Todd: Liberals got a popularity bump by reducing immigration targets. But those numbers aren’t the full picture

2025/12/19 Leave a comment

Some reaction from various experts. Published at the same time that Canada’s population declined for the first time in many years, driven by reduced numbers of students. But government was being “too cute” in how it presented the numbers and somewhat foolish given the number of persons with detailed knowledge who would spot the “slight of hand:”

…Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, who obtained the PCO surveys, said this would not be the first time Ottawa has massaged immigration numbers. It is, he said, common practice.

“And selling Canadians the idea that there has been a ‘reduction’ in new immigrants is not the same as an actual ‘reduction’ in the number of foreigners living in Canada,” said Kurland.

The most important measurement, Kurland said, is how many foreign nationals are living in the country at any one time. But the bigger numbers on temporary residents in Canada are even harder to nail down than those on permanent residents.

Statistics Canada recently reported there are now 3.03 million foreign nationals temporarily in the country as workers, students and asylum claimants.

Temporary residents made up about 7.1 per cent of the entire population for at least the past year. That compares to 2.3 per cent in 2015, when the Liberals were first elected.

Carney has promised to get the proportion down to five per cent by 2027, since it’s hurting the job prospects of both immigrants and those born in the country.

But Anne Michèle Meggs, a former director of Quebec’s Immigration Ministry and now a prominent migration analyst, says, “It’s going to take ages to bring down the numbers.”

Nevertheless, Meggs said Ottawa is “working hard at issuing fewer temporary permits. To demonstrate how they’re succeeding, they’ve started just this year to issue data on arrivals.”

To that end, on Wednesday the federal Immigration Department went on X to say: “Between January and September 2025, Canada saw approximately 53 per cent (308,880) fewer arrivals of new students and temporary workers compared to the same period last year.” Immigration officials say that means 150,220 fewer new students arrived, as well as 158,660 fewer new temporary workers.

Meggs, however, cautions: “There are some serious gaps in the data. It really is a numbers game.”

For instance, she said StatCan numbers show the number of people living in the country on work visas actually grew in the 12 months leading to September of this year — from 1.44 million to 1.51 million.

The only overall drop, said Meggs, has been in international students. The number of study-permit holders declined to 551,000 in September, from 669,000 a year earlier, she said, citing StatCan.

Meggs joins Henry Lotin, an economist who advises major banks, in pointing out that StatCan’s data has long been unreliable on how many guest workers and foreign students are in the country.

That’s because StatCan naively assumes, they say, temporary residents leave the country within 120 days of their visas expiring. Canada Border Services also does not publicly track who leaves the country. CIBC economist Benjamin Tal has estimated the number of uncounted “overstays” at roughly one million….

Source: Liberals got a popularity bump by reducing immigration targets. But those numbers aren’t the full picture

And the StatsCan report:

…Canada’s population fell by roughly 76,000 over the third quarter, the largest decline this country has seen in records dating to the 1940s, and a result of major policy changes by Ottawa to curb immigration.

Outside of a slight drop during the height of the pandemic, this is the first time that Canada’s population has declined in at least the past eight decades, based on historical data from 1946. 

The decline was driven by a drop in the number of international students, more than a year after the federal government started imposing caps on study permits. 

Source: Canada reports biggest population decline on record

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Thousands of foreigners’ criminal convictions forgiven by Ottawa over 11-year span, raising transparency concerns

2025/07/03 2 Comments

Rempel Garner and Kurland correct to call for more transparency:

More than 17,500 foreigners have had their criminal convictions forgiven by the Immigration Department over the past 11 years, removing a bar to coming to Canada, federal government figures show. The disclosure has raised transparency concerns about the type of offences they committed.

Foreigners are, in general, inadmissible to Canada if they have been convicted of an act that is considered a criminal offence in this country. But Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has the power to grant an exception if five years have elapsed since a person was convicted or finished a sentence. 

Government figures show that in the 11 years up to and including 2024, 17,600 people convicted of criminal offences abroad were considered “rehabilitated” by IRCC. This meant they were able to apply to enter Canada, including through work and study visas, as permanent residents or visitors. 

