The Carney government will hold immigration levels steady in the coming three years, while also announcing it will add 200,000 permanent residence spots in 2027 for temporary migrants already established in Canada.
The economic class will make up 64.4 per cent of the targets, followed by those under family reunification (21.3 per cent) and the rest as resettled refugees, protected persons and on humanitarian grounds.
The budget said that level would be maintained through 2029, and that the number of temporary residents, including students and workers, will be held at 370,000 for the next three years.
The Liberal government has pledged to reduce the share of temporary residents to five per cent of the country’s population by the end of 2027. Yet, it still stood at 6.7 per cent as of July, with many stuck in the bottleneck for permanent residence, hanging on to the hope to stay for good.
Under tremendous pressure to fulfil that campaign promise, the new plan includes a one-time initiative to help as many as 200,000 people already living in Canada transition to permanent residence in 2027 — equally split between the worker and humanitarian streams. This will be on top of the 380,000 permanent resident targets in 2027.
“I would characterize that as an administrative clearing of the decks,” said Rick Lamanna of the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association. “These people in most cases have been here for quite a while, living in this temporary, suspended existence. They’ve been vetted. It’s good for them, it’s good for Canada.”
This also means Canada will see one of the largest admissions of permanent residents in history, totalling 580,000, said Ottawa-based immigration lawyer Cédric Marin.
“These are not new admissions,” he noted. “They’re people that are currently inside Canada, that are employed and (some) have a house. But it’s almost a way, in my view, to reduce the temporary resident population that they set themselves.”
Under the one-time measure, provinces will be able to identify workers who have already applied for permanent residence under select federal immigration programs, including the Atlantic immigration program and others that are closed to new applications such as the programs for start-up entrepreneurs, self-employed persons, agri-food workers and home care workers.
With the additional spaces, officials said they also hope to process all remaining applications under the permanent residence pathways for temporary residents from Hong Kong and those in the Ukraine family reunification program.
While this effort is welcomed, the Migrant Rights Network said the 200,000 additional permanent resident spots are a drop in the bucket, given the 2.15 million people who held work or study permits in Canada as of August 2026.
…Two cohorts, each made up of 100,000 temporary residents, will be given priority for permanent residency. A workers’ cohort will consist of those who applied for permanent residency through special immigration pathways such as the Start-up Visa Program, Home Care Worker pilot programs, Atlantic Immigration Program and the Agri-Food Pilot.
A humanitarian cohort will process all remaining applications in the Ukraine family reunification pathway and the Hong Kong permanent residents pathway. It will also prioritize permanent residency for spouses and children already living in Canada.
Many of the immigration pathways mentioned were suspended by the government in late 2025 because of processing backlogs. Last year’s immigration-levels plan also introduced an initiative to transition 115,000 temporary residents already in Canada to permanent status as well….
Odd commentary that suggests the author doesn’t fully understand the current process and requirements. Certainly, the header “asks too little in return” is one that I share but his specific recommendations in many respects are already in place (e.g., there is already a written attestation of the oath, which is of course a binding, albeit unenforced except through abiding by Canadian laws).
And always telling, when a lawyer states changes “cost little,” that they don’t appreciate the operational details and complexities (just as is the case for policy makers occasionally with C-3 being the latest example):
Canada is changing quickly, and the strain shows. Police-reported hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity have risen for six consecutive years, hate crimes targeting religion remain well above their 2020 level, and Canadians’ trust in one another has fallen from 54 per cent in 2013 to under 44 per cent today. These problems have many causes, and naturalization policy is clearly not the primary one. The issue is not immigration itself, but whether the process by which immigrants become citizens asks enough of them, and of us, in return.
Canada’s citizenship process asks immigrants to pass a test, pay a fee, and meet residency requirements. What it does not ask is the one thing that matters most: that they recognize Canada’s constitutional order as binding, conduct themselves within it, and take part in civic life through legitimate channels. That should worry us.
Since 1995, Canada has replaced the citizenship judge — who once interviewed every applicant — with a twenty-question multiple-choice test that can be easily memorized. The oath ceremony now often happens alone on a screen. An immigrant can clear every stage of naturalization without ever being asked to demonstrate that they understand, much less accept, the constitutional order and civic responsibilities of the country they are joining.
