Immigration article of interest March 2026

Articles and opinions related to immigration that I found of interest in March (bit overly long):

• IRCC Management/OAG International Students
• General
• Quebec perspectives
• Refugees and Asylum Seekers
• Other

IRCC Management/OAG International Students

Understandably, considerable coverage and commentary over the lack of management and integrity of the international student program contained in the OAG report. A key question, which we will probably never know for sure, is whether public service identified risks to the political level, and if so, was any critical advice toned down, and if so how much, as it moved up to the deputy level. And of course while the federal government is responsible, this does not let provincial governments, education institutions and business communities for pushing for higher levels:

Canada’s international student program blasted by auditor for failing to address ‘integrity concerns’

Canada’s Immigration Department failed to crack down on study permit applicants and holders flagged for potential fraud and non-compliance — and did not even know if those with expired permits had left the country, a government audit has found.

Between 2023 and 2024, more than 153,000 post-secondary international students were identified as potentially non-compliant with study permit rules, but officials had funding to probe only 2,000 cases annually, according to a report released Monday by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

The department began 4,057 investigations, but 41 per cent of these cases could not be closed because the students did not respond; another 50 cases were identified as non-compliant and requiring further follow-up.

“While there were some adjustments made to improve the integrity of the program, what’s concerning for me is that the department isn’t acting on the information that it has,” Auditor General Karen Hogan told a news conference.

“There are so many things that were raised by the department themselves, and then no follow-through.”

The international student program has been under close scrutiny since 2023, when borders reopened after the pandemic and international enrolment surged past one million. Runaway growth in the temporary resident population — including foreign workers and asylum seekers — was blamed for the affordable housing crisis, straining public resources such as health care and rising unemployment.

It prompted then prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government to cap the number of international student applications and reduce new study permits issued by 35 per cent in 2024 and another 10 per cent in 2025. New measures were also introduced to tighten eligibility for postgraduation work permits, address fraud and strengthen program integrity.

The audit findings, however, don’t appear to help boost public confidence in these reforms.

“There’s enough to still frighten people about what’s going on and question the integrity of our immigration system,” said York University Prof. Roopa Trilokekar, who focuses on government policy on international education.

The fast-growing international student program was the result of aggressive recruiting by the post-secondary education sector due to years of provincial underfunding and by unregulated foreign agents looking to profit from signing up students.

Under Ottawa’s two-step immigration pathways that favour applicants with Canadian education credentials and work experience, migrants increasingly look at studying in Canada as a back door to working and earning permanent residence here.

According to the audit, officials identified 800 approved study permits issued between 2018 and 2023 where applicants had either used fraudulent documentation or misrepresented information to gain entry to Canada. Most of them later applied for other immigration permits once in the country, and half have been approved.

“The absence of having a warning or something on their file to say fraudulent documentation or misrepresentation was used in the initial application means you weren’t able to then apply rigour on the second application,” Hogan cautioned….

Source: Canada’s international student program blasted by auditor for failing to address ‘integrity concerns’

Globe editorial: Ottawa hasn’t learned its lesson on immigration

…Lena Metlege Diab, the immigration minister, has said she accepts the Auditor-General’s recommendations. She needs to clearly articulate a path to return the international student program to its original purpose – not as a ticket to citizenship, but to allow foreigners to study here temporarily. 

Canada shouldn’t promote study permits as a pathway to permanent residency, and it should restrict the hours students can work off-campus. While the lax issuing of student visas in recent years has been useful to employers seeking low-cost labour, and post-secondary institutions keen to fill budget holes, it has distorted the program.

The immigration department needs to be able to quickly root out cases of misuse and fraud to ensure the system’s integrity. This requires closer scrutiny of renewals of people already in the country and better coordination with the CBSA.

After years of mismanagement of the immigration file, the Liberals have lost any benefit of the doubt. Immigration is an essential ingredient in Canada’s success, but it can’t be run on the honour system.

Source: Ottawa hasn’t learned its lesson on immigration

With hindsight, former immigration minister says he would have capped international students sooner

Justice Minister Sean Fraser, who was in charge of immigration during some of the years Auditor General Karen Hogan found instances of fraud in Canada’s international student program, said with hindsight, he would have acted sooner to fundamentally change it.

