Ottawa seeking mass visa cancellation powers to deter fraud from India: internal documents

2025/11/05 Leave a comment

Useful info to better understand the policy rationale:

The federal government is seeking the power to cancel applications for groups of visa holders at least in part due to concerns of fraud from India and Bangladesh, according to internal documents obtained by CBC News.

A departmental presentation to the immigration minister’s office said that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and unnamed U.S. partners are aiming to identify and cancel fraudulent visitor visa applications.

The Canadian entities and U.S. partners formed a working group looking to beef up authorities to refuse and cancel visas, according to the presentation, which singled out India and Bangladesh as “country-specific challenges.”

A section explaining how mass cancellation powers could be used listed hypothetical scenarios such as a pandemic, war and “country-specific visa holders.”

Publicly, Immigration Minister Lena Diab has listed a pandemic or war as why the government is seeking these powers, but has not mentioned country-specific visa holders. 

The presentation provides a further glimpse into Ottawa’s motivation for gaining those mass cancellation powers.

The provision was tabled in Parliament as part of Bill C-2, the government’s sweeping border legislation. That bill has since been spun off into two pieces, with mass visa cancellation folded into C-12, which the government is hoping  to quickly pass.

More than 300 civil society groups have raised concerns over the legislation. Some, such as the Migrant Rights Network, say group cancellations would give the government the ability to set up a “mass deportation machine.” 

Immigration lawyers have also wondered if the mass cancellation ability was being sought to allow the federal government to reduce its growing backlog of applications. 

Asylum claims from Indian nationals increased from fewer than 500 a month in May 2023 to about 2,000 by July 2024, the document said. 

The presentation says that verifying temporary resident visa applications from India slows down application processing.

It said processing time rose from an average of 30 days at the end of July 2023 to 54 a year later. It said approvals also started to decline in 2024 as it committed more resources to verification, from more than 63,000 in January to about 48,000 in June.

The presentation also noted a rise in “no boards” in India — passengers not allowed to board airplanes — as of the summer of 2024. By July 31 of that year 1,873 applicants had been identified for further questioning and sent procedural fairness letters outlining their rights and potential legal recourse.

No data about claims from Bangladesh was provided in the document. 

Last month, IRCC told CBC News in a statement that new powers were not being proposed “with a specific group of people or situation in mind,” and that “decisions would not be taken unilaterally.”

A separate document from October 2024, a memorandum to then immigration minister Marc Miller, urged him to push for the department to be given extra visa cancellation powers without naming any individual countries.

“The ability to cancel temporary resident documents reduces security risks and limits potential misuse of such documents,” it noted.

The memo also said that the risk of applicants seeking judicial review of the cancellations would “depend on the particular facts of each case, notably whether procedural fairness was followed.” …

Source: Ottawa seeking mass visa cancellation powers to deter fraud from India: internal documents

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Universities may jump to hire foreign researchers if Ottawa allocates funds

2025/11/05 Leave a comment

Pre-budget messaging or lobbying?

Canadian universities expect to be able to move quickly to hire researchers from abroad if the federal government announces new money to attract top scientists in the coming budget.

Universities have been waiting to see what direction the federal government will take as other countries have jumped on the potential hiring opportunity created by recent instability in U.S. academic funding.

Two major proposals to enhance Canada’s scientific capacity have been up for government consideration for several months. One was designed by Quebec’s leading research universities. The other was led by former governor-general David Johnston, Eddie Goldenberg, who was chief of staff to Jean Chrétien, and Alan Bernstein, the former president of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. 

Other jurisdictions, starting with France and the European Union, announced plans several months ago to tempt researchers with financial incentives….

Source: Universities may jump to hire foreign researchers if Ottawa allocates funds

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Canadian government employees’ productivity dropped 4 percent below private sector workers in last decade: Study

2025/11/05 Leave a comment

Worrisome, timing perfect in context of expected public service cuts. Really find the observation in the CSPS study on various program reviews is asking the right question:

“Technological developments during the past 80 years, if not the past 30 years, should have reduced the labour requirement. Computers, digital automation, and internet communications have made direct services easier to provide to Canadians. Forms and databases automate many tasks with higher accuracy, e.g. security checks, benefit applications, tax returns. Yet, the same number of Canadians is served by each public servant after decades of efficiency measures in spending restraint. Why is this? An un-nuanced early result appears to be that programs are more complex, as is the work to deliver them, even while the inflation-adjusted value delivered to each Canadian has not changed much in the last fifty years. However, some of this complexity may be unnecessary.”

