Chatham-Kent is prepared to welcome more newcomers as a record number of immigrants choose to make Canada their home.
Canada took in a record number of new immigrants last year, as a result of the federal government making up for a lack of arrivals during the first year of the pandemic.
The country added over 430,000 new permanent residents in 2022, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). That number topped the previous record set the year before.
While there are no figures available yet for how many of those immigrants settled in Chatham-Kent in 2022, the most recent census data shows immigration continues to be a key driver in the municipality's population growth.
"The welcoming community status that Chatham-Kent has received is based on the community's ability to welcome and settle immigrant newcomers," said Audrey Ansell, Chatham-Kent's director of community attraction and promotion.
The 2021 Canadian census shows the immigrant population in Chatham-Kent grew by over 7.2 per cent from 2016 to 2021. The municipality's overall population grew about 2.3 per cent in that same period.
"The immigration population is outpacing the broader population growth," said Ansell. "That speaks to the recent Canada-wide numbers and data. Immigration to the country is driving population growth and driving labour growth."
The number of newcomers to Chatham-Kent over the census period was 845, a significant jump from the previous 585 newcomers in the previous census from 2011-2016.
"Overall, absolute numbers are still relatively small but growth percentage-wise is quite significant," said Ansell. "It's very strong growth in terms of immigrants arriving to the community over that census period."
In 2016, the IRCC recognized Chatham-Kent as Canada's first welcoming community. If a newcomer was looking for a place to call home in Canada, that information about Chatham-Kent would also come up.
Most recently, Chatham-Kent was also selected as one of three communities in Ontario to launch a provincial immigrant nominee program.
"The mission of that initiative was to encourage immigrants to Canada with full-time permanent employment to move to communities outside of larger cities," said Ansell. "Those numbers are also showing up in our latest census data, that people have come to our community connected with full-time permanent job offers."
In 2022, IRCC processed approximately 5.2 million applications for permanent residence, temporary residence, and citizenship. That also topped the number of applications processed in 2021.
"That data suggests that our population is definitely changing," said Ansell.