The Opposition Conservatives have been calling for his resignation, along with that of current Immigration Minister Lena Diab and Fraser’s immediate successor Marc Miller, from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet.

“With the benefit of hindsight, I would have liked to actually change the program fundamentally and say the federal government is placing a cap on this, and letting provinces allocate their share of the cap to different institutions,” Fraser told CBC News on Wednesday.

However, he also said the federal government was negotiating as part of “a good-faith relationship with the provinces who were requesting additional access to immigration programs at the time.”…

Source: With hindsight, former immigration minister says he would have capped international students sooner

General

Clark: Time to plan for the return of sane immigration

Reasonable and need for a longer term immigration and population policy, one that avoids the mistakes of the “more the merrier” approach that got us here:

…Most importantly, the system to select economic immigrants, which should aim to recruit highly productive newcomers that raise Canada’s standard of living, has been balkanized with a series of programs to fill alleged labour shortages, often with lower-wage workers.

Immigration means recruiting a big part of the population of the future. It can make the lives of Canadians born today dramatically richer or poorer. 

Now, the recruitment is essentially on hold – probably for two more years. The short-term goal is to pause population growth. In the meantime, there is a compelling need to focus on what immigration should be over the long term, and plan for it. 

The country is going to need it.

Source: Time to plan for the return of sane immigration

Globe editorial: The two Tory mindsets on immigration

Captures the dynamic:

…But if the Conservatives need added motivation, here are two: the demagogic tone makes it all too easy for the Liberals to ignore the long list of reforms that the Opposition has proposed, and makes it much harder for any centrist voter to contemplate supporting the Tories.

Many of the reforms proposed by the Conservatives are worth debate, including but not limited to: closing a loophole that courts have used to avoid the deportation of migrants convicted of serious criminal offences; barring asylum claims from anyone who is a national of the European Union or a G7 country, or who transited through such a country to come to Canada; and greater transparency from the immigration system. The party does not lack for ideas; it does not need to indulge in weak rhetorical legerdemain.

And there’s no need to confect issues if embarrassing the Liberals is your goal; the unadorned facts will get the job done. Such as the backlog of asylum claims sitting at 299,960 at the end of January, down fractionally from the record high of 300,154 at the end of 2025. At that rate, the backlog should be cleared sometime in 2155.

What has happened that one-sixth of all new asylum claims in 2025 were from just one country, India – a flawed democracy, but a democracy nonetheless? Why is it that asylum claims from India have surged from 379 in 2015 to 17,835 last year, an astonishing 4,505 per cent rise? And why is it that just 22 per cent of asylum claims from Indian nationals that were finalized in 2025 were successful, about a third of the overall success rate?

Those questions, and many others on the immigration file, are serious issues that the Liberals should be compelled to address. The thoughtful Conservative Party could do that, if the rage-baiting Conservative Party would just get out of the way.

Source: The two Tory mindsets on immigration

Rempel Garner: Big Immigration must be reined in. Parliamentary power must be restored.

General tendency over the years to diminish the distinction between citizens and non-citizens (e.g., public service employment, Iranian victims of Iran’s shooting down of a Ukrainian airline) but agree that this decision goes too far and will likely further reduce public confidence in immigration:

…But given the hull-buckling groans emanating from most Canadian social welfare programs, the deep deficits most Canadian governments are running, and the disarray that Canada’s immigration system is already in, Prime Minister Mark Carney has a duty to prevent ideologically-homogenous activists from using the Kanyinda framework to block reasonable reforms or make the system even more dysfunctional than it already is.

There are many other reasons to prevent further blurring of the distinction between citizen and non-citizen using the Kanyinda framework. It will be virtually impossible for any level of government to disincentivize abuse of the asylum system if there are endless legal options for unverified claimants (or outright fraudsters) to access social services they were never intended to receive. Blurred boundaries on who is eligible to receive benefits will, beyond the obvious sustainability problems, make it even harder to prioritize those truly vulnerable groups.

For many members of the public, this lack of distinction will be perceived as a lack of fairness. In turn, there will be even less public appetite to extend social welfare benefits to asylum claimants, or for immigration writ large. Further legal erosion of the difference between citizen and non-citizen will only serve to continue to diminish the value of Canadian citizenship and accelerate the fragmentation of our already diffuse national identity.