IRCC has not, however, released a breakdown of the kind of criminal offences that were forgiven. It said in a statement to The Globe and Mail that the Immigration Minister would be involved in decisions relating to the most serious offences. …

Source: Thousands of foreigners’ criminal convictions forgiven by Ottawa over 11-year span, raising transparency concerns

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Ottawa boosts immigration officers’ ability to cancel visitor visas, travel permits 

2025/02/18 Leave a comment

Of note and overdue:

Canadian immigration officers have been given broader powers to cancel travel permits and visitor visas under new rules designed to bolster border security and clamp down on fraud.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has issued “strengthened” regulations, including the ability to revoke visitor visas if their holders destroy their passports. Officers can also rescind authorization to travel to Canada if they believe a visitor may not leave the country.

Airlines have been informed of the new rules, which could also mean some people will not be allowed to board flights, according to a notification of the new regulations in the federal government’s Canada Gazette.

“A small portion of travellers may be turned back at the airport or at a port of entry in the case of their document being cancelled prior to their entry to Canada,” the notification says.

The changes “enhance the integrity of Canada’s temporary residence programs and are expected to strengthen security at the border and within Canada,” according to an online posting from IRCC.

The regulations expand current powers to cancel immigration documents – for example, if someone has concealed a criminal history – and aligns Canada with practices in the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand….

Source: Ottawa boosts immigration officers’ ability to cancel visitor visas, travel permits

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Todd: Can Ottawa solve the problem of millions of expiring Canadian visas?

2025/01/08 Leave a comment

More commentary on immigration policy and program failures:

…How did we get to this muddled state, where the government admits the numbers are out of control — and that it can’t even track, let alone control, the movement of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of the country’s guest workers and foreign students?

In 2019 I wrote an optimistic column about how the Canada Border Services Agency was going to bring in “exit controls” to help fix our infamously leaky borders.

The upshot was that proper exit controls would increase the likelihood officials catch homegrown terrorists, individuals who illicitly take advantage of taxpayer-funded health care and, particularly, people who overstay their visas.

The plan was to better track when people leave the country by land, sea or air — using techniques long in place in Australia, the U.S. and the European Union. But even though upgraded exit controls were instituted in 2019, they have not made an obvious difference in compelling people to follow the rules regarding how long they can stay in the country.

To add to the disorder, 2024 had a drastic rise in the volume of temporary residents — 130,000 — trying to overstay their work and study visas by applying for refugee status. That’s up from 10,000 less than a decade ago. The asylum claims process can take several years.

In response to questions from Postmedia, the CBSA said it does what it can to monitor and penalize people who overstay. Specifically, officials said that for various reasons it issued more than 3,700 “removal orders” in 2024, compared to 1,517 in 2020.

Sam Hyman, a retired Vancouver immigration lawyer, said Canada, unlike many countries, doesn’t have exit immigration controls that require all travellers who leave to be examined and their departure confirmed. But, he said, there is a certain degree of border-crossing monitoring.

Vancouver lawyer Richard Kurland, publisher of a monthly migration newsletter called Lexbase, says more rigorous entry and exit controls, while useful, won’t solve Canada’s border crisis alone.

He’s more concerned the government is trying a number of strategies to avoid taking blame for the migration turmoil, first by “denying” it, then by “distracting” from it and now by “repackaging” it, while making new promises.

After Trudeau spent years accusing critics of his high migration policies of being xenophobic or racist, Kurland said he and Miller last year “did a 180 (degree turn) and offered a mea culpa,” admitting to overshooting.

However, they then compounded their blundering, Kurland said, by promising temporary residents who overstay their visas a general amnesty.

“But when you have immigration amnesties, why obey rules, when all you have to do is to hide and wait for the next amnesty?” Kurland said. After the public rose up in criticism, Kurland said the Liberals had to pull back their scheme.

“We are left with the chicken in the python,” Kurland said, “which will be a ticking immigration time bomb for whoever replaces the Trudeau government.”

Source: Can Ottawa solve the problem of millions of expiring Canadian visas?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Ottawa faces calls to scrap rule allowing migrants crossing border covertly to claim asylum after two weeks

2024/12/07 Leave a comment

Will see what government does but my guess is that the pressures to do so will be hard to resist:

…Opposition politicians and provincial premiers have raised fears about an influx of migrants to Canada from the U.S. after president-elect Donald Trump threatened to deport about 11 million people living there illegally.

