Job cuts at Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada will cause asylum delays and backlogs, union charges

2026/04/20 Leave a comment

May well be true but cannot expect a union to argue otherwise:

The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada is cutting 53 jobs as part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s push to reduce government spending, said the union representing the largest independent tribunal in the country.

The board, responsible for adjudicating asylum claims, finalized 79,462 such claims last year, and it currently has 295,522 outstanding cases in the system awaiting a decision. At this rate, it would take more than three and a half years just to clear the backlog.

These cuts — part of the federal “realignment and reallocation plan” — are happening despite significant delays in refugee and asylum claim processing times, and are going to make a bad situation worse, warned the Canada Employment and Immigration Union….

Source: Job cuts at Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada will cause asylum delays and backlogs, union charges

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Visa Trend Tracker

2026/04/17 Leave a comment

Neat and useful website, covering range of visas. Sample view below:

Processing times aren’t just operational, they affect Canada’s competitiveness and our ability to grow tourism, trade, and investment. 

The Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) records and regularly updates publicly available visa and permit processing time information from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

The tool provides the tourism sector with a clear picture of visa system performance over time, and data to support policy reforms that improve efficient, predictable, and secure travel.

Source: Visa Trend Tracker

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Canada’s Immigration Gains Were Driven by Selection – Maintaining Them Is Now the Challenge

2026/04/17 Leave a comment

Good report and analysis by Skuterud and his collaborators as usual. Government unfortunately continues in reverse direction:

In “Selection Matters: Lessons from Two Decades of Immigrant Earnings,” Mikal Skuterud and Ruiwen Zhang examine employment and earnings outcomes of immigrants and non-permanent residents from 2005 to 2024. The study finds that immigrants admitted after the introduction of Express Entry in 2015 experienced higher earnings at landing and strong earnings growth among highly educated immigrants, with recent male cohorts approaching parity with Canadian-born workers within five years.

“Stronger selection policies improved the economic outcomes of new immigrants, particularly among the university-educated,” says Skuterud. “These gains show that immigration can support economic growth when selection is aligned with long-run earnings potential.”

The report finds that improvements are concentrated among highly educated immigrants, especially men, consistent with the design of Express Entry. The system prioritizes candidates with strong human capital – including factors such as age, education, and work experience – and expected earnings. These gains were not accompanied by lower employment rates or weaker earnings growth, suggesting a durable improvement in immigrant outcomes.

However, the study also identifies a sharp deterioration in earnings among non-permanent resident men between 2020 and 2024, with average hourly earnings falling significantly relative to Canadian-born workers. The decline is most pronounced among college-educated workers and is consistent with changes in the composition of the temporary resident population, including shifts toward lower-earning subgroups.

The report highlights that recent policy changes, including the introduction of category-based selection and the growing role of non-permanent residents in the immigration system, may shift selection away from candidates with the highest expected earnings, potentially weakening the link between immigration and long-term economic performance.

To preserve and build on recent gains, the authors recommend returning to exclusive reliance on the Comprehensive Ranking System, while enhancing it with additional criteria such as field of study and prior Canadian earnings.

“Canada’s experience shows that selection matters,” says Skuterud. “Sustaining strong outcomes will require policies that prioritize long-term economic integration, not just short-term labour market needs.”

Read the Full Report

Source: Canada’s Immigration Gains Were Driven by Selection – Maintaining Them Is Now the Challenge

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IRCC orders asylum claimants who crossed U.S. border irregularly to leave or face deportation

2026/04/16 Leave a comment

Implementation:

Asylum seekers who crossed the border from the United States irregularly and claimed asylum are being ordered by the immigration department to leave Canada as soon as possible or face being deported, after the passing of a new law tightening up asylum rules. 

Immigration lawyers have expressed fears that many foreign nationals receiving warning letters from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will now cross back into the U.S. and be detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and deported. 

The immigration lawyers are also raising concerns that the letters don’t adequately inform asylum seekers that they may be eligible to remain in the country despite the new restrictions. The new law limits who can receive a hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, or IRB, potentially putting many asylum seekers on a fast-track to deportation.

The IRCC warning letters were sent to refugee claimants within days of the new law, known as Bill C-12, receiving royal assent last month. …

Source: IRCC orders asylum claimants who crossed U.S. border irregularly to leave or face deportation

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Douglas Todd: Metro Vancouver’s housing growth ‘isn’t free.’ It’s an election issue.

2026/04/16 Leave a comment

Nothing is free!

“Growth isn’t free.”

So says professor Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program and a fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners.

“It’s not a question of population growth or not,” says Yan. “It’s a question of how do we pay for it and who should pay for it fairly and transparently.”

Despite the financial burden that new housing places on taxpayers, Canadian developers are increasingly demanding that governments reduce the amounts they are asked to contribute for infrastructure: sewer and water hookups, electrical connections, schools, transit, community centres, road maintenance, park bike lanes, libraries, fire halls and sidewalks.