Perhaps most importantly, Kanyinda adds a thick layer of judicial overreach to an existing spread of rulings that have already severely eroded both Parliamentary supremacy in setting immigration law and the federal government’s ability to enforce it. Changes in 2012, which prevented non-citizens who made fraudulent asylum claims from receiving taxpayer-funded supplemental health benefits (like vision care) while awaiting removal from the country, were almost immediately struck down by the Federal Court (R. v. Pham, 2013 SCC 15). This led to the now-frequent practice of judges giving more lenient sentences to non-citizens convicted of serious crimes in order to avoid consequences for their immigration status.

Parliamentary Committee testimony during the review of the immigration provisions in the current Bill C-12 suggested its reforms would immediately be challenged in court by Big Immigration. Justice Wagner’s tone in Kanyinda suggests that this lobby will be successful. Allowing this trend to go unchecked by the federal government will only further engrain the Canadian public’s sense that they are losing control, and in turn, further erode support for immigration. It will also suggest that the federal Liberals’ willingness to prevent asylum system abuse only goes so far as the court’s willingness to accept their reforms.

At present, Canadian immigration law and Canadian public support for immigration is predicated upon the principle that it is legal, fair and necessary to treat different non-citizens differently than citizens for the purposes of immigration selection and entry into Canada. This concept is reinforced by Section 91(25) of the Constitution Act, 1867, which gives Canada’s Parliament the main power to set immigration laws.

And so the public expects that they can turn to and rely on the federal government and Parliament to both support a strong Canadian national identity, manage a fair and orderly immigration system, and secure our nation’s borders. But the Kanyinda framework shows that Canada’s Supreme Court is willing to fixate on the increasingly tone-deaf voices of Big Immigration and directly challenge these foundational principles.

The Charter has a built-in fail-safe for potential extreme situations such as these, and the government and Parliament have other tools at their disposal to rein in an overzealous judiciary.

It’s now up to Mark Carney to provide clarity on how much more judicially-inspired immigration dysfunction his government will tolerate before he directs it to act.

Let’s pray that his patience has boundaries, and that the judiciary and Big Immigration doesn’t further test their limits.

Source: Big Immigration must be reined in. Parliamentary power must be restored.

Douglas Todd: B.C. voices did speak up against Trudeau’s migration policies, but were ignored

Unclear how much of this commentary made it into ministerial briefing material (my assumption is that some of it did):

…At least a dozen noted people responsibly ignored the Canadian taboo against criticizing Ottawa’s immigration policy — and ran the risk of being labelled “xenophobic,” “racist” or “nativist” by the Liberals and their allies.

They included some of the labour economists McCallum consulted a decade ago, such as the University of B.C.’s David Green, Carleton University’s Christopher Worswick and Waterloo’s Mikal Skuterud.

In 2016 Green, Worswick and UBC’s Craig Riddell published an important article in Policy Options, which was highlighted by Postmedia. They were critical of then-immigration minister Ahmed Hussen, who was trumpeting his “ambitious plan” to drastically increase migration rates to build the economy. The economists cautioned that “immigration cannot be relied upon as a source of higher per capita incomes.”

Again, in 2019, Green expanded upon his remarks, saying the rapid rise in low-skilled workers entering Canada would likely lower the earnings of existing workers.

In 2017 Simon Fraser University political scientist Sanjay Jeram, along with former immigration department official Andrew Griffith, flagged that a national debate was needed on immigration economics. Jeram said Canadians’ individual financial well-being would shrink as corporations brought in low-skill immigrants to make up for alleged labour shortages.

“Earlier, in 2016, SFU economist Herb Grubel had cautioned high migration rates were not compatible with welfare societies, ultimately imposing a “fiscal burden” on taxpayers.

By 2021, the newly retired head of B.C.’s civil service, Don Wright, took advantage of his new-found freedom to write that Ottawa’s immigration policies were contributing greatly to the abandonment of the “broad middle-classes, by allowing real wages to stagnate.”

By last year, when Trudeau resigned after plummeting popularity, Canada’s GDP per capita, which measures economic growth per person, had dismally inched up only two per cent in a decade. In the same period, U.S. GDP per capita jumped 20 per cent.