“At a minimum, the 14-day rule should be suspended temporarily until we know what we are dealing with,” said immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, who obtained the border agency’s intelligence document through an access to information request.

Under the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S., asylum-seekers must make their claim in the first country in which they arrive. In March last year, the two countries restricted the agreement, ending the ability to claim asylum after crossing at Roxham Road.

Both Canada and the U.S. can terminate the agreement with six months’ notice, and they can also negotiate changes. Immigration lawyer David Matas said “the agreement could be extended by removing the possibility of staying in Canada if one enters Canada illegally and remains hidden for 14 days or more.

“That would be even more effective in discouraging traversal of the U.S. than the present form of the agreement.”

Canada does not return people to the United States if they have been charged with an offence that could subject them to the death penalty.

Warda Shazadi Meighen, a lawyer at Landings LLP, said Canada would have the power to enact additional public-interest exemptions to help people facing persecution if they were returned to the United States.

“One can imagine a scenario where women fleeing gender-based violence, and individuals facing LGBTQ+ persecution, for example, would not get adequate protection under certain administrations in the United States,” she said.

Source: Ottawa faces calls to scrap rule allowing migrants crossing border covertly to claim asylum after two weeks

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

More commentary on reduced immigration levels

2024/11/02 Leave a comment

More of the commentary that I found interesting and relevant:

The Line: Dispatch from The Front Lines: Have a great trip, Jen! And where are they moving? Right now, public opinion is probably fairly reasonably grounded in reality. We think it would be broadly true today to say that Canadians still see value in immigration in the abstract, and remain good at welcoming newcomers into their own communities. We suspect that most of us have direct relationships with immigrants, and have better lives for those relationships. But we are very worried. Many of the problems that our recently unchecked immigration rates have caused or (more fairly) contributed to — including overwhelmed social services and the housing crisis — are going to continue getting worse for a number of years, since so much is already baked in. This is scary, and could mean that we see anti-immigration sentiment evolve explicitly into anti-immigrant sentiment. That would take what we have today, an embarrassing public-policy failure, and turn it into a genuine social nightmare, one from which it could take many years to recover, as newcomers pay the price for our policy failures and report back home that Canada is a place to avoid at all costs.

So, great. It’s nice to have something to look forward to. Right?

But there was one other issue that jumped out at us after the announcement this week. Both Prime Minister Trudeau and Immigration Minister Marc Miller made all-too political acknowledgments of responsibility. The prime minister went so far as to concede that his government “didn’t get the balance quite right.” Not to be outdone in the race for the most fearless and blunt mea culpa, Miller said, “Did we take too long to adjust? I think there is some responsibility there to assume.”

Wow! By whom? Tell us more, minister!

Look, let’s be blunt about this. Both your Line editors support immigration. And we both know that there is plenty of blame to go around. Many business interests and provincial leaders were desperate for more people. The federal government didn’t come up with the idea of ramping up growth to unsustainable levels all on its own. They had a lot of friends and a lot of help. The buck does stop with them. And we’re not going to let them get away with their attempts to deflect the blame. But it is fair to note that a lot of people were demanding this, and that our failure to roll out enough housing and social services to keep up with the demand rests on us, not on the people we invited to start new lives in this country. They are victims here. We sold them a bill of goods we had no ability or willingness to deliver upon. And we should be ashamed of ourselves for that. We have essentially defrauded people who just wanted to build a better lives for themselves and their families so that we could keep reaping the economic benefits of their arrival, and we kept doing that until the moment that it stopped being a good deal for us. Some future descendent of Justin Trudeau is probably going to have to offer up a tearful apology for this in a century or so. 

And it’ll take that long, clearly. This was the feds’ responsibility, and they screwed it up. It would not kill them to admit as much, openly and clearly, with a bit less of a masterclass in the passive voice than what Miller just offered the voters.

