**Canada's federal government has sustained aggressive reductions in temporary resident admissions under the 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan, released in November 2025, which slashed new temporary resident targets to 385,000 in 2026 from 673,650 the prior year.** This includes roughly 49% fewer international students and 37% fewer temporary workers, alongside a modest cut in permanent resident targets to 380,000 annually. These measures, aimed at lowering the non-permanent resident share of the population below 5%, have produced net outflows of temporary residents and driven consecutive quarterly population declines, including a 55,000 drop in Q1 2026 per Statistics Canada. Official estimates already show Canada's first annual population decline on record (dating to the 1940s) occurring in 2025, with quarterly drops exceeding prior benchmarks outside of pandemic restrictions. Economic analyses project continued zero or negative growth into 2026–2027 as outflows persist and permanent inflows remain capped. Traders assign an 86.5% probability to 2026 marking the largest annual drop because the policy-driven contraction in temporary residents is front-loaded and expected to exceed 2025's scale before any stabilization. Scheduled StatCan releases and potential revisions to permit data remain the key variables that could alter the final annual figure.