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In 2025, Canada’s population declined on an annual basis for the first time on record. Natural decrease – deaths outnumbering births – and low fertility rates caused the country’s growth to stall. Canada’s population is shrinking, yet, both federal and provincial policies have reduced immigration targets. So how much does Canada know about our population and migrant flow? According to Michael Haan – professor of sociology, demographer and director of Western’s Statistics Canada Research Data Centre – Canada’s population statistics are often inaccessible and out of date. Statistics Canada operates on a three-year timeline, meaning demographers like Haan don’t receive statistics on immigration or population for three to four years, usually well after policies change. “The gap between a policy being implemented and having the data required to identify effectiveness means we can’t be nearly nimble enough,” said Haan. “We’re currently working with data from 2023, so any research done with this data can never be fully reflective of the realities now.”  

Support from Western’s Undergraduate Summer Research Internships program

Haan is currently supervising two fourth-year undergraduate students from the Faculty of Social Science, Aphrodite Podonis and Beniamin Kowal, both participating in Western’s Undergraduate Summer Research Internships (USRI) program. The USRI program provides undergraduate students with research experiences alongside faculty mentors, helping develop skills in preparation for future careers and study. At the end of the summer, students and faculty share their research with the broader campus community during a virtual exhibition event. Podonis and Kowal are among 322 students participating in the USRI program. Each USRI is a paid, full-time commitment over a 16-week period. “USRI is an amazing opportunity to test-run your research abilities and get graduate-level experience,” said Podonis. Through USRI, Podonis and Kowal are helping Haan establish a better evidence system for Canadian immigration through his overarching project: a Canadian Immigration Intelligence Unit. Their research will develop an evidence base for identifying who migrates to Canada, how they come, what factors predict whether they stay and how smaller municipalities can retain immigrants. The first step is to create a population register. Currently, Canada’s immigration system operates on a human-capital basis. This means the country accepts immigrants with the highest level of education possible. However, Canada’s labour shortages are mainly in rural areas and require workers with expertise in hospitality, skilled trades and agriculture. Haan’s Immigration Intelligence Unit aims to better assess Canada’s migrant flow and municipal needs to recruit immigrants well-suited to the country’s labour needs, ultimately improving retention and boosting population. Haan’s passion for immigration research is rooted in his own family history. As the son of immigrants from Europe to rural Canada, Haan saw first-hand the effects of shrinking rural populations and sought to create solutions rooted in understanding migration patterns. His undergraduate research assistants are similarly drawing on their family’s migration stories as they embark on their respective research opportunities.  

Impactful research abroad

Podonis, a fluent Greek speaker, will be traveling to Greece to study migration documentation.

“It’s so special to be able to do this kind of research because it’s personal. My mom was born in Greece; my entire family is from there and immigrated to Canada in the 1970s. I’m excited to have the opportunity to travel somewhere so meaningful.” – Aphrodite Podonis, undergraduate summer research intern

Due to its geographic proximity to the Mediterranean Sea, Greece has one of the highest undocumented migrant flows in the world. Therefore, the country has extensive experience in counting and identifying undocumented migrants. With undocumented migrants rising significantly in Canada since the pandemic, Haan says scholars should be looking to other nations for examples of how to mitigate the risks. Podonis will conduct interviews with Greek migration scholars, policy workers and non-governmental organizations to investigate the factors driving migrants to the country and determine why they stay. When she returns to Canada, Podonis will incorporate the strategies she learned in Greece into Haan’s project. In the meantime, Kowal will remain on campus, laying the groundwork for the population register.  

Navigating new technologies and outdated data

Like Haan and Podonis, Kowal’s inspiration comes partly from his own family’s experience. From a family of Polish Canadian immigrants, Kowal still has several family members living in Poland. While he was originally interested in studying forensics at Western, Kowal switched gears to sociology research after taking Sociology 3306 – Haan’s introduction to quantitative research methods class. Now, through USRI, Kowal has the opportunity to learn new technologies and methods through a funded summer internship. “My favorite part of the research is seeing random numbers on a sheet and actually compiling them to make something out of nothing,” said Kowal. To combat the three-year lag in Canadian migration statistics, Kowal will participate in a two-week virtual web-scraping course through the University of Essex in the U.K. Web-scraping uses specific code or artificial intelligence tools to extract data from websites. Kowal is gathering and analyzing publicly available data from government and online sources. He will use the skills learned in the web-scraping course to help fill gaps in current immigration and settlement information, including where newcomers arrive and intend to settle. The research will focus on broader population-level patterns and will not seek to identify or track individuals.

“It’s great to be able to learn skills through the web-scraping course I wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to without being part of USRI. I didn’t think I’d be doing this level of research in my undergraduate experience.” – Beniamin Kowal, undergraduate summer research intern

The value of investing in undergraduate research

All three researchers said they hope to be part of a provincial – and potentially federal – solution that helps rural areas rebuild their workforce. “We want to show that not only is immigration a partial solution to declining populations, but that it’s actually not as hard as people think to strike the right balance when you have the right tools at your disposal,” said Haan. The team said another goal of theirs is to combat anti-immigration rhetoric. As debates over immigration become increasingly polarized across Europe and North America, they believe their research can demonstrate the benefits of immigration through better systemic assessment and analysis. The population register research made possible through the USRI program is not only providing undergraduates with real-world experience; it has the potential to create numerous employment opportunities should municipalities take interest in the team’s work. For both Kowal and Podonis, the experience has been transformative and is only becoming more rewarding as the internship goes on. Podonis said she is most excited to conduct interviews and write her final paper as a culmination of her undergraduate studies. “If you have the chance to participate in the USRI program, do it,” she said. Learn more about how Western is preparing future leaders and global citizens.