Globe editorial: Canada’s past and present were built on immigration. Our future will be too. Ottawa responded too slowly to rectify its mistakes but last week moved past tinkering. Count it as a turning point. The changes will help start to restore broad confidence in an immigration system that was long embraced by Canadians, respected around the world – and helped to build this country over many decades.

Immigration changes a ‘black eye’ for businesses, families, students, warns B.C. lawyer
“Businesses are going to suffer. The people on the ground right now — the workers here, the people on temporary status — are suffering. The students (are) totally gutted,” said Victoria immigration lawyer David Aujla. “We had a really pro-refugee, pro-humanitarian outlook, accepting people who were in crises. I think that’s going to take a big hit. I think Canada’s now got a black eye.”

The new changes will be very difficult for some newcomers waiting to bring relatives to Canada, said Jonathan Oldman, CEO of the Immigrant Services Society of B.C.

The reductions, though, will make the new levels of permanent residents similar to what happened before COVID-19, said Oldman, whose agency helps settle more than 25,000 people each year who come to B.C. for humanitarian, economic or family reunification reasons.

Will Tao, an immigration lawyer with the Burnaby law firm Heron, worries these changes are designed to “nudge” people to leave Canada if they’re facing long waiting times to become permanent residents.

“They’re obviously scared and concerned,” he said of his clients.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government didn’t get the “balance quite right” when it increased immigration targets over recent years. But Tao said achieving that balance isn’t as simple as slashing targets, which affect people from countries ranging from war-stricken Ukraine to Afghanistan where women and girls are at risk.

The impact includes post-secondary schools losing a “cash cow” of funding by losing international students, who pay far higher tuition than Canadian youth.

Tao also said some employers in the last week have pulled their support for a Labour Market Impact Assessment, a document that’s necessary to hire foreign workers, because they can’t afford the new federally mandated increase in wages for temporary foreign workers.

And while fewer immigrants may lead to less competition for affordable housing, will Canada also lose the temporary residents who are construction workers building the much-need housing?

“Immigration is a driver of economic growth and is the primary source of population growth in the near term,” Fiona Famulak, the chamber’s president, said in a statement last week. “Decreasing the labour pool will therefore add to (businesses’s) burden, not improve it, in the coming years.”

High-profile Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said his email inbox has been clogged with messages from clients, lawyers and immigration consultants looking for solutions to this “fiasco” created by the federal government.

Those wanting to increase their chances of permanent residency should “look at your options seriously and immediately.”

C.D. Howe Institute Advisory Group on Immigration Targets: In conclusion, the Advisory Group agreed that Canada’s immigration system requires reform to better balance population growth with the country’s economic capacity. With some members supporting an annual intake of under one percent of the population for permanent immigration, the group broadly supported a gradual reduction in both permanent and temporary immigration over the coming years, with a focus on maintaining sustainable, long-term levels. Members stressed the need for a stable, transparent immigration policy that prioritizes high-skilled immigrants, addresses housing and healthcare challenges, and restores public confidence. They called for a more rigorous assessment of immigration programs and improved enforcement capacity, urging the government to set realistic, evidence-based immigration targets.

St-Arnaud : Ottawa’s cut to immigration flow may lead to economic challenges: The recent years are an example of how Canada’s immigration policies can dramatically affect the economy. The government went from one extreme, the population growing too fast, to another, growing too little. This volatility shows that both extremes can lead to economic challenges.

Orsini: Canada has lost its reputation for bringing in the best and brightest students: So what can the federal government do to rebuild Canada’s global reputation? First, when in a deep hole, stop digging. The blunt policy changes have created confusion and uncertainty, which is discouraging students from coming to Canada. We need the world’s top scientists, researchers and innovators to help grow our economy and to make up for our slowing labour-force growth rate.

Second, the federal government needs to accelerate its targeted approach to international student enrolment through a simplified and streamlined “Recognized Institutional Framework” that incentivizes good performance and focuses on quality programming and students applying to Canada. Unfortunately, including master’s and PhD students under the international student cap will further discourage highly skilled students from coming to Canada, and add further delays to an already lengthy process.

Third, the federal government needs to work with the provinces, industry and the postsecondary sector to rebuild our brand so that Canada once again becomes a destination for top talent from around the world. Our country has lost our global reputation as a top destination for talent because of changes like the latest student-permit cuts.