These are not luxuries, Yan says. They have to be maintained — and, if we are to host bigger populations, expanded….

Source: Douglas Todd: Metro Vancouver’s housing growth ‘isn’t free.’ It’s an election issue.

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Asylum crackdown passed under Carney first requested by Trudeau’s immigration minister

2026/04/16 Leave a comment

Not surprising. Miller was able to successfully change course in terms of lower levels and limits on temporary workers and international students, which of course did not require legislation, unlike these changes:

Major changes to Canada’s asylum system passed into law this year were first sought by the federal immigration minister in 2024 — but the Trudeau government largely did not act on them.

In a letter obtained by CBC News from the fall of 2024, Immigration Minister Marc Miller wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland requesting that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) be permitted to bar asylum seekers from making refugee claims if they had been in Canada for more than a year.

The request from Miller was retroactive to June 25, 2020 — one day off from the date included in the Carney government’s border law.

Miller also sought to stop asylum seekers from making claims more than 14 days after crossing into Canada from an irregular port of entry on the Canada-U.S. land border, another measure that only wound up passing under Bill C-12 last month.

“The in-Canada asylum system has faced mounting pressure in recent years, largely driven by increasing numbers of asylum seekers, resource constraints and evolving global migration dynamics,” Miller wrote.

“The system has been strained as the number of claims increased dramatically, leading to lengthy processing times and backlogs, and resulting in prolonged uncertainty for migrants.”

There is one provision, eventually passed under Bill C-12, that appeared to have the support of Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office.

Miller advocated for IRCC’s ability to mass-cancel groups of visas, which the government publicly mentioned in a suite of border security measures in December 2024. 

Reached for comment, Miller declined, citing cabinet confidentiality. 

The Prime Minister’s Office referred CBC News to current Immigration Minister Lena Diab for questions. A spokesperson for Diab’s office said it could not speculate on the actions of the previous government. 

‘Risk mitigation’ for U.S. policy

Miller wrote that the stricter rules for irregular crossings would “act as a risk-mitigation strategy” for “anticipated changes to U.S. immigration policies” that could cause major changes to “asylum migration trends impacting Canada.”

It is unclear whether the letter was sent by Miller before or after the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Miller also wrote that the U.S. was “the only comparable jurisdiction internationally that has a similar limit on eligibility.”

“The one-year time limit was chosen in part because a significant majority of claimants make their claim within their first year of being in Canada,” says an annex attached to the letter.

“The use of a one-year period is also a clear and easily communicated timeline for claimants to understand the period in which they are allowed to make a claim.”

Miller was turfed as immigration minister under Prime Minister Mark Carney in March 2025 and returned to cabinet with the heritage portfolio last fall.

C-12’s passage was a battle

The legislation Carney’s government wound up passing was not without controversy. 

First presented in late spring 2025, it was eventually split into two different bills after opposition parties raised a number of concerns over its security and immigration components.

Re-introduced as Bill C-12, it was scrutinized closely by the Senate, which took the unusual step of suggesting multiple amendments, including removing the one-year bar. However, senators agreed to drop those amendments once the government turned them down.

In his 2024 letter, Miller foresaw “vocal criticism from stakeholders and legal challenges” to the proposed changes.

Immigration and refugee advocates and lawyers indeed raised concerns about C-12. 

The law passed with the Liberals finding support from the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois. 

Since coming into effect, IRCC has begun telling tens of thousands of asylum claimants they may not be eligible for refugee status.

Source: Asylum crackdown passed under Carney first requested by Trudeau’s immigration minister

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Canada is overhauling its signature skilled immigration system. Here’s what is changing

2026/04/15 Leave a comment

Good overview with some of the usual worries about impacts:

Canada is proposing a sweeping overhaul of its skilled immigration system that would include prioritizing higher wages and lucrative job offers when it comes to deciding who gets invited for permanent residence in this country.

Among the proposed changes to the country’s signature “point system” for economic immigrants are factoring in wages and earning potential; offering an edge for those with a job offer in high-wage occupations; and downplaying the need for a Canadian education.

The reforms, currently undergoing public consultation, have created a buzz among experts and critics, some concerned about the use of wages to assess prospective permanent residents and their impacts on local communities where low-wage, low-skilled jobs are also unfilled.

“In the absence of strong pay equity and in the absence of strong employment equity, we know that women and racialized groups still earn less,” said Naomi Alboim, a senior policy fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University specializing in immigration. “If you’re doing it on what their wages were, you’re building potential inequity into the system.”  

…TMU’s Alboim said it’s hard to assess the impacts of these changes to economic immigration without knowing Ottawa’s plan with the provincial immigration nominee program and other regional immigration streams that are meant to meet local economic and demographic needs.

Immigrants who tend to leave are those who are highly skilled because they are in demand everywhere, and removing points for family ties in Canada may further erode their incentive to come and stay here, she noted….