That is a mistake, and an avoidable one. Citizenship should be treated as a covenant, not a grant — a mutual bargain, not a gift with no strings attached. Canada offers immigrants membership in one of the world’s most prosperous, stable, rights-respecting societies. In return, it is entitled to ask that they recognize the country’s constitutional order as binding, resolve disagreements through Canada’s own institutions rather than import quarrels from abroad, and take part in civic life through legitimate channels. None of that means policing what anyone believes — only how they act.
Naturalization is the only moment Canada has real leverage to secure that covenant: the one point when an immigrant is actively asking the state for something. Once the oath is sworn, the leverage is gone. Yet Canada’s process checks residency, fees, and test scores — never recognition, conduct, or participation. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has even stopped tracking how many permanent residents goon to become citizens, in favour of measures that only show whether paperwork is moving.
A COVENANT, NOT A GRANT
Canada’s citizenship process asks too little in return. Other countries offer lessons, but none are perfect. The Netherlands built a genuinely substantive citizenship test, but let it fall unfairly on its most vulnerable applicants. Germany keeps its knowledge test modest and does the real work through a signed Declaration of Loyalty to the country’s constitutional order. Britain made its test harder without making it meaningful — a UK parliamentary committee has called it a “bad pub quiz.”
Canada has taken none of these lessons to heart. Ottawa should (my comments in italics):
• Tell applicants, from their very first contact with the citizenship process, what recognition, lawful conduct, and civic participation require — not wait until the oath to explain it. The website focuses on basic eligibility requirements and citizenship process, which then lead to the more substantive issues of rights and responsibilities. Arguably, could have a short intro on the importance and general substance.
• Rewrite the outdated Discover Canada guide around Canada’s constitutional order, not trivia and heritage narratives. Kind of funny reading this as Discover Canada, the 2009 study guide which, with some controversy, dramatically increased such references compared to the earlier guide, A Look at Canada. Is important for the guide not just to be a dry legal text but to capture some of the history and geography that help newcomers understand Canada better. Not all trivia.
• Require a real recognition interview for every applicant, not just the small minority who currently trigger one. Unrealistic, given the annual numbers. The test was introduced in 1995 given the impracticalities and costs of interviewing all applicants at a time when numbers were half compared to the present.
• Restore in-person citizenship ceremonies and rewrite the oath, with a signed declaration, to name what Canada actually requires. Agree on making in-person ceremonies the default (currently about half of all ceremonies). Current wording of oath covers the basics but certainly room for improvement but requires legislation. Applicants sign a written attestation already.
• Make IRCC report to Parliament on whether permanent residents are actually choosing to become citizens — not merely on how fast their applications move. This used to exist but was meaningless as the performance standard was not xx percent within 5-9 years since landing but from any period. Data published during regular census periods which has been informative. Agree should be in annual plan, but focus needs to be on recent immigrants.
Canada naturalized more than 359,000 people in 2024–25 alone. Every one of them passed through a process that never required them to demonstrate an understanding of the responsibilities that come with the Canadian passport they now hold. That moment, once gone, cannot be recovered. The reforms proposed above cost little and could be implemented quickly. What Canada cannot afford is to keep treating citizenship as paperwork to process rather than a covenant worth keeping.
Mark Musselman is a Toronto-based entertainment lawyer and PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law.
As expected but still early to know whether PBO and IRCC estimates of about 20,000 annually are accurate or low:
Interest in Canadian citizenship by descent among citizens in a handful of countries — especially the United States — surged after the federal government passed a new law clarifying the rules.
C-3, which took effect on Dec. 15, 2025, allows someone born outside Canada to a Canadian parent who also was born outside Canada to file a citizenship claim — as long as the parent spent at least three years in Canada before their child’s birth or adoption.
The law was drafted and passed in response to a 2023 Ontario Superior Court order that found a law on citizenship by descent passed by Stephen Harper’s government was unconstitutional.
That Harper-era law said Canadians who were born abroad could only pass down their citizenship if their children were born in Canada.
The Liberal government under then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, which did not appeal the 2023 ruling, faced a deadline to either pass legislation on new citizenship by descent rules or see the rules thrown out with no alternative.
Government officials, including then-immigration minister Marc Miller, told parliamentary committees studying the law that an unknown number of people would automatically become citizens without a legislated alternative in place.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reports receiving more than 12,000 citizenship by descent applications between Dec. 15, 2025 and the end of January.
While the December to January period saw a higher than normal number of applications, a department spokesperson said the government does not expect to see a “significant” uptick in applications.
