Ottawa to start tracking which temporary foreign residents have left Canada after permits run out
2026/05/06 1 Comment
Long overdue:
Ottawa is for the first time to track which foreign students and other temporary foreign residents have left the country after their permits to remain in Canada expire, Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab told a committee of MPs on Monday.
Economists have been warning for years that Canada has been dramatically undercounting the number of temporary residents living here by presuming that international students and others leave the country after their permits and visas run out.
Ms. Diab said Monday the government is conducting a pilot program to track entries and exits by temporary residents, including international students, as part of an action plan to combat non-compliance.
From this month, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will record if they are in the country or have left, IRCC deputy minister Ted Gallivan told MPs. He said the department has been collaborating with the Canada Border Services Agency on collecting entry and exit data.
The initiative was disclosed at the Commons immigration committee, which was questioning the minister about a critique by Auditor-General Karen Hogan into the failure of Ms. Diab’s department to investigate suspected cases of study permit non-compliance and immigration fraud….
Source: Ottawa to start tracking which temporary foreign residents have left Canada after permits run out
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
As the Globe and Mail article reports, this will begin with a pilot program. Sadly, none of the details are reported. If there are tens of thousands of TFRs, how many will be part of the pilot?