International student alarms

As the Liberals were cranking up the number of foreign students, Kwantlen’s Polytechnic University’s Shinder Purewal told Postmedia in 2016 that Canada was marketing study visas around the world, creating a giant for-profit business, with hidden costs to taxpayers.”

“The University of Toronto’s Jane Knight, a specialist in higher education, was cited by Postmedia in 2013, saying Canada’s foreign-student programs were already losing their humanitarian ideals, becoming fixated on “self-interest” and “prestige-building.”

While politicians and post-secondary officials applauded how foreign students spent on retail goods and rent and created teaching jobs, most scholars harbouring critical thoughts felt it safer to stay quiet.

By 2019, however, B.C. immigration lawyer Sam Hyman and consultant Laleh Sahba were among those telling Postmedia how uneasy they were about a Statistics Canada report that up to one in three study-visa holders were not going to school. They described how many international students were being advised by dubious agents they could bypass school to work in Canada while pursuing the dream of permanent resident status…

Source: Douglas Todd: B.C. voices did speak up against Trudeau’s migration policies, but were ignored

Quebec perspectives

Lisée | Enfin, la pause démographique!

Not surprising that Lisée would take this position but it has been increasingly made in English Canada as well:

…Oui, mais la croissance ? Des économistes estiment que tout cela va réduire la croissance du produit intérieur brut total. Les organisations patronales affirment que tout cela est une catastrophe pour les entreprises, car l’augmentation de leur production est freinée par leur incapacité d’importer des salariés. En effet, mais cela les force à se tourner vers l’augmentation de leur productivité, l’automation et la robotisation. Ce faisant, la richesse totale n’augmente pas aussi vite, mais la richesse par habitant, oui. Pour résumer : si vous êtes un produit intérieur brut, c’est une mauvaise nouvelle. Si vous êtes une personne, c’est une bonne nouvelle.

L’incidence de l’intelligence artificielle. Nous entrons dans une phase totalement imprévisible de destruction de l’emploi par l’intelligence artificielle. Les experts débattent de la réalité, de la rapidité et de l’ampleur de ce bouleversement. Chez nous, l’Institut du Québec estime que 18 % des emplois québécois y sont vulnérables, taux qui grimpe à 24 % chez les jeunes. Il est donc impératif que nous ne soyons pas en surplus de population et de main-d’œuvre.

“Savoir s’adapter. Selon les scénarios démographiques, certaines régions vont décroître (Montréal, le Saguenay, le Bas-Saint-Laurent, la Gaspésie, l’Abitibi, la Côte-Nord) et toutes les autres vont croître. Plutôt que de tenter de renverser la tendance, l’État a intérêt à l’accompagner. Le télétravail et la régionalisation des tâches gouvernementales sont des outils permettant d’amortir le choc dans les régions à risque.

La pyramide des âges. Il y a davantage de vieux et moins d’enfants. On peut s’en désoler. Ou penser qu’il y aura enfin assez de places en CPE pour tout le monde, qu’on pourra réduire le nombre d’élèves par classe et mieux accompagner chacun de nos bambins.

La croissance, économique ou démographique, n’est pas un projet en soi, sauf pour les adeptes du gigantisme. Le projet est la qualité de la vie de chacun, l’épanouissement individuel et collectif, la poursuite du bonheur. On est neuf millions, on peut y arriver.”

Source: Chronique | Enfin, la pause démographique!

Nicolas: politiquement viable, et nous

Difference between raising issues and concerns and fanning the flames:

…Bernard Drainville et Paul St-Pierre Plamondon nous ont donné à la fin de la semaine un autre exemple d’un ton acerbe qui, il me semble, aurait été politiquement non viable il n’y a pas si longtemps. Au sujet de la décision de la Cour suprême du Canada sur l’accès des demandeurs d’asile aux CPE, le chef du PQ nous a assuré vendredi que les « milliards de personnes dans le monde qui auraient intérêt à immigrer au Québec pour améliorer leur qualité de vie ne peuvent avoir le même statut et le même droit à bénéficier des services publics que les citoyens québécois ».