The parliamentary budget officer estimated about 115,000 people would be eligible for citizenship under the bill.
The department approved almost 6,300 citizenship by descent applications between Dec. 15, 2025 and the end of January. Only 1,480 of them were approved under C-3; the remainder were approved through other laws.
U.S. citizens accounted for the largest national share of those applications. Nearly 2,500 Americans were approved in January alone.
Jacqueline Bart, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer, said there’s been a frenzy of interest among Americans looking to get a Canadian passport.
She said some of those applicants — including LGBTQ+ individuals and people with children requiring gender affirming medical care — are looking to move to Canada “right away.”
“It’s just been absolutely insane to the point where I can’t keep up with the work. I’m having to refer people to other lawyers,” Bart said.
Bart said while most of the inquiries are coming from lawyers looking for access to a second passport, she is beginning to get more inquiries from non-lawyers in the U.S.
“I think some of our inquiries are kind of spilling over into a more general sphere,” she said. “But the overwhelming majority of my clients are American. I would say maybe five per cent come from other countries, at most.”
While January 2026 saw a higher-than-average number of American citizenship by descent approvals, it only ranked third in terms of U.S. approvals in a single month in the last year. March 2025 saw more than 2,800 approvals out of the United States, while May saw almost 2,700.
The number of approvals from the U.K. — the country with the second highest level of interest in Canadian citizenship by descent — was also above average in January, at 290.
People from France saw 140 approvals in January. Other countries in the top 10 for citizenship by descent approvals include China, Hong Kong, India, Australia, the Philippines, the U.A.E. and Germany — they ranged between 75 and 120 approvals in January.
The vast majority of countries outside the top 10 saw no significant shifts in approval numbers — with the exceptions of Mexico and Belize.
Mexico was the source of 235 approved applications for citizenship by descent in January 2026; Mexican citizens received 610 approvals in all of 2025. Ninety applications out of Mexico were approved in December 2025 — a notable jump over the 2025 monthly average of 50 citizenship approvals.
While Belize accounted for only 45 approvals throughout 2025, it registered 40 in January of this year alone.
The immigration department issued about 82,500 approvals for citizenship by descent throughout 2025, with the United States generating the most — about 24,500 approvals.
The other countries in the top 10 accounted for only a combined 11,600 approvals in 2025.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2026.
Having campaigned on and won re-election with immigration as a top issue, President Donald Trump has kept it at center stage in the first year of his second term. Immediately upon returning to office, the administration advanced sweeping changes to immigration policy, unprecedented in their breadth and reach. These changes have made the United States more hostile to unauthorized immigrants while also altering how the government treats immigration and immigrants of all legal statuses and the communities in which they live. The impacts on individuals, families, workplaces, and the nation’s overall economic outlook and global standing will be felt for years ahead.
While some efforts have stalled or not yet met the White House’s lofty goals, the administration has dramatically reshaped the machinery of government to target unauthorized immigrants in the country, deter unauthorized border arrivals, make the status of many legally resident immigrants more tenuous, and impose obstacles for lawful entry of large swaths of international travelers and would-be immigrants. These changes could set the course for reduced family, humanitarian, and employment-based immigration in the future, while also driving key aspects of U.S. foreign policy.
To accomplish the administration’s mass deportation goal, Trump advisor Stephen Miller and other aides dismantled longstanding norms. The White House invoked archaic statutes, enlisted support from state and local law enforcement as well as federal agencies that historically had no immigration enforcement role, and pressured foreign governments to receive deportees. Perhaps most visibly, it militarized immigration enforcement: Scenes of troops and masked federal agents roaming U.S. streets, lobbing tear gas and in some cases violently—and even fatally—subduing individuals, have garnered global attention and profoundly changed how many residents go about their daily lives. Among other changes, some U.S. citizens now feel compelled to carry identification with them at all times.
The administration has leaned heavily on executive action rather than seeking legislative change in Congress. As of January 7, Trump had signed 38 executive orders related to immigration, accounting for nearly 17 percent of the 225 total orders signed so far during his first year, which is more than the 220 executive orders signed during his entire first term. The administration also ushered in hundreds of other actions via presidential proclamations and policy guidance that have had profound impacts on immigration policy. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates that the Trump administration in the first year of its second term took more than 500 actions on immigration, surpassing the 472 actions over all four years of Trump’s first term.
