Why fewer immigrants are staying in Toronto [Video]

The number of immigrants who choose to stay in Toronto five years after getting here is declining, Statistics Canada says, and one of the possible reasons why will likely not come as a surprise to most.

In a report released last month, the federal agency said it is seeing a “downward trend” in the five-year retention rate of immigrants in the country’s top three urban centres: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

In Toronto, the percentage of immigrants who settled in the city in 2023 after arriving five years earlier was 78.3 per cent, marking an eight per cent decrease from the cohort that arrived in 2013.

The drop-off was less pronounced, but still felt, over the same period of time in Montreal and Vancouver, where retention rates decreased by 5.3 points to 72.3 per cent and 3.9 points to 83.4 per cent, respectively.

StatCan says most of the newcomers who touched down in Toronto …