Canada’s drive to reverse its aging population through immigration is relying dramatically on citizens of the Philippines.

Numbers of new permanent residents since 2014 have been dominated by the Asian nation, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) figures show.

Even despite the record number of Syrian refugees welcomed at the start of 2016, citizens from the Philippines rank first.

More than 25,000 new permanent residents from the Philippines were welcomed in the first six months of the year, putting Canada on track to match the nearly 51,000 admitted in 2015. The 40,000 new permanent residents welcomed in 2014 was still enough to beat all other countries.

India is the only other country to get near the Philippines as a source country for Canada. But this is put into perspective when you consider India has a population of 1.25 billion, compared to the Philippines’ population of 98 million.

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New Permanent Residents By Citizenship

2014			2015			2016 (first half)
Philippines	40,032		Philippines	50,846		Philippines	25,064
India	38,330		India	39,530		India	24,602
China	24,626		China	19,533		Syria	23,430
Iran	16,772		Iran	11,669		China	14,499
Pakistan	9,113		Pakistan	11,330		Pakistan	6,488

Source: IRCC

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Citizens of the Philippines not only dominate the numbers of new permanent residents to Canada. They rank consistently high as a source country for temporary skilled workers.

Although Mexicans have dominated as holders of Canadian temporary resident permits in the last two years, citizens of the Philippines are second on the list for the first half of 2016 and the whole of 2015, while they came out on top in 2014.

It should be noted that numbers of Filipinos have dropped significantly in that time, from more than 23,000 in 2014 to less than 12,000 a year later.

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New Temporary Residents By Citizenship

2014			2015			2016 (first half)
Philippines	23,422		Mexico	22,966		Mexico	21,175
Mexico	22,524		Philippines	11,699		Philippines	7,074
Jamaica	9,316		Jamaica	8,561		Jamaica	6,876
USA	6,862		Guatemala	5,673		Guatemala	4,286
Guatemala	5,410		USA	5,479		USA	2,110

Source: IRCC

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Immigration Minister John McCallum described the Philippines as ‘Canada’s biggest customer’ on a recent visit, during which he outlined how the caregiver stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) will be tweaked to better-protect workers from abuse.

Instead of being directly employed by families, the federal government proposes to create regulated companies responsible for recruiting caregivers and placing them with families.

The move was one of 21 changes recommended following a parliamentary committee study of the TFWP. The government is yet to indicate how many of the recommendations will be adopted.

Julian Payne, President of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, says hard-working, tax-paying Filipinos are exactly what Canada needs in terms of new temporary and permanent residents. This trend will likely continue in 2017.

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