While some elements of the administration’s approach mirror policies of the prior term, albeit at far greater scale and scope, the changes of the last year have been arguably more impactful than any during the first term. Administration officials appear to have learned from their first-term experience and have also benefited from a much more sympathetic Congress and Supreme Court. Indeed, Congress in July provided the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with a staggering $170 billion to upscale over Trump’s second term what was already the world’s largest detention and deportation machinery. And the Supreme Court has greenlit several high-profile actions, including revoking Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from about 600,000 Venezuelans, although it blocked the administration from deporting noncitizens without due process and did not allow deployment of the National Guard for immigration enforcement. Key questions on birthright citizenship and other immigration policies are yet to be resolved.
The net change has been dizzying in its scope and speed. After the administration further shut down access to asylum, unauthorized arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border plummeted to the lowest levels since the 1970s. This development has allowed the administration to shift its focus largely to unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, whom MPI estimates numbered 13.7 million as of mid-2023. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests have more than quadrupled since Trump took office, while average daily detention has doubled. On December 19, DHS said that 622,000 noncitizens had been deported since Trump took office, a high—but not historic—number. It is below the 778,000 repatriations carried out in the final full fiscal year of the Biden administration, and well short of the Trump team’s pledge of 1 million deportations per year. The administration’s deportation number likely includes noncitizens turned away at U.S. borders and at airports; limited release of immigration enforcement data means it is unclear who is being counted and how. While the administration claims 1.9 million people have “self-deported” during that same period, it has not provided any data, including on use of the CBP Home app, through which immigrants are offered a free flight and $1,000 payment if they return to their origin country.
The hardline approach has extended to many lawfully present immigrants and those aspiring to come legally. The administration has stripped temporary legal protections from more than 1.5 million humanitarian parolees, nearly completely halted refugee resettlement, and severely restricted access to asylum. It has also erected obstacles and therefore slowed the granting of lawful permanent residence, temporary visas, and U.S. citizenship. International students and scholars have been targeted for expressing their political opinions, many newcomers face extensive vetting of their social media activity and medical history, and hefty new fees and visa bonds have caused some would-be immigrants and visitors to rethink plans to come to the United States. Slower legal immigration will likely affect labor markets, local economies, and the broader economic outlook for years to come, with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and the Congressional Budget Office already reporting negative effects and potential future implications.
This article reviews the changes to U.S. immigration policy during the first year of the second Trump term….
Watched this brutal exchange. Her name comes up periodically as someone who may be shuffled and her appearance yesterday may increase speculation. That being said, MP Rempel Garner is somewhat of a bulldog in her questioning.
As to DM Kochhar’s letter asking MPs to be more respectful of public servants in their questioning, and to be mindful of the risks of posting edited clips that target them, I recall former DM Fadden having the same concerns some 15 years ago or so, albeit in a safer social media environment:
Immigration Minister Lena Diab sparred with her Conservative critic at a tense House of Commons committee meeting Thursday as the two disagreed on everything from immigration levels and deporting non-citizen criminals to what kind of salad they prefer.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner put Diab in the hot seat throughout her two-hour committee appearance, grilling Diab about her file and accusing her of being “a very bad minister” when she struggled to give a clear answer on whether she will use powers under the government’s pending C-12 legislation to mass extend temporary visas.
A section in that bill gives the government the ability to stop accepting applications or cancel, suspend or change documents for an entire immigration class — something critics on both sides of the issue say could be abused either to turbocharge the number of newcomers or cancel visas en masse.
Asked if she plans to use that power to keep more people in Canada rather than expelling them when their visas expire, Diab said “that’s not the purpose” of the legislation but wouldn’t say how it would be used.
A frustrated Rempel Garner interrupted Diab.
“When you ask a question I think you should be able to have decency to let someone respond,” Diab said.
“I don’t like your word salad, it’s true. You are a very bad minister,” Rempel Garner said.
“You know what, I prefer fattoush and tabouleh to your salad, at any time,” Diab said.
“That is the oddest thing any immigration minister has said at this committee. It’s very weak and will likely be added to your performance reviews,” Rempel Garner said.
“It’s my culture,” said Diab, who is Lebanese Canadian.
At one point, another Liberal MP, Peter Fragiskatos, stepped in as the two exchanged words.
Rempel Garner said she wasn’t speaking to him about these issues.