Source: Canada is overhauling its signature skilled immigration system. Here’s what is changing

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Tamil refugee who arrived on MV Sun Sea granted stay of deportation

2026/04/15 Leave a comment

Sloppy not doing the risk assessment:

A man who arrived in Canada seeking asylum with a boatload of Tamils 16 years ago has been spared deportation after court ruled Canadian officials have failed to properly assess the risk he’d face if returned to Sri Lanka.

Kugatheeswaran Thuraisinkam was among the 492 passengers aboard the highly publicized MV Sun Sea in 2010, who were deemed a national security threat by then prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

Officials associated them with the separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and suggested some might have been terrorists. As a result, they had been detained for months and challenged at every step of their asylum process. 

Thuraisinkam has for years dealt with prolonged separation from his wife and three children, homelessness and mental illness. He says an agent mishandled his case and so it didn’t get properly assessed.

“This has been a very difficult process,” Thuraisinkam told the Star through an interpreter. “I am so scared of being deported. I have some relief now. I am very grateful to the courts for saving me.”

In staying Thuraisinkam’s April 16 deportation, Federal Court Judge Sébastien Grammond said Canadian authorities have not yet assessed the risk the man would be facing upon returning to Sri Lanka by virtue of having been a passenger of the MV Sun Sea.

And that’s what Judge William Pentney at the same court had asked the Canada Border Services Agency to do in quashing an officer’s refusal to defer Thuraisinkam’s removal last year.

“It is curious, to say the least, that CBSA is attempting to remove him again when the issue highlighted by Justice Pentney has not yet been resolved,” Grammond wrote in his ruling released this week. 

Like all passengers on the MV Sun Sea, Thuraisinkam was detained for months by Canadian border officials and made a refugee claim based on the fear of persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka….

Source: Tamil refugee who arrived on MV Sun Sea granted stay of deportation

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Canada saw a plunge in new study permit approvals. Here’s what that could mean

2026/04/13 Leave a comment

Given that much of the increase and thus decrease happened in colleges with over aggressive recruitment practices and considerable fraud, the necessary correction will likely “dry out” the talent pipeline less than ApplyBoard estimates:

The number of new study permits approved for post-secondary international students in Canada dropped by 64 per cent last year — a crash that came amid a push to reduce the population of temporary residents in this country.

It’s a development that experts say risks drying out a much-needed pipeline of foreign talent with Canadian education and work experience.

According to the analysis, the Immigration Department processed 211,000 new post-secondary study permit applications in 2025 and approved just over 75,000, a drastic decline from 209,023 in 2024 and the peak of 435,345 in 2023.

It represented the lowest total in the past decade, even compared to the 92,132 new permits issued in 2020, when the system was upended initially by the COVID pandemic. Meanwhile, study permit extensions made up almost three-quarters of all permits approved for colleges and universities in 2025.

The drop in new post-secondary international enrolment will dry out the pipeline of talent, warned Meti Basiri, CEO of ApplyBoard, which released the report Thursday. A lack of Canadian education and work experience will reduce the number of candidates for permanent residence when students currently on extensions ultimately graduate….

Source: Canada saw a plunge in new study permit approvals. Here’s what that could mean

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Canada is repealing these three immigration programs and changing some work permit rules. Here’s what we know

2026/04/10 Leave a comment

Of note. While appears to be an effort at streamlining and simplification, devil will be in the details:

Ottawa is going to cancel Canada’s three core federal skilled immigration programs and streamline them into a single high-skilled immigration class.

The repeal of the existing programs — federal skilled workers, Canadian experience class and federal skilled trades — is among the six anticipated regulatory notices the Immigration Department posted online this week. They cover subjects ranging from streamlining study and work authorizations to asylum reforms and modernizing federal economic immigration.

Although these notices offer scant detail on the actual proposed amendments, they set out the direction of the changes under consideration by the federal government.

According to the latest annual immigration report to Parliament, 92,795 permanent residents were admitted under the three federal immigration programs in 2024. They made up almost a third of the 281,615 newcomers admitted under the economic class.

Although the programs each have their own eligibility criteria, candidates are managed in a talent pool where they receive points for education, work experience and language skills among other personal attributes. They are then ranked against one other and invited to submit permanent resident applications through periodic draws for respective programs.

In repealing the programs, the department’s regulatory notice said it will introduce a new “federal high skilled immigration class” with streamlined eligibility requirements.

“The proposed regulatory changes could positively impact the Canadian economy broadly, and businesses seeking skilled workers, by establishing a more diverse pool of international talent to fill a variety of labour market needs,” it said without elaboration.

“Streamlined requirements would also ensure that the system is easier for clients, employers and partners to understand and navigate.”

In addition, immigration officials would streamline study and work authorizations for foreign nationals in Canada by removing the co-op work permit requirement for international students and the study permit requirement for foreign apprentices….

Source: Canada is repealing these three immigration programs and changing some work permit rules. Here’s what we know

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