Je ne peux pas croire qu’un homme comme lui ne sait pas qu’il attise les peurs en parlant de « milliards » de personnes, tout en étant dans l’erreur factuelle grossière. Je ne crois pas non plus que Bernard Drainville ignore que sa proposition de retirer aux demandeurs l’accès au filet social nous mènerait tout droit à la crise sociale, laquelle finit toujours par être plus coûteuse à l’État, en plus d’être catastrophique sur le plan humain.

Mais l’important, au bout du compte, c’est peut-être moins de répondre à chaque élément de ce type de discours que de ce type de discours que de se demander pourquoi et auprès de qui il résonne, et à quel coût. Le ton et le contenu de ces propositions politiques pourraient redevenir non viables. Ça dépend beaucoup de nous, et de la société que l’on se souhaite.

Source: Chronique | Le politiquement viable, et nous

Lisée | Accueillir toute la marmaille du monde

On the recent Supreme Court decision and that judges and their blurring of distinctions and rights between citizens and non-citizens:

…La Cour suprême du Canada ne partage pas cet avis. Dans sa récente décision qui ordonne au Québec d’ouvrir les portes de ses centres de la petite enfance aux bambins des demandeurs d’asile, même si leur demande n’est pas encore jugée valable, même s’ils n’ont pas de permis de travail, elle indique finalement que le Québec a le devoir d’offrir des places à toute la marmaille du monde. Le fait qu’il n’y a pas suffisamment de places pour tout le monde déjà présent sur le territoire — malgré le fait que la Coalition avenir Québec a, dans les huit dernières années, créé chaque année plus de places que tous les gouvernements précédents — ne lui fait pas un pli sur la toge.

Les juges ne sont pas de vulgaires comptables. Ils n’ont pas, par principe, à se préoccuper des conséquences budgétaires de leurs décisions. Ils vivent dans un monde parallèle, le monde juridique, où des droits existent ou n’existent pas. Aux élus de se débrouiller ensuite avec l’intendance.

On pouvait cependant penser que des distinctions existaient entre, d’une part, les citoyens canadiens et les résidents permanents, et, d’autre part, les personnes qui ne le sont pas. Cette distinction existe dans la plupart des démocraties avancées, y compris dans les pays scandinaves, où seuls les citoyens ont droit à la totalité du filet social. Mais le Canada, grâce à ses juges, est exceptionnel.

“La Charte des droits de Pierre Trudeau est entrée en vigueur en 1982. Il n’a fallu que trois ans, avec l’arrêt Singh en 1985, pour que la Cour enterre la distinction entre citoyens et non-citoyens. Voyez, a-t-elle écrit, à son article 7, la Charte indique que « chacun a droit à la vie, à la liberté et à la sécurité ». « Chacun » signifie toute personne présente sur le territoire.

En 1989, elle est allée plus loin en déclarant que les non-citoyens pouvaient être considérés comme un groupe discriminé en vertu de l’article 15 de la Charte, qui ne les mentionnait pas. Mais il y avait le mot « notamment » avec la liste des groupes, donc ils ont fait leur entrée.

Par conséquent, comme tout citoyen, un sans-papiers ou un demandeur d’asile peuvent se prévaloir de la totalité des droits d’appel si on leur refuse le statut de réfugié. Tant pis si ça prend huit ans. Tant pis si ça coûte des fortunes. Tant pis si ça rend humainement déchirant de retourner des gens chez eux après tout ce temps. Tant pis si, dans d’autres pays, ils font ça en quelques mois.

“Le remède ? Je vais vous faire sourire. Il faudrait changer la Constitution pour écrire « chaque citoyen » au lieu de « chacun » et enlever le mot « notamment ». Il y a un plan B : faire l’indépendance et insérer ces précisions dans la constitution du nouveau pays. Je vous laisse choisir la solution qui vous paraît la plus rapide.

La décision de vendredi, usant d’une logique intersectionnelle (femmes + asile), étend logiquement ce principe d’inclusion à l’ensemble des éléments du filet social. Je n’ai pas de doute que les juristes trudeauistes sont à l’œuvre pour contester, forts de ce nouveau précédent, toute différenciation restante entre les services offerts aux citoyens ou ceux offerts aux autres, touristes compris. J’exagère ? Voyez ce que disait Justin Trudeau sur son blogue en 2008 : « Si des extraterrestres venaient sur Terre et choisissaient le Canada comme société d’accueil, ils seraient protégés par la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. »

Source: https://apple.news/AFGco-VIyTOOiFK17kprz3g

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Iranians converting to Christianity ‘the easiest way’ to get asylum in Canada

As always, those desperate or motivated will find a way:

At a downtown Vancouver church, a Christian baptism takes place during a recent Sunday service. Amid the incense and infants dressed in white getting ready to receive the holy water is a group of four Iranian nationals also waiting to receive adult baptisms.