“He’s going to have your job,” she said to Diab of Fragiskatos, suggesting the minister was about to be shuffled out of cabinet. “I’ll likely be having this conversation with him in a couple of months.”
Rempel Garner also asked Diab about some recent non-citizen criminals getting more lenient sentences so they can avoid deportation.
The man was ultimately sentenced to a conditional discharge for committing an indecent act and was sentenced to 12 months of probation, including three months of house arrest. Rempel Garner said the man should have been dealt with more harshly by the courts and ultimately deported.
Asked if she will send a message to judges that are letting non-citizen criminals off easy to avoid being forced out of Canada, Diab said that’s not her role.
“Sentencing decisions are made independently by the courts,” she said, while assuring the Conservative critic the government will remove foreign criminals when appropriate.
“The courts have already indicated that serious offences will be dealt with seriously,” Diab said, while adding she wasn’t familiar with the case Rempel Garner raised.
“Can’t you just say it’s wrong and we’ll look into it?” Rempel Garner asked in return. “You just defended a guy who sexually assaulted somebody. It’s rampant in our justice system.”
“A wise person once told me you debate the issues and the policy and you don’t debase the individual,” he said, urging his colleagues to follow that mantra.
Deputy minister cites cases of bullying
The meeting started with the committee chair, Julie Dzerowicz, reading a letter from Diab’s deputy minister — the top bureaucrat in the department — saying some public servants have been subjected to bullying and intimidation after appearing before the committee.
That letter, written by Harpreet Kochhar, relayed that some unnamed politicians have posted videos of the public servants testifying at the committee, and they have been targeted online and in person as a result.
Dzerowicz said Kochhar was concerned about the “well-being” of these government workers who he said have endured “significant harassment and abuse” and “hostile emails.”
The letter, shared with CBC News, relays Kochhar’s fear that MPs posting “short, decontextualized clips of committee appearances” by bureaucrats could lead to violence.
“One of our colleagues was recently confronted in a public space by an angry individual referencing material shared online,” Kochhar wrote.
“I want to implore all committee members from all parties to be very cognizant of how we use the information from this committee, whether it’s online or offline,” Dzerowicz said, adding she doesn’t want appearing before a committee to be a “security risk.”
Rempel Garner said Kochhar was trying to “censor” Conservatives and stop them from questioning the department about what she described as a failed immigration policy.
“I will not be silenced,” she said, saying she will fight to get the government to “do the right thing” on this file.
“Giddy up,” she said.
Diab was ostensibly before the committee to talk about the government’s immigration targets for the coming years — figures that were included in the recent federal budget, an unusual move given they are generally delivered publicly by the minister….
Will be interesting to what role the Bloc plays in committee. May well end up with the committee making amendments and the government and NDP rejecting all as was the case with C-3:
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner said Thursday she plans to try and “amend the heck” out of the government’s border security bill, Bill C-12, with a host of measures targeting the asylum system.
Her proposed changes include disallowing asylum claims from people who transited through Europe or another G7 country on their way to Canada and denying access to social benefits, except emergency medical treatment, for those with a failed asylum claim.
“I think Canadians want some change in this regard. Canada’s system for allowing and accepting asylum claims is pretty generous,” Rempel Garner said at a press conference on Parliament Hill.
“So somebody who’s failed a review, I think it’s fair that the only federal benefits that they receive is emergency health care and I think a lot of Canadians would agree.”
Rempel Garner said she also plans to propose changes to speed up the deportation of non-citizens if they are convicted of a crime or if their pre-removal risk assessment isn’t successful.
This includes clarifying the definition of “serious criminality” in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to be a conviction of an indictable offence, or a hybrid offence where the Crown proceeded with an indictable charge.
Rempel Garner also said she will propose a ban on repeat pre-removal risk assessments if the initial one fails unless new evidence of changed circumstances is presented.
She said increased rates of permanent and temporary immigration, in addition to increased asylum claims, have “broken” Canada’s system and contributed to declining support for immigration.
“I think everybody in Canada, (of) every political stripe, should be deeply concerned with public polling data that shows that Canadians are losing faith in the immigration system,” Rempel Garner said. …
…Fen Hampson, president of the World Refugee & Migration Council, said “there are arguments to be made for tightening up the system to prevent abuses but by the same token you don’t want to swing wildly in the opposite direction.”