The productivity of Canadian public sector workers declined over the last decade at a loss of 0.3 percent annually, while private sector employees’ productivity grew by 0.5 percent per year on average, according to a new research paper published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI).

The study also found that if the productivity of government workers (federal and provincial) matched that of the private sector, Canada’s GDP in 2024 would have been $32 billion more or 1.5 percent higher.

“Essentially what we’re seeing through the data is that the size of government is growing, but a variety of different measures that you look at, for its overall performance and outputs and efficiency, [they’ve] been going down over time,” said Stephen Tapp, the author of the MLI study—“The Growing Government Gap”—and chief economist at the Centre for the Study of Living Standards. “So [public sector productivity is] obviously lagging behind and dragging [GDP] down.”

Tapp found that public sector worker productivity went from being slightly higher on average than private sector counterparts in 2015, then dropped 4 percentage points lower by 2024.

Despite this marked dip in productivity, government workers still earn an average of 27 percent more per hour worked than Canadians in the private sector. The MLI study mirrors a recent Fraser Institute study, which showed government employees in Canada make an average of 4.8 percent more, as well as receive more generous pensions and retire two years earlier on average….

Tapp found that for 88 percent of government subsectors, job growth outpaced the private sector; the same was true in eight of 10 provinces, and 78 percent of federal government organizations. He believes the Carney government’s reported plan to cut 15 percent across all government departments may be the wrong approach because some outlier government departments actually have a higher productivity rate….

Source: Canadian government employees’ productivity dropped 4 percent below private sector workers in last decade: Study

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Globe editorial: There can’t be two types of Canadian citizen [C-3 citizenship by descent]

2025/11/04 2 Comments

Very good Globe editorial assessing Conservative and Bloc amendments to C-3 and correctly distinguishing between the sound amendments of having a time limit of five-years to meet the residency requirement of 1,095 days and the requirement to have annual reporting on the number of persons claiming citizenship under the Bill’s provisions and the less sound amendments to require language and knowledge assessment and criminality/security checks that apply to new citizens, not those entitled to citizenship.

The Liberals and NDP removed the amendments at third reading. We will now see how the Senate deals with the Bill shortly, and whether it passes the original bill or provides some sober second thought and reinstates these two amendments:

…Last month, the Conservatives, supported by the Bloc, added an amendment in committee to change the requirement that in order to pass on citizenship, a foreign-born Canadian needs to spend 1,095 cumulative days in Canada before the child is born or adopted. The Conservative change would require the parent to spend 1,095 days in Canada within a five-year period. This revision makes sense, as it means these individuals have truly lived here, rather than just spent a few weeks at their grandparents’ cottage each summer. It demonstrates a more meaningful connection with Canada, and administratively, it will be easier to prove. 

The Conservative amendments would also require a report to Parliament annually on how many new citizens the bill creates. This is a sensible requirement. 

The problems lie with the Conservatives’ addition of an English or French language test, a security screening for criminal activity, and a citizenship test demonstrating knowledge of Canadian history. These requirements are similar to those needed by immigrants applying for citizenship, so it sounds logical – but it confuses the issue. 

Halt of ‘Lost Canadians’ bill could mean citizenship for thousands born to parents with no ties to Canada

Canadians by descent get their citizenship at birth based on their parents’ status. Presumably, under the Conservative rules, if these people applied as adults for citizenship certificates or passports and failed the tests, they could be stripped of their citizenship. Uyen Hoang, director-general of the citizenship branch at the Immigration Department, has warned that the tests would be “impossible to operationalize.” …

Source: There can’t be two types of Canadian citizen

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Briefing: The Public Mood Before Budget Day (Abacus, immigration)

2025/11/04 Leave a comment

More from Abacus on immigration where concerns are more about capacity than culture or values:,

4. Immigration: Skepticism steady, focus on capacity

Views on immigration (new Abacus poll) have barely shifted since last year: 49% negative, 26% positive, 26% neutral. The concerns aren’t cultural, they’re about capacity.

Majorities still say immigration worsens housing (69%) and strains healthcare (around 60%), but opposition has softened slightly as the government lowers targets (67% now say “too high,” down from 72%).

Younger Canadians and Liberal supporters are more likely to see the upside — addressing labour gaps, supporting growth — while skepticism remains strongest in the Prairies and among Conservative voters.

The message: Canadians don’t want the gates closed, they want the system to work.