As with past baptisms, some of them will likely not return to the church after receiving their baptismal certificate. It is simply a means to an end — claiming asylum.

When a parishioner congratulates one of the newly baptized Farsi speakers, mentioning Iran’s significant Christian and Jewish populations, as well as Muslim, they reply in heavily accented English.

“I hate Muslims.”

While not quite the Christian message one might have expected, the conversion of Iranians to Christianity has been an increasingly popular trend over the past decade (one study suggests as many as 1.2 million Christian converts in Iran alone)…

Source: Iranians converting to Christianity ‘the easiest way’ to get asylum in Canada

Omidvar: Behind every refugee statistic is a personal and painful moment. Don’t lose sight of that

Good reminder that behind the statistics, there are people. But not all refugees are in the same situation that she and others were in, as recent increases indicate:

…That is why I find it troubling when refugee movements are reduced to numbers or political talking points. Governments understandably debate capacity, border management and the integrity of asylum systems. These are legitimate policy questions.

But behind every statistic is a deeply personal moment: the hurried packing of a bag, the quiet goodbye to a home that may never be seen again, the crossing of a border with little certainty about what comes next.

Most refugees did not imagine their lives unfolding this way. Most are not explicitly political actors or activists. They are teachers, engineers, shopkeepers, students – ordinary people like you or me. But in my life I’ve learned a crucial lesson that has stayed with me: No matter what, you cannot isolate yourself from the politics that are raging around you. Politics affects the way we all live. This is why I am today a “political” person.

Canada has been shaped by successive waves of people who arrived through moments of upheaval – from postwar Europe to Southeast Asia, from the Balkans to Syria. Many came with little more than resilience and hope. But over time, they became Canadians. They built businesses, strengthened institutions, raised families and contributed to the social and economic life of the country that welcomed them. I am one of those people.

Today, Canada is once again debating immigration and refugee policy with intensity. We are tightening numbers, making it more difficult for refugees to find safety in Canada. This is not just a signal of concern about our capacity and management, but also a real reflection of a growing political narrative that constrains our compassion. It threatens to make us lose sight of the human stories at the heart of these debates.

Granted, none of the contributions refugees eventually make are visible at the moment they cross a border. At that moment, refugees often look like uncertainty itself. They arrive tired, anxious and unsure about whether the world will make room for them.

But the refugee story does not end at the border. In many ways, it is where the next chapter begins. 

When I see images today of Iranians gathering at the Turkish border, I do not see strangers; I see families standing at the threshold of the same uncertain journey that my own familybegan almost five decades ago. And I am reminded that the line between an ordinary life and exile can appear faster than anyone expects – and that what happens next for them goes beyond those people, and into politics.

Source: Behind every refugee statistic is a personal and painful moment. Don’t lose sight of that

Other

Banerjee: Not all immigration paths are equal: Some immigrants thrive, while others struggle, in Canada’s two-step system

Good detailed comparative analysis:

…The tax data show that permit type, not Canadian experience alone, shapes the economic success of two-step immigrants. While high-performing groups — such as PGWP holders and ICTs — enjoy high, growing wages by benefiting from Canadian education or employer-driven entry, others — inc|luding WHMs and SPOU holders — face persistent economic disadvantage. Permit conditions, dependence on a partner for status and concentration in low-wage job sectors or geographically remote jobs likely compound vulnerability for the latter. The lack of transparency and coherence across temporary migration pathways makes these inequalities worse.

Policymakers should respond with co-ordinated actions in the short and medium term, drawing on the mandates of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) as the federal lead; Statistics Canada, and Employment and Social Development Canada for data and labour-market information; and provincial and territorial governments for post-secondary oversight and settlement programming. Settlement agencies, post-secondary institutions and employer partners are also critical delivery partners….