Alicia Planincic: What will the cut in immigration mean for Canada’s economy?  The result, however, is that at least 40 percent of the now more limited spots available for permanent residency (395,000 in 2025) will be granted based on whether a candidate is already in Canada rather than who brings the most value to the Canadian economy, longer-term. Though it’s difficult without more information to determine the extent of the impact, many current temporary residents work in lower-skill positions, meaning that higher-skill candidates—the engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and skilled tradespeople—who don’t yet live here could be passed over as a result.

Blit: Ottawa’s immigration cut is a chance to boost productivity: Ottawa’s policy shift sends the right signal. But further changes to immigration policy are needed. It’s time to end the recently introduced category-based immigrant selection process, which encourages companies to invest in lobbying rather than in technology. We need a full return to the “points system,” one that’s data-driven and targets the most highly skilled talent to fuel innovation and growth. The best and brightest knowledge workers are not only productive themselves, they can make others around them more productive as well.

Last week’s announcement, then, is more than just a return to sensible immigration levels. It’s a rallying cry to Canadian businesses: no more shortcuts. If Canada’s economyis going to thrive in the 21st century, it will be through ingenuity, investment and the right kind of talent – not an endless supply of cheap labour.

Century Initiative | Slashing immigration is a political shortcut, not a real solution: When a country faces large-scale social or economic change, as Canada does, we need leadership from government, and a vision based on where we are today and where we can aspire to go. Instead, we’re seeing our policymakers swing from month to month based on the opinion environment, chasing after the low-hanging fruit to reduce demand for housing over the nation-building need to plan for supply.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We can replace these fragmented, whack-a-mole efforts with a long-term, national smart growth framework — one that builds inroads between immigration targets and housing, workforce, and infrastructure.

It’s not enough to change the tires; we need to rebuild a more resilient economic engine for Canada’s future. [I almost have pity for the CI given how rapidly the debate has turned]


















Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Todd: Quixotic Trudeau finally getting pushback over asylum-seeker chaos

2024/08/03 Leave a comment

Inevitable although most asylum seeker and refugee stakeholders remain largely in denial:

Reality is teaching some important lessons to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about flirting with the ideal of virtually open borders. So are Canada’s premiers and the public.

Particularly in regard to asylum seekers.

For months B.C. Premier David Eby and Quebec Premier François Legault have been almost frantically trying to send a message to Trudeau and his childhood friend, Immigration Minister Marc Miller, that they should no longer indulge in their romantic rhetoric of the past.

“To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #WelcomeToCanada,” Trudeau told the world on Twitter/X on Jan. 28, 2017.

It was the day after newly inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning refugees from Muslim-majority countries. Trump had also proposed the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. Trudeau promised to be their saviour.

Even though Eby and Legault are among the most bold in their pushback, they haven’t been alone in trying to educate Trudeau about the costs, in public dollars, of such grandstanding on asylum seekers.

As with the categories of guest workers, international students and immigrants under Trudeau, the number of refugee claimants has soared during his nine-year-old Liberal regime.

There are now 363,000 asylum claimants in the country, according to Statistics Canada — double two years ago.

A couple of years ago most claimants were walking across the U.S. border into Eastern Canada, which U.S. President Joe Biden last year helped to tighten up.

So now most arrive at airports in Toronto and Montreal, and to some extent Calgary and Vancouver, particularly from Asia. They come in  legally with study or travel visas and then make their claims after leaving the airport, saying they’re escaping various forms of persecution.

It normally takes about two years, and often longer if there is an appeal, for the refugee board to research backgrounds and make a ruling on a case, says Anne Michèle Meggs, a former Quebec immigration official who now writes independently on the subject.

This year the average number of asylum claims made per month in B.C. has jumped to 640 — up 37 per cent compared with last year, says Meggs.

B.C. has the third largest intake of asylum claimants in the country. Most still go to Ontario, where she says average monthly claims have leapt by 53 per cent, or Quebec, where they’re up 20 per cent.

Canada’s premiers have been telling Trudeau for the past few months that, regardless of the validity of their assertions, asylum seekers cost taxpayers a great deal of money.

