How to Make Friends in Canada (Newcomers and Locals)

How you make friends in Canada depends first on your immigration status and second on the season. Permanent residents can use a free national network of settlement agencies and language classes, which turn out to be good places to meet people. Everyone else, including Canadians who have simply lost touch, needs a weekly indoor habit in place before the first snow.

The short answer

Check your status first. Permanent residents and protected persons can use federally funded settlement services and free LINC or CLIC classes. Citizens and most temporary residents generally can't.
Use the class for the classmates. A language class is the same people in the same room each week, which is how friendships start.
Commit by October. A paid weekly habit such as Learn to Curl survives January. A vague plan to "get together" doesn't.
Don't wait it out. Statistics Canada found long-term immigrants were as lonely as recent arrivals.
Treat cities differently. Toronto and Vancouver are full of other newcomers. In Montréal, French opens the doors.

How to make friends in Canada: start with your status

Canada has something most countries don't: a publicly funded system for helping people settle, delivered by more than 550 organizations outside Québec. The catch is that who gets in depends on your paperwork, and nobody mentions this until you're standing at the desk.

Your situation	Federally funded services?	Your best first door
Permanent resident or protected person	Yes	A local settlement agency, plus LINC (English) or CLIC (French) classes
Student, worker or visitor on temporary status	Generally no	Campus clubs, public libraries, community centres
Asylum claimant	Generally no	Ask local agencies and libraries what is open to you
Canadian citizen, new or long-standing	Generally no	Community centres and clubs. New citizens can also get a year of free access to more than 1,400 attractions through Canoo, which is a good excuse to invite someone along.
Living in Québec	Québec runs its own system	Francisation Québec for free French courses

These rules change, so confirm with the agency. Even if you aren't eligible, it's worth asking what's open to you locally.

What newcomer services are good for, beyond the paperwork

Making friends in Canada as a newcomer often starts in a building you only went to for help with forms. Most people drop into a settlement agency for a résumé workshop and leave. That skips the best thing in the building, which is other people in your exact position.

Language classes

LINC in English and CLIC in French are free for permanent residents and protected persons. A class puts the same people in the same room week after week, with a shared struggle and a shared teacher to talk about. That's about as close as adult life gets to school. Around the third class, try: "A few of us should practise outside class. Coffee after this on Thursday?"

Matching with a long-time Canadian

The federal Community Connections stream was built to link newcomers with established residents, including one-to-one and family matching with volunteers early in the settlement process. That page is archived and programs vary, so ask your agency directly: "Do you have a matching or community connections program?" It may be the only place in the country where a local has signed up specifically to meet you.

Library conversation circles

Public libraries do a lot of quiet settlement work. In 2023, Toronto Public Library reported settlement workers at 14 branches, working with seven local agencies, along with English conversation circles. Check your own branch's calendar. Conversation circles are good value because everyone in the room came to talk.

Winter is the real test of Canadian friendship

In July, friendship in Canada is easy. There are patios, lakes and long evenings, and people say yes to things. In January, "want to do something?" has to compete with a warm couch and a car that may or may not start. Friendships that began in summer can go quiet when the cold arrives, and newcomers tend to take the silence personally. It usually has nothing to do with them.

The fix is to treat winter like a season ticket. Commit to something in the fall, ideally something you've paid for, so that leaving the house on a dark Tuesday needs no decision.

Learn to curl

Curling could have been designed for meeting strangers. Curling 101, also called Learn to Curl, was developed by Curling Canada and runs at many clubs. The version Curling Québec describes is eight weekly two-hour lessons with all equipment included. You're on a small team, you're bad at it together, and you see the same faces for two months. When it ends, ask whether the club has a beginner league.

Go skating, then go again

Ottawa's Rideau Canal Skateway runs 7.8 km, is free, and stays open around the clock when the ice allows. Most cities have something smaller, so check your municipal recreation page for public skates. Falling over next to someone is a reliable way to start a conversation.

Keep one Saturday habit

Canada has about 64 parkrun locations, the first of which began in Kelowna in 2016. It's free, it's timed, walkers can take part, and the same people come back each Saturday morning.

Shovel the walk next door

This one costs nothing. If your neighbour's walk is still buried after you've done yours, clear it. A small useful favour is one of the few openers that never feels forced, and it often gets you a wave for the rest of the winter.

💡 Try this: put a reminder in your phone for the first of October that says "pick the winter thing." Learn-to-curl spots and evening courses are much easier to find before the cold arrives than after it.

How to meet people in Toronto

Close to half the people in the Toronto area, 46.6% in the 2021 Census, are immigrants, compared with 23.0% for Canada as a whole. Being new here is ordinary, and that helps. Nobody finds it strange if you say you don't know anyone.

The obstacle is scale. A friend across the city becomes a friend you see twice a year. Keep your first circle along one transit line: one library branch, one community centre, one coffee shop. Make it easy to say yes on a Wednesday.