This analysis focused only on immigrants who successfully transitioned to permanent residency. This excludes many temporary residents who failed or are failing to secure permanent status — a major source of precarity within the IMP. Moreover, our data end in 2014. Since then, the IMP has grown dramatically, particularly through the PGWP stream, and the profile of international students has shifted toward college-level programs with weaker labour-market prospects (on entry of IMP permit holders to 2021 by stream, including the PGWP, see Vosko, 2025).

Recent federal policy changes compound these pressures. Since 2024, PR targets have been reduced and transition rules tightened. Many temporary residents now attempt to manage uncertainty by switching between permit types to extend their stay — a strategy that often disrupts employment and prolongs temporary status. Unless the federal government rebalances the relationship between temporary and permanent immigration, these trends will deepen structural inequities and erode the economic benefits.

Source: Not all immigration paths are equal: Some immigrants thrive, while others struggle, in Canada’s two-step system 

Jeziorek: Canada’s immigration system is going digital, and accountability must keep pace

Somewhat ironic as the OAG report on international students highlights the lack of accountability of current systems:

…Keeping automation accountable

Canada already has several oversight mechanisms in place, including algorithmic impact assessments required by directives on automated decision-making. 

These measures represent meaningful progress toward responsible digital governance. However, as immigration administration becomes increasingly automated and platform-based, additional safeguards are needed to ensure accountability keeps pace.

Possible measures include expanding public documentation about automated triage systems, introducing independent review processes and ensuring clear pathways for human review. Such steps would better align digital modernization with Canada’s existing oversight frameworks for automated decision-making.

Canada’s immigration system is often described as rights-basedand grounded in equity, fairness and inclusion. Maintaining public trust in that system depends on ensuring administrative decision systems remain transparent, contestable and accountable.

Automation and platform-based administration are reshaping Canada’s migration. Efficiency alone cannot sustain public trust. As Canada modernizes immigration administration, accountability must be built into digital systems as deliberately as the technologies themselves.

Source: Canada’s immigration system is going digital, and accountability must keep pace

Canada is letting rural employers hire more temporary foreign workers. Economists say it’s a misstep

Government does not appear to have learned from previous lobbying and changes:

Ottawa is introducing new measures to let rural employers hire more low-wage workers through the temporary foreign worker program, a move businesses say is needed to address ongoing labour shortages but economists and advocates warn is a step in the wrong direction.

Employers in “eligible rural regions” will be permitted to staff up to 15 per cent of their workforce with low-wage, temporary foreign workers, up from 10 per cent, the federal government announced Friday.  The new measures will be implemented as early as April 1, 2026, until March 31, 2027.

“Some rural communities continue to face acute labour shortages due to low unemployment rates, and ongoing difficulties attracting, recruiting, and retaining workers,” said a statement from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), which oversees the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program….

The TFW program’s new rules are “a step in the wrong direction,” said Christopher Worswick, an economist at Carleton University in Ottawa, adding that the federal government is giving into pressure of employer groups when the focus should instead be on permanent immigration. In 2024, Ottawa started reining in immigration after years of rapid population growth largely driven by a surge of international students and temporary foreign workers who arrived during the pandemic. 

Leaning on low-wage TFWs reinforces a system where short-term labour fills permanent needs, leaving deeper challenges in attracting and retaining workers unaddressed, Worswick said. Migrant workers whose status is tied to a single employer often fear speaking out about low wages and poor conditions, creating a power imbalance that benefits employers seeking a compliant workforce.

Without the program, businesses struggling to hire would have to raise workers’ wages and improve working conditions to attract applicants, or invest in new technology to save money, he added.

“When there’s a shortage of a good, demand is greater than supply so you should see upward pressure on price until demand equals supply,” he said. “The labour market is basically the same thing.”

In other words, “if you can’t hire somebody, then what economics would say is you should re-advertise at a higher wage.”

But industry groups maintain that restricting access to TFWs could force businesses to scale back or shut down entirely, particularly in rural and remote areas where hiring challenges are most acute. They say the new rules will give employers more flexibility to fill persistent labour gaps and keep operations running when local workers are not available….

Source: Canada is letting rural employers hire more temporary foreign workers. Economists say it’s a misstep