According to Canada's Immigration Program (October 2004), Canada has the highest per capita immigration rate in the world, although statistics in the CIA World Factbook shows that a number of city states and small island nations, as well as some larger countries in regions with refugee movements, have higher per capita rates.
In 2004, Canada received 235,824 immigrants.
Canada is also unusual among western nations in the widespread popular support for high rates of immigration, and in recent years support for immigration has increased.
All of Canada's major political parties support either sustaining or increasing the current level of immigration.
While its predecessor the Reform Party expressed concern about immigration the current Conservative government has no plans to reduce immigrations levels.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on announcing changes to the immigration act assured Canadians that "on immigration generally I want to be clear that this government favours an aggressive immigration policy. We are bringing in more immigrants than any previous government."
The previous Liberal government was even more strongly in favour of a high immigration rate, proposing increasing immigration by some 20,000 people per year. The high immigration policy is most often justified through economic arguments. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin, for instance, argued that immigration rates should be increased to make up for the shortage of skilled workers and to compensate for an aging population
Immigrants to Canada are more skilled than immigrants to the United States. George J. Borjas compared immigrants to Canada and the United States finding those to Canada being better educated and receiving higher wages once settled. He accredits this to Canada's points based immigration system, and argues for the United States to more closely emulate the Canadian method.
38% of male workers with a post-graduate degree are immigrants to the country. 23% of Canadians are foreign born, but 49% of doctorate holders and 40% of those with a masters degree were born outside Canada.
One of the most important studies of the economic impact of immigration to Canada is Morton Beiser's Strangers at the Gate.
This study looked at the arrival of the Vietnamese boat people who began to arrive in Canada in 1979 to much controversy.
The total number of refugees was 60,000, the largest single group of refugees to ever arrive in Canada.
Beiser first studied the boat people upon their arrival, finding that few spoke English or French, that most were farmers with few skills useful in Canada, and that they had arrived with no assets with which to establish themselves.
Beiser then followed the progress of the boat people to see what effect they would have on Canada. Within ten years of arrival the boat people had an unemployment rate 2.3% lower than the Canadian average.
20% had started a business, 99% had successfully applied to become Canadian citizens, and they were considerably less likely than average to receive some form of social assistance.