Refugee claimants in Canada grow almost 25% since last year

Asylum claimants near 500,000 - up from 160,000 just 3 years ago

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Despite Ottawa’s claims of controlling population growth, the number of those claiming refugee status in Canada sits at just under half a million - up dramatically from just years ago.

A new report from Statistics Canada released Wednesday shows that Canada’s estimated population grew by over 47,000 between April 1, 2025 and July 1, 2025, to an estimated 41,651,653. However, the estimated level of legal non-permanent residence in the country declined by nearly 15,000.

Conversely, an estimated 38,239,864 people were living in Canada at the beginning of July in 2021. Canada’s population grew by nearly nine per cent in the four years since.

The estimates of non-permanent residents only count those holding work, study permits, or asylum claimants currently living in Canada; they do not count illegal immigrants who have been ordered to leave Canada, but have avoided deportation. The Government has previously admitted to tracking if/when those with expired visas exit Canada, but has refused to release the data.

Canada’s population grew by just 0.1 per cent last quarter — the slowest second-quarter growth since the COVID lockdowns, and the weakest outside that period since records began in 1946

The report said that over the last few years, the explosion of population growth was attributed mainly to non-permanent migration, but population growth in the second quarter of 2025 was primarily fueled by permanent immigration.

At the beginning of the month, True North inquired with the Canada Border Services Agency to find out how many of those who have been ordered to leave remain in the country, but the CBSA refused to disclose how many foreign students and workers left Canada in recent years. True North also asked the IRCC several weeks ago for exit data, but similarly did not receive a response.

According to the Statistics Canada report, however, an estimated 3,024,216 non-permanent residents were in the country as of July 1, 2025. Down by 14,954 from the previous year at the same time. This is still over two times the 1,361,855 non-permanent residents estimated to be in the country on July 1, 2021.

Despite the estimated decrease in non-permanent residents from the previous year, there were 497,443 asylum claimants in Canada on July 1, 2025. Up from the 398,913 asylum claimants in Canada at the end of the same quarter in 2024. This number nearly tripled from the 168,206 asylum claimants in Canada at the same time in July 2021.

Over half of asylum claimants in Canada lived in Ontario by July 1, 2025. Similarly, more than 47 per cent of non-permanent residents living in Canada resided in Ontario by July 1, 2025.

Canada had a total of 2,526,773 work or study permit holders by April 2025. Over 60 per cent of those held only work permits. The number of those holding only work permits increased by about 5.1 per cent since the same period last year.

The number of people holding only study permits saw a dip of over 21 per cent between July 2024 and 2025. The decrease follows the Liberals’ pledge to lower the number of student visa permits granted to international students.