Source: Briefing: The Public Mood Before Budget Day

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Gessen: How to Be a Good Citizen of a Bad Country

2025/11/04 Leave a comment

Good read on the dilemmas some Israelis are facing:

…Dekel was trying to shift some of the responsibility for his own actions — his own resistance, which he felt was insufficient — onto unnamed others, and in doing so he was telling an important truth about resistance in general. Seeing other people act makes it less frightening to join in protest. Even more important is an unspoken principle my conversations with these Israelis reminded me of: To be a good citizen of a bad state, one has to do scary things. It may be writing an op-ed calling for your own country’s isolation, as Sfard did, knowing that it would cost him friendships and get him branded a traitor. It may be using your body to shield someone more vulnerable, as Greenberg does. It may be withdrawing your economic cooperation. It is weighing leaving against staying, moral obligation against fear, flying under the radar against taking a risk — and opting for the risk.

Source: How to Be a Good Citizen of a Bad Country

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Majority of Canadians say immigration level still too high, but confidence growing in Carney fixing ‘broken’ system: Poll

2025/11/04 Leave a comment

Of note:

The Liberal party has restored some Canadians’ confidence in its ability to manage immigration, though a majority still believe the Conservatives are better equipped to fix the beleaguered system, according to a new poll.

A year after implementing some seismic policy changes to reduce immigration intakes, the Liberals are closing the gap with the opposition Conservatives in public perception of their ability to handle a system what many view as “broken,” said the Abacus Data survey, published on the eve of the release of Ottawa’s 2026-28 immigration levels plan on Tuesday.

Overall, 38 per cent of Canadians favoured the Conservatives to stickhandle this issue, compared to 29 per cent for the Liberals. However, the Liberals’ score has risen 13 percentage points on that question in the past year while those expressing confidence in the Conservatives only grew by four percentage points, said the poll for the Toronto Star.

“It does show how much (former prime minister Justin) Trudeau affected people’s perceptions,” said David Coletto, Abacus chair and CEO. “Now that he’s gone and the government has continued to follow through on that more restrictive immigration policy, they’ve kind of returned to more of a normal place.” Liberal Mark Carney became prime minister in March.

Rapid population growth as a result of high immigration dominated political debates over the last two years, and public concerns about lagging housing, health care and other social services have prompted the Liberal government to make drastic cuts in the admissions of both permanent and temporary residents, including foreign students and workers. Immigration applicants are also faced with backlogs and long processing times.

While 49 per cent of Canadians — virtually unchanged from 50 per cent last November — continue to view immigration through a negative lens, attitudes have largely stabilized, said Coletto, with 26 per cent of people expressing positive feelings toward immigration in Canada. 

Sentiment remains most negative among older Canadians and Conservative voters, while younger Canadians and Liberal supporters are more positive about immigration. Despite the lower permanent resident intake from 500,000 in 2024 to 385,000 this year, 67 per cent of people still said the target is too high; that percentage was down modestly from 72 per cent a year ago.

“Heading into a budget that will set a new immigration plan, the government is navigating a delicate balance,” said Coletto. “Canadians continue to see immigration through the lens of scarcity — too few homes, too much strain on public services, and a labour market that feels stretched. The public pressure is clearly on restraint, not expansion.”…

Source: Majority of Canadians say immigration level still too high, but confidence growing in Carney fixing ‘broken’ system: Poll

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Former immigration minister [Miller] rejected officials’ advice to shelve Sudan humanitarian program

2025/11/04 Leave a comment

Of note, classic case of balancing general objectives with the specific:

Immigration officials advised shelving a special humanitarian program, designed to help Sudanese Canadians bring family members here to escape civil war in the African country, over concerns that plans to reduce immigration could be undermined, sources say.

The officials argued that bringing in Sudanese could affect the government’s immigration levels plan: annual targets that the government sets for the number of permanent and temporary residents it plans to admit.

But former immigration minister Marc Miller, two sources say, last year rejected that argument as he thought Canada should help family members of Canadians caught up in what has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. He pressed ahead with establishing a pathway to permanent residence for those with direct family ties to Sudanese Canadians, although processing delays have left thousands who applied stranded. Mr. Miller declined to comment. …

Source: Former immigration minister rejected officials’ advice to shelve Sudan humanitarian program

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A New Era of Immigration Enforcement Unfolds in the U.S. Interior and at the Border under Trump 2.0

2025/11/03 Leave a comment

Another good analysis by MPI:

Unauthorized migration at the U.S.-Mexico border plunged dramatically during the just-ended fiscal year, as the Trump administration leveraged new border controls, further asylum restrictions, and the promise of mass deportations, reaching about 444,000 migrant encounters recorded in fiscal year (FY) 2025. This sharp drop from 2.1 million encounters the prior year was also marked by reversion to a pattern last experienced more than a decade ago: Flows primarily composed of Mexican single adults and Central American unaccompanied children.

