This Trudeau minister kickstarted Canada’s immigration cuts. Here’s what he thinks about Carney’s new plan

Suspect that he will be viewed as one of the more substantive immigration ministers:

Whether people agree or disagree with Ottawa’s new immigration targets, the plan will help Canada regain control of the system, says the man who launched the mission to bring it back on track.

“It denotes stability, whether you like or not the important reforms that I put through in the last two years,” said Liberal MP and former immigration minister Marc Miller. Miller was tapped in 2023 by then prime minister Justin Trudeau to rein in rapid immigration growth amid a public outcry.

The reforms “put some instability into the system and it’s not something that’s great for the economy or for immigrants or immigration generally to constantly have change.”

During his tenure, Miller not only reduced the admissions of permanent residents by 21 per cent — the first reduction after years of steady increases going back to the 1990s — but made bold changes to slash the intakes of international students and temporary foreign workers into the country.

In a rare media interview since he was removed from his post by Prime Minister Mark Carney in March, Miller shared his thoughts on the Liberal government’s new immigration levels plan, which sets the admission targets for individual programs for 2026-2028.

Under the new plan, Canada will welcome 380,000 new permanent residents in each of the next three years, which he said is within the bands he previously set.

“Three-eighty is probably a sweet spot,” said Miller, adding that a data analysis by his department found anything below that number would start to get “recessionary” and cause negative implications on population growth. 

The latest Statistics Canada data showed the country’s population has grown by just 157,521 or about 0.4 per cent since January, to 41,651,653, largely due to the decline in new temporary resident admissions.

In response to Canadians’ concerns over the lack of housing and a strained health-care system, Miller was tasked with reducing temporary residents to five per cent of Canada’s population, from 7.2 per cent. One of the first things he did was cut the number of study permits issued by 35 per cent in 2024 from 2023’s level, to 364,000, and he imposed a further 10 per cent reduction in 2025. 

Carney’s immigration plan — in which Miller had no part — is going to chop that further to just 150,000, from the previous target of 305,900. The 24 public colleges in Ontario alone said they are going to see their international tuition revenue go down by $2.5 billion. While the new cut appears “significant,” Miller said the study permit ceilings that he had set were not reached by some post-secondary institutions and overall at the national level.

“Obviously, a lot of (unscrupulous institutions) are living high on the hog and should have been cut down, but I think moving back to a quality proposition from a quantity proposition, it needs to be further refined,” said Miller.

“There are some bright minds out there that should be going to some of our best schools, and frankly there are colleges and some fly-by-night operations that need to be shut down. In the supplemental information (of the plan), there isn’t that sort of qualitative analysis.” 

Under the immigration plan, Ottawa is going to implement a one-time measure to “accelerate” the transition of 33,000 work permit holders to permanent residency in 2026 and 2027. However, as of the end of the third quarter of 2025, slightly more than three million non-permanent residents were still in Canada.

They include the thousands of Ukrainians, Hong Kongers and Sudanese who were welcomed to Canada for temporary refuge; many are having a hard time securing permanent status, in part due to the reduced permanent resident intakes.

“It does make things longer for people to become PR here, but that may be an adjustment that needs to be dealt with,” Miller said. “When you do the immigration levels planning, there’ll unfortunately be some sacrifices in some places. What’s important in all these cases is for those individuals to be safe in Canada.” 

He said Canada has made some important policy decisions in welcoming people on humanitarian grounds in the last decade, starting with Syrians fleeing war.

“Sometimes by being too open you can create a reverse effect on that and really change Canadians’ attitudes,” said Miller. “We can’t accept just anyone. We need to do it within our means and at the same time, remain quite generous, which I think the plan is still.”

There have been concerns that a good percentage of temporary residents would move underground if they find themselves at a dead end. Miller agreed there’s a significant group of people that should be regularized with permanent status because they are established here and “by any other argument, Canadians, other than having a piece of paper.”

Miller said he’s particularly happy that Carney’s immigration plan will include a one-time measure to grant permanent residence over two years to 115,000 protected persons, who have been given asylum but are caught in processing backlogs in Canada.

“It is something that I actually tried to do and didn’t get it across the finish line.”

Marc Miller was tapped in 2023 by then prime minister Justin Trudeau to rein in rapid immigration growth amid a public outcry.

Source: This Trudeau minister kickstarted Canada’s immigration cuts. Here’s what he thinks about Carney’s new plan