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However, attention is now shifting from these targets to the steep rise in non-permanent residents. Between July and October, about three-quarters of Canada's population growth came from temporary residents, including international students and temporary foreign workers.

That trend is raising alarms about the increase in businesses' reliance on low-wage migrant workers and the luring of international student by shady post-secondary institutions.

Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo who specializes in immigration policy, says the federal government appears to have "lost control" of temporary migration flows.