Most arrive with no financial means. And while they wait for their cases to be evaluated to see if they get coveted permanent resident status, federal and provincial agencies often provide social services, housing, food, clothing, health care, children’s education and (in Quebec) daycare.

Stories of an out-of-control refugee system are likely contributing to fast-changing opinion poll results. Last week Leger discovered 60 per cent of Canadians now think there are “too many” newcomers. That’s a huge shift from just 35 per cent in 2019.

It’s the highest rate of dissatisfaction in decades — based in part on demand pressure on housing and infrastructure costs. The negative polling result is consistent across both white and non-white Canadians.

In response to complaints out of Quebec, Trudeau has this year coughed up $750 million more for that province to support refugee claimants who arrived in recent years, mostly at the land border. Last year Quebec dealt with a total of 65,000 claims and Ontario with 63,000, with the largest cohorts from Mexico and India.

But B.C., as Eby is telling anyone who will listen, has received no dollars from Ottawa. The premier described how “frustrating” it is for B.C. to “scrabble around” for funds in the province, where housing is among the most expensive in the world, while Quebec gets extra.

“Our most recent total for last year was 180,000 new British Columbians,” Eby said last month, including asylum seekers among all international migrants to the province. “And that’s great and that’s exciting and it’s necessary, and it’s completely overwhelming.”

Eby didn’t even publicly mention the increasingly bizarre anomaly, based on the three-decades-old Quebec Accord, which each year leads to Quebec getting 10 times more funding than B.C. and Ontario to settle newcomers.

Postmedia News has found Metro Vancouver’s shelters are being overwhelmed by the near-doubling of asylum seekers in B.C. in the past year.

The Salvation Army, which operates 100 beds in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, said that since last summer, the proportion of refugee claimants seeking shelter has climbed to about 80 per cent. Meanwhile, about 60 per cent of beds at the Catholic Charities Men’s Shelter in Vancouver were occupied by refugee claimants. Shelters are predominantly funded by taxpayers.

Government statistics show B.C. is now home to 16,837 asylum claimants, says Meggs. That doesn’t include the 5,300 who last year arrived in the province on a more orderly track as government-assisted refugees.

In an article in Inroads magazine, a social policy journal, Meggs says her ”jaw dropped” when Trudeau said in April the number of temporary immigrants, including asylum seekers, was “out of control” and “growing at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb.”

The cognitive dissonance, she explained, is because Trudeau’s government is entirely responsible for the system spinning out-of control since 2015 — and not only in numbers, but in selection criteria, or lack thereof.

Trudeau has admitted chaos particularly characterizes the dilemma with international students, whose numbers have tripled under his reign to 1.1 million. Many are now claiming asylum. B.C. has 217,000 foreign students in post-secondary institutions and another 49,000 in kindergarten-to-Grade-12 programs.

Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland is among those suggesting it would be best if Canada processed about 50,000 refugee claimants a year, since it doesn’t have absorptive capacity for more — like the 144,000 who applied last year.

One big problem is the government knows little or nothing about a lot of asylum seekers, say Kurland and Meggs (who generally shares the centre-left leanings of her brother, Geoff Meggs, former chief of staff to NDP Premier John Horgan.)

The immigration department’s ignorance is in part because many make their claims online. Officials don’t even know where tens of thousands live. Meanwhile, Meggs laments, countless claimants are both aided and exploited by people smugglers, landlords and underground employers.

Meggs doesn’t really know how Ottawa is going to get things under control. And, if Trump is re-elected in November and follows through on his vow to get rid of millions of undocumented migrants, it’s virtually guaranteed many will head north to Canada, trying to find ways to pass through what Meggs describes as an incredibly long and understaffed border.

Even though Meggs isn’t optimistic about the future of asylum-seeker policy in Canada, at least the premiers and public are making noises. The thing is, given the Liberals’ defensiveness, it’s just far too soon to tell if their criticism will inspire not empty words but authentic change.

Source: Quixotic Trudeau finally getting pushback over asylum-seeker chaos

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , , ,

Douglas Todd: Canada should warn guest worker, student applicants they’re taking a big gamble

2024/06/26 Leave a comment

Good comments by Kurland, Skuterud and Lee:

….Their plight is the direct fault of Ottawa, say migration specialists.