The steep decrease in unauthorized arrivals at the border and return to nationalities that are easier to turn back because of existing repatriation agreements has permitted the administration to direct its focus to immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior—in fact deploying significant U.S. Border Patrol assets to cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago. To achieve its goal of mass deportations, the administration has increased coordination among federal agencies, elevated cooperation with state and local law enforcement agencies, rapidly accelerated the build-up of detention capacity, expanded the use of fast-track removal powers, tapped the U.S. military, and established new agreements to repatriate returnees to third countries. As a result, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recorded more deportations from within U.S. communities during FY 2025 than the Border Patrol apprehended people crossing the Southwest border illegally—the first time since at least FY 2014, according to available data.

While detailed FY 2025 data about ICE arrests and removals have not been released since January, there is no doubt that interior enforcement has risen. But it has become increasingly complicated to track results because only selective statistics have been made public. Returning to regular reporting of detailed data on immigration enforcement across the various Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration agencies could not only improve the public’s understanding of current immigration enforcement activities but also inform state and local stakeholders who want to collaborate or who are affected by enforcement.

Ramped-Up Interior Enforcement and Mass Deportations

While U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continues to post border encounter statistics every month, DHS has inconsistently released immigration enforcement data  and its last detailed tables of ICE and CBP actions ended with November 2024 activity. Based on the latest publicly available figures, however, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates that ICE conducted about 340,000 deportations in FY 2025, including noncitizens with a formal order of removal and immigration detainees who chose to end their detention with a voluntary departure. This would mark a level of activity 25 percent higher than the 271,000 deportations recorded by ICE in FY 2024. These fiscal year figures do not include deportations conducted by CBP, which DHS has yet to release.

The  administration says it conducted more than 400,000 deportations overall between ICE and CBP in its first 250 days, and was on pace to reach nearly 600,000 by the end of its first year. This projection falls short of the 685,000 deportations recorded by the Biden administration in FY 2024—and is well off the Trump administration’s pledge of carrying out 1 million deportations per year.

Location Matters

Where the deportations are happening is significantly different under the Trump administration, with more occurring within the U.S. interior rather than at the border. This has significant operational impacts, given deportations in the interior are likely to be far more resource intensive and carry higher individual and societal costs with enforcement happening in U.S. cities and against people who, unlike many recent border crossers, often have significant years of U.S. residence and deep community ties.

Of the 400,000 deportations conducted by the Trump administration through its first 250 days, MPI estimates approximately 234,000 were conducted by ICE from the U.S. interior, with another 166,000 by CBP.

ICE daily deportations, in fact, doubled from 600 in January to 1,200 since June. ICE deportations have increased as the number of immigrants being placed in detention centers has surged. Since the start of the Trump administration, the average number of noncitizens in ICE detention centers has grown gradually, reaching about 60,000 by the end of FY 2025 (see Figure 1). And by March, most detainees had been arrested by ICE in the interior, not by CBP at the border or through CBP transfer to ICE, as was usually the case under the Biden administration….

Source: A New Era of Immigration Enforcement Unfolds in the U.S. Interior and at the Border under Trump 2.0

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Canada’s education sector has a new idea to lure international students back. Here’s what it is

2025/11/03 Leave a comment

Doesn’t appear to be a new idea:

…Niagara College president Sean Kennedy said Canada has remained a safe and welcoming country known for its progressive values, cultural diversity and quality education. 

“The messaging to the world through this campaign will be, ‘Come and grow your future as a global citizen,’” said Kennedy, whose school saw international applications drop by half and lost 40 per cent of international enrolment in the past year.

For graduates, that could mean returning home after an amazing education and international experience or staying and working for those who fall in love with Canada, he said.

“Both paths are really laudable, commendable and worth considering,” Kennedy noted. “It’s a bit more of a balanced approach. What we’re offering here is a chance to grow your skills and knowledge and expertise, but also to grow as a person.”

Source: Canada’s education sector has a new idea to lure international students back. Here’s what it is

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