Des invités du PSTQ pourraient devoir quitter le Québec

2026/04/22 Leave a comment

As expected:

Sans nouvelle de leur dossier depuis plus de six mois, des « heureux élus » du Programme de sélection des travailleurs qualifiés (PSTQ) craignent de devoir retourner dans leur pays alors que leur permis de travail est sur le point d’expirer. À peine 110 certificats de sélection du Québec (CSQ) ont été délivrés alors que plus de 10 000 invitations ont été envoyées depuis juillet dernier, selon les données du ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration (MIFI)….

Des délais plus longs

Yves Martineau, coprésident de l’Association québécoise des avocats et avocates en droit de l’immigration, observe que le délai de traitement dépasse actuellement les six mois pour bon nombre de candidats invités à postuler au PSTQ, soit des délais qui sont en train de dépasser ceux des anciens programmes du Québec menant à la résidence permanente, notamment le Programme régulier des travailleurs qualifiés (PRTQ) et le PEQ. « La norme à laquelle on a été habitués pendant de très nombreuses années, je dirais même des décennies, c’était à l’intérieur d’un délai de six mois. »

Le MIFI s’engageait d’ailleurs à traiter dans les six mois le CSQ, engagement qui a pris fin en 2024. « Là, on est clairement au-dessus et ça entraîne des conséquences assez graves pour les travailleurs qui ont besoin d’un CSQ pour renouveler, et sur les entreprises qui ont besoin de ces travailleurs », constate Me Martineau….

Un goulot d’étranglement

À la mi-février, Le Devoir révélait que moins de cinq CSQ avaient été délivrés dans le cadre du PSTQ. Un mois plus tard, à la mi-mars, c’était 39.

D’après les explications du MIFI, on comprend qu’il y a un goulot d’étranglement, puisqu’il met aussi ses efforts à finaliser ceux du PEQ, du PRTQ et des programmes pilotes. Sans vouloir communiquer de délai moyen de délivrance d’un CSQ, le ministère affirme toutefois « travailler activement à renforcer sa capacité de traitement » des dossiers déposés dans le cadre du PSTQ.

Ces derniers sont traités selon le principe du « premier arrivé, premier servi », à partir de la date du dépôt du dossier complet.

Le ministère se dit conscient que des personnes pourraient voir leur permis temporaire expirer pendant le traitement de leur CSQ. Il avait d’ailleurs demandé à son homologue fédéral de prolonger les permis de travail, qu’ils soient ouverts ou fermés, pour les candidats ayant officiellement déposé leur dossier dans le cadre du PSTQ. Ottawa n’aurait acquiescé que pour les détenteurs de permis fermés. Le MIFI dit analyser différentes options « afin d’identifier des solutions ».

Source: Des invités du PSTQ pourraient devoir quitter le Québec

Without news of their file for more than six months, “happy elected officials” of the Skilled Worker Selection Program (PSTQ) fear having to return to their country when their work permit is about to expire. Barely 110 Quebec Selection Certificates (CSQ) have been issued while more than 10,000 invitations have been sent since last July, according to data from the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration (MIFI)….

Longer delays

Yves Martineau, co-president of the Association québécoise des avocats et avocates en droit de l’immigration, notes that the processing time currently exceeds six months for many candidates invited to apply to the PSTQ, which are deadlines that are in the process of exceeding those of the former Quebec programs leading to permanent residence, including the Regular Programme des travailleurs qualifiés (PRTQ) and the PEQ. “The norm we were used to for many years, I would even say decades, was within a period of six months. ”

The MIFI also committed to deal with the CSQ within six months, a commitment that ended in 2024. “There, we are clearly above and this leads to quite serious consequences for workers who need a CSQ to renew, and for companies that need these workers,” notes Me Martineau….

A bottleneck

In mid-February, Le Devoir revealed that less than five CSQs had been issued as part of the PSTQ. A month later, in mid-March, it was 39.

According to the MIFI’s explanations, we understand that there is a bottleneck, since it also makes efforts to finalize those of the PEQ, the PRTQ and the pilot programs. Without wanting to communicate an average time for the issuance of a CSQ, the ministry says, however, that it is “actively working to strengthen its processing capacity” of the files filed under the PSTQ.

The latter are treated according to the principle of “first come, first served”, from the date of submission of the complete file.

