The Canadian government has confirmed that it welcomed the highest number of migrants in history to its shores in 2007.

The surge was largely due to a 12 per cent rise in the number of temporary foreign workers entering the country in order to combat Canada’s severe lack of skilled workers in a number of different sectors and industries such as energy and mining, which are currently experiencing an economic boom.

Last year, a total of 429,649 new migrants with Canadian skilled visas were welcomed to the country, roughly 60,000 more than were admitted in 2003.

Doug Kellam, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada explained the recent increase in Canadian immigration, stating:

“You’ve got a booming economy out west and employers are stating they have a need for employees that is not being able to be met by Canadians, so there are labor shortages that are emerging.”

He added that the state of Ottawa has been working alongside employers in an attempt to expedite the Canadian migration processing time, including skilled migration, business migration, family sponsorship and the provincial nominee program.

Over the past five years, Canada's population grew by 1.6 million to 31,612,897, with 1.1 million migrants, according to the most recent census.
The government says that by 2012, immigration is expected to account for all net growth of the labor force.