan that will pause population growth in the short term to achieve well-managed, sustainable growth in the long term,” a statement on the official website of the Canadain government on Thursday, read.

This latest move will see a huge reduction in permanent residents from 500,000 to 395,000 beginning next year.

“We are reducing our permanent resident targets,” it said. “Compared to last year’s plan, we are reducing from 500,000 permanent residents to 395,000 in 2025, reducing from 500,000 permanent residents to 380,000
in 2026, setting a target of 365,000 permanent residents in 2027,” the statement added.

The plan, aimed at population decline, comes as a response to evolving issues, including pressure on housing, infrastructure and services due to rising population.

“In response to the evolving needs of our country, this transitional levels plan alleviates pressures on housing, infrastructure and social services so that over the long term, we can grow our economic and social prosperity through immigration.

“The 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan is expected to result in a marginal population decline of 0.2 per cent in both 2025 and 2026 before returning to a population growth of 0.8 per cent in 2027. These forecasts account for today’s announcement of reduced targets across multiple immigration streams over the next two years, as well as expected temporary resident outflows resulting from the five per cent target, natural population loss and other factors,” the Canadian government said.

This comes amid a mass exodus of Nigerians abroad searching for greener pastures, with many eying Canada as their destination.