Recent immigrants think targets are too high, prefer Tories to Liberals: poll

Among people who immigrated to Canada in the last decade, more think Canada’s latest immigration targets will bring in too many people, a newly released Leger poll suggests , while fewer recent newcomers think the plan will bring in the right amount of people or not enough.

The poll also suggests strongest support for federal Conservatives among Canadian immigrants — most notably among Chinese immigrants, whose support for the Tories outpaced the Liberals nearly three-to-one.

In an online panel survey of over 2,000 adults who immigrated to Canada within the past decade, 42 per cent surveyed said the Trudeau Liberals’ new immigration plan will admit too many immigrants into the country.

That’s compared to a little over a third of respondents who said the plan will admit the right number of newcomers to Canada, while only seven per cent said it won’t let in enough.

Seventeen per cent didn’t have an answer.

Leger vice-president Andrew Enns says the numbers offer an intriguing snapshot into the current state of Canadian politics.

“It sends along a pretty interesting insight in terms of how things might be shifting within ethnic communities, and what people tend to assume and admittedly what we saw over the past couple of elections,” he said.

“The Liberals typically do quite well with the newcomer vote.”