Estimating Immigrants’ Presence in Canada within the Context of Increasingly Fluid International Migration Patterns

International migration has become increasingly fluid and is viewed decreasingly as a one-time, permanent movement from a source country to a destination country. Immigrant-receiving countries often point to long-term economic- and population-related goals as motivations for permanent immigration programs, making immigrants’ presence and absence patterns of increasing policy interest. This article explores two methodological issues related to measuring immigrants’ potential presence in Canada. The first is the use of auxiliary administrative data sources as a means to supplement the T1 Income Tax Return file, which—to date—has been one of the key data sources used to estimate emigration among Canadian immigrants. The second is the evaluation of the sensitivity of emigration estimates to the definition of immigrant disappearance and reappearance in administrative data.