He said banning people from claiming asylum who had passed through an EU or G7 country would bar Canada from accepting people fleeing war-torn states who, for practical reasons, have to pass through Europe to get to Canada.
“You are likely going to have to stop somewhere on your way to Canada and it may be a few days or it may be more than that,” he said. “Few asylum seekers can book a ticket to fly directly to Canada.”
The border and immigration bill – known as Bill C-12 – will be considered clause by clause next week by MPs on the public safety committee.
Ms. Rempel Garner told a press conference on Thursday that her party will table their amendments then. One would end federal benefits for failed claimants of asylum, beyond emergency health care…
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.
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.” …
The Liberals and NDP, along with government officials, are right to raise concerns regarding the amended Bill’s requirement for knowledge and language assessment along with security and criminality checks as these would likely not survive legal challenges.
However, there is no such impediment to the amendment requiring the residency requirement of 1,095 days within a five year period prior to the birth of a child. Nor is there any such impediment for requiring annual reports on the number of Canadians claiming their citizenship under the Bill’s provisions:
The Liberals and NDP are pushing for a citizenship bill to move forward without Conservative changes that would require security screening and language checks before children born abroad to foreign-born Canadians could qualify for a passport.
Earlier this month, Conservatives, with the support of the Bloc Québécois, voted through a raft of changes to the government’s proposed legislation, known as Bill C-3.
The bill aims to reverse a change by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in 2009 that stripped people born into this situation, who are often known as Lost Canadians, of their automatic right to citizenship.
But the Conservative amendments to the Liberal bill – expected to go to a vote on Monday – would make people aged 18 to 54 clear several hurdles in order to inherit Canadian citizenship, putting them on roughly even ground with immigrants seeking citizenship.
They would have to pass an English or French language test, be subject to security screening to check for criminal activity, and pass a citizenship test demonstrating knowledge of Canadian history.
Bill C-3 requires Canadian parents born abroad to demonstrate a substantial connection to Canada before they can pass on citizenship to a child born outside the country. They would need to spend a cumulative 1,095 days – the equivalent of three years – in Canada before the birth or adoption of the child seeking citizenship.
The Conservative changes would require the 1,095 days to be consecutively spent in Canada within five years, and not made up of a few weeks, months or days over many years. …
From my friends at ICC. Courage and optimism are characteristic of immigrants:
As Canada risks losing more immigrants amid a rising cost of living, a new report finds the biggest factors in whether newcomers stay aren’t just financial.
While housing and affordability remain top concerns, a new survey of nearly 5,000 immigrants finds newcomers are far more likely to stay in Canada if they feel hopeful about their future and connected to the country, according to a report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship on Tuesday.
Optimism about the future – measured by immigrants’ confidence in their personal and family prospects, plans for long-term life in Canada and belief that friends and family can succeed here – is the strongest driver of immigrant retention, with just a one per cent increase in optimism boosting the likelihood of staying by 28 per cent.
A one per cent increase in a sense of belonging – measured by identifying as Canadian, feeling accepted in Canada, trusting other Canadians and believing that the country provides good opportunities for one’s family – increases the likelihood to stay by 25 per cent.
The same increase in safety and stability raises the likelihood of a newcomer staying permanently by 16 per cent, and an uptick in economic optimism adds 15 per cent.
New immigration targets are expected to cut Canada’s population growth by 1.4 million over the next three years, with permanent resident admissions dropping from 464,265 in 2024 to 365,000 in 2027, leading to 1.3 billion fewer hours worked, according to Canada’s parliamentary budget officer.
“Immigrants are hand-selected to address Canada’s most pressing needs and so each one that leaves is a great loss,” Bernhard said. “The needs they were brought here to fill do not leave with them.”
One in five immigrants who come to Canada ultimately leave the country within 25 years, with about one-third of those people moving on within the first five years, according to a November report from the ICC.
The report found that economic immigrants and francophones are the most likely to leave – the two categories of immigrants Canada prioritizes most.
The ICC is calling on policymakers to increase immigrant retention through targeted investments in domains that help build connection and optimism, including “initiatives that support newcomer skills development and labour market integration” and “activities that connect immigrant families and friends to each other and to other Canadians, building community, inclusion and belonging.”
“We know immigrants are leaving Canada, but until today, policymakers had very little evidence to guide investments in retention,” Bernhard said.
