Canada has always been one of those very nations that consider all its immigrants an asset who have led to the development of its economy. And so, the nation has always welcomed foreign skilled migrants with open arms.

The Citizenship and Immigration Canada has issued a preliminary data as per which the nation continued to see the inflow of immigrants in large number last year. The rate was constantly high which clearly projected that it is one of the most preferred nations for immigration.

2009 saw 500,000 immigrants which included both permanent and temporary residents in Canada. Of these, 252,124 became permanent residents. This number was within the range as planned by the Government of Canada which was between 240,000 to 265,000 for the permanent residents. Although this range is more by another 30,000 from the usual average of people who are accepted as permanent residents when compared to the 1990s.

According to Jason Kenney, the Minister of Canada for Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, thorough efforts were made to ensure a complete recovery of the economy in 2009 and immigration as in aid would add to this momentum.

As of now, the Canadian Government is catering to those immigrants who could fill up its current requirement where the nation is short of skills. This caters to both the medium as well as the long term economic needs. This would also aid to the increased number of aging population as well as the low level of birthrate. Thus, the number of skilled labor would be kept constant.

Additionally, the nation had also welcomed another 178,640 migrants as temporary foreign workers and another 85,131 foreign students in 2009. So, there would be many immigrants who would actually apply for living permanently in Canada.