Question
I have a researcher who is looking for immigration data at the port of entry level, specifically for the Mirabel Airport in Montreal, from 1975 to 2004.
She would like to obtain the following info:
· Total number of landed immigrants who went through the airport. These numbers are available for the 1966 to 1996 period from the Immigration Statistics Archive (http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/202/301/immigration_statistics-ef/index.html) but we are missing the 1997 to 2004 period. Is that available anywhere? And it would be nice to obtain a table summarizing this information for the whole period(1975 to 2004) as the Immigration Statistics Archive is composed of individual pdf documents for each year.
· Country of origin of immigrants going through Mirabel, per year (1975 to 2004)
· Type of immigrant category (family, economic, refugee, other), also per year (1975 to 2004)
Finally, she would also like to know the percentage of successful immigration requests for immigrants landed through that same airport. I’m not sure if that question makes sense as my impression is that one has to apply for immigration from outside of Canada and cannot apply upon arrival at the airport, but I would like to confirm that.
Answer
This data should be available from CIC’s Immigrant Landing File. It contains a variable for point of entry, for country of origin and immigration category.
SASD does have access to a data source called the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB), which is a record linkage between the Immigrant Landing File and T1FF tax data. However, it has a linkage rate of approximately 87% and its intended use is for analysing the economic performance of immigrants, via the tax data. If none of the tax file data is of interest, the IMDB should not be used. Furthermore, this data source only includes immigrants who obtained their landed immigrant status since 1980 and who have filed at least one tax return since 1982. Due to these limitations, our data source would not be appropriate.
A landed immigrant could have been living in Canada for multiple years before obtaining their landed immigrant status. So it may be possible to obtain data relating to successful applications for immigrants who entered Canada via Mirabel Airport. Unfortunately, I cannot say this with certainty and you will have to contact CIC for a more thorough answer.
Finally, to contact CIC about a potential data request, you can try this email:NHQ-RE-STATS@cic.gc.ca