The survey shows that “making people feel at home, feel welcome, feel Canadian, feel attached to this place and to these people is more than just a nice thing we do for our newest neighbours,” he added.
“It’s a key growth and success strategy for the community.”
Safer area for Conservatives to attack and immigration critic Rempel Garner is having fun tweeting examples of TFWs in low-skilled service jobs. The excesses need to be trimmed and Canadian employers should not rely on TFWs to the same extent as cheaper labour or avoiding more investment in technology. Expect the provinces will also push back given the views of their business communities.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on Mark Carney’s Liberals to ditch the federal government’s decades-old temporary foreign worker program, taking a harder stance against a program he’s previously said should be reduced, not axed outright.
The reason why, Poilievre said Wednesday, is because of worsening youth unemployment, rather than a Liberal-induced “immigration crisis” he has claimed has weakened both the economy and security of the country.
“The individual temporary foreign workers, the workers themselves, they are not bad people. They are not the problem. They are being taken advantage of by Liberal corporate leaders who want to use them to drive down wages,” Poilievre said at a news conference in Mississauga.
“We continue to support the dream of all immigrants to Canada, the immigrants who come here to be Canadian to get a job, work hard, contribute and live a good life that is part of the Canadian promise, and that is not what we’re addressing here today.”
Experts, however, warn that the Conservative leader’s framing is misleading, and promotes beliefs that foreign workers are a prominent threat to Canadian jobs.
The long-standing temporary foreign worker program allows Canadian companies to hire foreign nationals for temporary positions, as long as employers complete a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) to demonstrate the need for a temporary worker and that no local Canadians or permanent residents can fill the role. Through its various streams, the program has been lauded as a way to address labour shortages, but has also become a magnet for criticisms that it exposes workers to exploitation and abuse.
During this year’s spring campaign, Poilievre pledged in his platform to “restore order to immigration” in part by “dramatically reducing the number of temporary workers.”
On Wednesday, his party called on Ottawa to permanently end the program, cease issuing visas for new workers, create a separate program for “legitimately difficult-to-fill agricultural labour,” and to wind down the program more slowly in “ultra-low-unemployment regions.”
Tim Powers, chair of public affairs firm Summa Strategies, said Poilievre’s tougher position and shift in tone suggests he is seizing on Canadians’ economic fears while also avoiding turning away more immigrant communities who could join his coalition of Conservatives.
“It isn’t so much about what the program actually does. It’s what he thinks it represents to Canadians, this narrative that their jobs are being taken from them, and young people don’t get the opportunity to do work because temporary foreign workers are replacing them,” Powers said.
At a cabinet retreat in Toronto, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he believed the program still had a place in his policy book and said he would assess how well the program was working.
“When I talk to businesses around the country … their number 1 issue is tariffs, and their number 2 issue is access to temporary foreign workers,” Carney told reporters.
But the Conservative leader, citing a youth unemployment rate that has climbed to 14.6 per cent, rolled out a series of claims about the program to justify his ask.
“The Liberals promised they would cap the temporary foreign worker program at 82,000, but in the first six months, they’ve already handed out 105,000 permits,” Poilievre said.
….According to federal data, Canada set a target to admit 82,000 new arrivals through the program this year.
But Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said Poilievre’s 105,000 figure does not “represent new arrivals to the country” and includes permit extensions for people already in Canada.
“Between January and June 2025, 33,722 new workers entered Canada through this program, which is roughly 40 per cent of the total volume expected this year,” a spokesperson for the department said in an email.
Despite Poilievre’s focus on the economic impacts of the program, some economists and immigration experts expressed concern about that the Conservative leader’s comments could still feed into the belief that migrant workers steal jobs.
“It is wrong to suggest that migrant labour is a major source of the problems Canadian workers are experiencing today — which are the result, first and foremost, of (U.S. President) Donald Trump’s tariff attacks, lingering high interest rates, the decline of high-wage industrial jobs, and government austerity in some provinces,” said Jim Stanford, economist and director of the think tank Centre for Future Work.
Stanford also emphasized that the program Poilievre is targeting only makes up a small share of the workforce and should not be confused with foreign workers under the substantially larger International Mobility Program, which includes international students.
Stanford said Poilievre’s claim that temporary foreign workers now make up two per cent of Canada’s workforce is inaccurate.
According to government data on the program, there were approximately 191,000 work permit holders in total in 2024, “less than one per cent of the workforce,” Stanford said. …