The ministry says it is aware that people may see their temporary permit expire during the processing of their CSQ. He had also asked his federal counterpart to extend work permits, whether open or closed, for candidates who had officially filed their application under the PSTQ. Ottawa would have agreed only for closed license holders. The MIFI says it analyzes different options “in order to identify solutions”.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Waiser: Politicians have recently taken to blaming immigrants. This isn’t a new trend in Canada

2026/04/21 Leave a comment

A bit too history based, where the Canadian record is mixed at best, and too little based on the nature of complaints which, in contrast to earlier periods, are based upon the practicalities of housing, healthcare and infrastructure, not xenophobia and racism:

…What Oliver and other commentators didn’t appreciate was that there were poets, thinkers, and musicians among the people who decided to make Canada their home. But outright prejudice effectively prevented them from realizing their true potential at the time. Today, many rightly complain that the Trudeau Liberals made a mess of Canada’s immigration program. But why blame recent immigrants who struggle to find a meaningful place in Canada?

They too face roadblocks, both real and unspoken, that limit their opportunities and hence their ability to contribute to the larger society. They did not leave behind another life on another continent just to become Amazon delivery drivers or fast-food servers.

Indeed, Canadians need to realize that these new immigrants are not any different from immigrants a century ago. Like earlier waves of immigrants, they have come to Canada for a better life – if not for themselves, then for their children and their children’s children.

And if we’re going to build a better Canada, build a better tomorrow, then we need to do it together. Blaming immigrants is not the way forward.

Bill Waiser is a Saskatoon-based historian and distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan.

Source: Politicians have recently taken to blaming immigrants. This isn’t a new trend in Canada

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

CIMM Report 5: Canada’s Immigration System

2026/04/21 Leave a comment

Reasonable set of recommendations by CIMM:

Recommendation 1:Increase Cost-of-Living Threshold for International Students

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada further increase the cost-of-living threshold for international students beyond the annual updates to the low-income cut-off amount established by Statistics Canada.

Recommendation 2: Introduce Random Audits and Clear Penalties for Designated Learning Institutions

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada introduce random audits for Designated Learning Institutions and clear penalties for Designated Learning Institution issuing misleading documents.

Recommendation 3: Establish Caps on International Students from Countries with High Rates of Permit Overstays or Asylum Claims in Canada

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada establish caps on study permits and study permit extensions to those applying as nationals from countries with a high rate of permit overstays or asylum claims.

Recommendation 4: Stricter Monitoring of Language Proficiency Requirements

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada monitor language proficiency requirements more strictly for international students’ study permit issuance.

Recommendation 5: Draft Plain-language International Student Program Rules and Expectations

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, with the provinces and territories, publish clear plain-language program rules and expectations for prospective international students and Canadians, including integrity measures, housing and support expectations, and that immigration pathways are competitive and not guaranteed; and, that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada require designated learning institutions to inform prospective international students of the same.

Recommendation 6: Consult with Provinces and Territories about Long-Term Plans for the International Student Program

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada consult more extensively with the provinces and territories about long-term plans for the International Student Program.

Recommendation 7: Expedite Graduate Student Study Permit Renewals

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada expedite the processing of study permit renewals for graduate students.

Recommendation 8: Defer to Provinces and Territories about Labour Market Needs when Deciding Study Programs Eligible for Post-Graduation Work Permits

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada defer to provinces and territories about labour market needs when setting the list of study programs eligible for post-graduation work permits.

Recommendation 9: Fund Centre for Excellence for International Education

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada help fund a centre for excellence for international education that brings together relevant international student data from all levels of government and that promotes research and policy innovation among stakeholders and governments within international student education.

Recommendation 10: Instruct Parliamentary Budget Officer to Analyze International Student Program and Study Permit Application Caps

That the Parliamentary Budget Officer undertake a comprehensive analysis of the International Student Program, including costing the effects of the study permit application caps on enrollment, housing, research and regional and national economic growth.

Source: CIMM Report 5: Canada’s Immigration System

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Signal49 (former Conference Board): From Newcomers to Game Changers

2026/04/21 Leave a comment

Summary of the latest report on over-education/skills mismatch:

  • Overeducation is the most pronounced form of skill underutilization for both immigrants and Canadian-born citizens. However, immigrants face this type of skill mismatch at 1.8 times the rate seen for their Canadian-born counterparts.
  • Involuntary part-time work is the second most pronounced type of skill underutilization in Canada, but immigrants fare worse again: They are 1.7 times more likely to experience this type of skill wastage than their Canadian-born counterparts.
  • While temporary employment is not a common type of skill underutilization in Canada, groups experience it differently. Immigrants are more likely to work in term and contract jobs, while Canadian-born citizens are more likely to work in seasonal jobs.
  • From 2022 to 2024, municipal progress in immigrant skill utilization was mixed. Most municipalities remain mid-range performers, with improvements in some and declines in others. Increasing immigrant skill utilization across Canada will require targeted interventions in lower-scoring municipalities.

Source: From Newcomers to Game Changers

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

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

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , , ,

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.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →