Australia's migration debate is at fever pitch, with both the government and One Nation announcing policies on the subject in the past week.

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In the case of the latter, commentators have drawn parallels between Pauline Hanson's approach and immigration policy in Canada, albeit with big caveats.

The Canadian example has been mentioned by politicians numerous times as a case study for what Australia should be doing. Those politicians, however, would have been disappointed by the government's migration policy, as there was little Canadian influence to be seen.

What exactly is Canada doing to manage migration, and what lessons does its experiment have for Australia?

Looking in the wrong places

Much of Australia's migration policy discussion focuses on the wrong number: net overseas migration, or NOM.

It's a useful statistic. It measures migrant arrivals minus departures, giving us a rough measure of how migration changes the population.

But that does not make NOM a good policy target. It combines the movements of Australians, New Zealanders, permanent migrants and many different kinds of temporary migrants. And because it is the difference between two large flows (arrivals and departures), it can change dramatically when their timing gets out of sync.

That is exactly what happened after COVID. Border closures suppressed both arrivals and departures. When borders reopened, arrivals recovered first. Departures took longer. The result was an extraordinary post-pandemic "migration splash" across the rich world: NOM surged and then fell as arrivals and departures gradually realigned.

Trying to manage the migrant population by targeting volatile NOM flows is a bit like trying to fill a bath to the right level by precisely controlling the tap, without looking at how much water is in the tub.

So what's Canada doing?

Canada has begun to reverse that logic.

Its temporary resident population grew extraordinarily quickly after COVID, reaching about 7.6 per cent of the total population at its 2024 peak.

The government responded by making the size of the temporary population itself a policy target. It now wants non-permanent residents to make up less than 5 per cent of the population by the end of 2027.

That has required substantial changes. Canada has planned for 385,000 new temporary arrivals in 2026 and 370,000 in each of the following two years. International student flows have fallen particularly sharply. Permanent migration, meanwhile, is being held at 380,000 a........

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