Majorities of Toronto and Greater Toronto Area residents say their communities provide enough support for newcomers in several key areas, but the most common overall grade for those efforts was a C, according to a Canada Pulse Insights poll conducted for CityNews.

CityNews reported that 61 per cent of respondents considered language-learning options sufficient, while 57 per cent said enough settlement and integration programs were available. Fifty-six per cent said there was enough help finding employment, and 52 per cent considered refugee-settlement support sufficient.

The survey’s housing results were more divided. In Toronto, 28 per cent said there were not enough suitable and affordable housing options provided for newcomers, compared with 25 per cent in the GTA outside Toronto. In both areas, 29 per cent said too much was provided.

Responses from immigrants and Canadian-born residents were largely aligned across the questions, CityNews reported, with a difference emerging on refugee settlement.

Among immigrants surveyed, 38 per cent said their municipality or community provided too much refugee-settlement support, 49 per cent said there was enough and 12 per cent said there was not enough. Among Canadian-born respondents, those figures were 30 per cent, 53 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively.

The poll did not break down how long immigrant respondents had lived in Canada.

On federal funding for newcomer intake, Toronto respondents were evenly split between those who considered it too much and those who considered it insufficient, at 29 per cent each. The remaining 42 per cent said the amount was enough. Outside Toronto, 31 per cent said funding was too high, 23 per cent said it was insufficient and 46 per cent considered it appropriate.

Despite majority support for the adequacy of several services, 43 per cent in each area gave their community a C overall. CityNews reported an average grade of C+ across the two areas.

The online survey ran Sept. 14–25, 2026, before the federal budget announcement, and included 510 Toronto adults and 825 adults elsewhere in the GTA, covering Peel, Durham, York and Halton regions. Participants were surveyed through a panel platform managed by Sago.

The report supplied comparison margins of error for probability-based random samples of the same sizes: ±4.3 percentage points for Toronto and ±3.4 for the GTA, 19 times out of 20. Those figures describe comparable random samples, not the online panel itself.

Source: CityNews reporting by Meredith Bond, with Canadian Press credit.

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