Say you've just moved to Scarborough and your job is downtown. Join things near home rather than near work, because the friend from your street is the one you'll actually see on a snowy Sunday.

How to meet people in Vancouver

Vancouver's reputation as a hard place to meet people has some data behind it. The Vancouver Foundation's 2012 study concluded that residents often did not know their neighbours well. Its 2017 follow-up found that 14% of Metro Vancouver residents felt lonely often or almost always, rising to 30% among people aged 18 to 24.

So don't wait to be approached. Use what the city has built for this. The Association of Neighbourhood Houses of BC runs nine Neighbourhood Houses across Metro Vancouver, each with a long list of programs for people of all ages and backgrounds. Think of them as community living rooms with a schedule. Immigrants make up 41.8% of the metro population, so you'll find plenty of others starting over.

Vancouver's winter means rain more than snow, but the season-ticket rule still applies. Book the weekly thing before the wet months start.

Montréal, Québec and the French question

In Québec the system is different, and so is the social map. Québec decides its own settlement services, and Francisation Québec is the single government access point for French courses, which are free, for adults living in Québec and people planning to settle there.

Take French seriously even if your job runs in English. Immigrants make up 24.3% of the Montréal area, well below Toronto or Vancouver, so fewer people around you are starting from zero. You can live here in English, but your social life is likely to stay there too. Bad French, offered cheerfully, changes how people respond to you.

Learn one phrase early: the cinq à sept. Québec's language office describes it as a late-afternoon get-together of colleagues or friends for drinks, usually after work and often in a bar. If a coworker mentions one, go, even if your French runs out by six. We've written more on this in French: se faire des amis au Québec.

Why waiting won't fix it

A lot of newcomers assume loneliness is a phase that ends around the third year. Statistics Canada's figures don't support that. On a 0 to 3 scale, using 2018 data, recent immigrants averaged 1.49, long-term immigrants 1.50 and Canadian-born people 1.36.

The authors caution that this is a single snapshot and can't fully separate length of stay from differences between groups. The practical message still holds: time on its own doesn't build a social life. Hours with the same people do, and they add up more slowly than you'd hope. See how long it takes to make a friend, and how to make friends after moving if the move itself is still recent.

The Canadians no agency will help

Plenty of people lose touch without ever crossing a border, and no settlement worker is waiting for them. In 2021, 13% of Canadians aged 15 and older said they always or often felt lonely, and among people aged 15 to 24 it was 23%. You can live a short drive from people who've known you since grade four and still have nobody to call on a Friday.

Your advantage is history. Go through your phone and pick two people you've lost. Send one message with one date. Then add one recurring thing close to home: a community centre class, a rec hockey team, the curling club your uncle keeps mentioning. Our guides on keeping friendships alive and making friends in your 30s go further, and how to deal with loneliness covers the harder days. If you're in crisis, call or text 9-8-8, in English or French.

The same goes if you've moved between provinces. Someone who leaves Halifax for Calgary gets no welcome desk and very little sympathy, because on paper nothing has changed. In practice you've lost your whole social world, so everything above about libraries, community centres and winter leagues applies to you too. Treat yourself as a newcomer, because you are one.

Where an app fits

No app replaces any of this. Rimeso is a free Android app that matches you into a small circle by interests, language, age group and country, with one thoughtful question a day. Circles are not city-based and there are no in-person meetups, so it won't find you a curling team. It gives you somewhere to talk on the nights when it's minus 20 and nobody is going out. The app interface is available in French, but circles run in English or Hindi. For other options, read our guide to apps for making friends.

Frequently asked questions

How do newcomers make friends in Canada?

Start with what your status allows. Permanent residents and protected persons can use free settlement agencies and LINC or CLIC language classes, where the same classmates meet every week. Everyone can look at public library conversation circles, community centres and clubs. Commit to one weekly activity before winter arrives.

Can international students take free LINC classes?

Generally no. LINC is for permanent residents, protected persons and some other eligible groups, while temporary residents such as foreign students and foreign workers are not eligible. Students usually do better with campus clubs, public libraries and community centres.

Is it hard to meet people in Vancouver?

Many people find it so, and the data gives that reputation some support. The Vancouver Foundation reported in 2012 that residents often did not know their neighbours well, and in 2017 that 30% of people aged 18 to 24 in Metro Vancouver felt lonely often or almost always. Neighbourhood Houses are a good place to begin.

How do you make friends in Canada in the winter?

Sign up for something fixed in the fall so that going out in January needs no decision. Learn to Curl programs at local curling clubs are a strong choice: many run as weekly lessons with equipment included, and you are on a small team with the same people each week.

Sources

A small circle that actually gets you.

Rimeso gives you one thoughtful question a day to answer with a small private circle matched to your interests. No feed, no followers, no ads. About four minutes a day.

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If you're struggling right now: Rimeso and this article aren't a substitute for professional care. If you feel unsafe or in crisis, please contact your local emergency number, or find a free, confidential helpline in your country at findahelpline.com. In Canada you can call or text 9-8-8 at any time, in English or French.