“Over the past four years the number of people with temporary status in Canada has skyrocketed” because of an executive decision from the office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, says Richard Kurland, a Vancouver immigration lawyer.

“So there is now a chicken in the python problem,” he said.

“People with study permits, and then post-graduate work permits, who can’t qualify for permanent resident status face taking an airplane ride home in shame and poverty. Or they’ll find a way to stay.”

Kurland expects to see “increasing trends of marriages of convenience, refugee claims and applications for humanitarian and compassionate relief.”

A sign of what’s to come might have already arisen at Seneca College in Toronto, where asylum claims from international students increased from 300 in 2022 to almost 700 in 2023. At Kitchener’s Conestoga College, claims jumped from 106 to 450 during that same period.

University of Waterloo economics professor Mikal Skuterud, a specialist in labour, said “lots of non-permanent residents in Canada are seeing their permits expire and the government is worried that large numbers have no intention of leaving the country.”

The Liberal government created the predicament a few years ago, said Skuterud, when it signalled to the world, particularly those with low skills, the easiest way to become a citizen of Canada is to show up as a temporary resident.

“For migrants, Canada’s immigrant selection system now looks like a lottery, in which a work or study permit is the ticket. That’s a big problem. And it wasn’t like this before 2021.”

The Liberal government made the mistake of dismantling the country’s skills-based immigration system because of a “post-pandemic obsession with labour shortages, which is economic nonsense fuelled by corporate Canada,” Skuterud said.

George Lee, an immigration lawyer in Burnaby, said the “federal government created this problem: They’ve brought in too many people. The government wanted to address labour shortages. But now they say,  ‘It’s too much!’ In effect the government is blaming itself.”

Last week, StatCan reported 2.8 million temporary residents in Canada, comprising a record 6.8 per cent of the population. That’s up from 3.5 per cent two years ago.

More than one million are foreign students, most with work permits. Others are classified as “temporary foreign workers” or “international mobility” workers. Another 360,000 are asylum claimants.

In light of Immigration Minister Marc Miller promising this spring to reduce the number of study visas, partly in response to the pressure on housing prices and social services, Kurland said Canada should warn would-be migrants they’re taking a big gamble.

“They now face a loss of their significant investment in time and money. The problem is that the majority of people are unaware that every (newcomer) takes the risk that Canada’s immigration regulations may be changed at any time,” said Kurland, who publishes the newsletter, Lexbase, which previously reported on how Canada’s border services are better tracking when people actually exit the country.

Canada’s problem with an influx of temporary residents is different from what’s facing the U.S. and Europe. Those regions have experienced waves of millions of undocumented migrants. But, for the most part, Canada has explicitly welcomed the record flow of newcomers, most of whom are unskilled.

Skuterud questions the immigration minister’s May announcement that he would like to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada simply by turning them into permanent residents, particularly through the provinces’ so-called nominee programs.

“The irony of all this is that the government is providing more ad hoc openings to permanent residency to relieve the bulging non-permanent population.” It’s thereby “inadvertently” encouraging more people to start in Canada on a temporary basis with the dream of staying forever, he said.

The surge of temporary residents has not only exacerbated Canada’s housing crisis, Skuterud said rapid population growth, almost entirely from international migration, correlates with Canadian wages staying stagnant.

Lee, who came to Canada on a study visa from China in 1992, supports Canada’s efforts to bring high numbers of international students to the country, saying they’re primed to become engaged citizens since they have learned the culture, to speak English or French, and have developed Canadian-based job skills.

The problem, Lee said, is that when Ottawa tried to address a perceived labour shortage, it went too far and embraced too many newcomers at once. “We need a more balanced approach.”

Kurland suggests Ottawa adopt a “consumer protection” model to more honestly process people who want to move to Canada.

Canada’s immigration department, he said, should ask people who apply online for temporary residency: “If you are planning to possibly immigrate to Canada, do you acknowledge that your plan may fail if Canada immigration law and regulations were to change?”

Skuterud offers a different way forward. He says Ottawa has recently been over-promoting a “two-step immigration” scheme that pushes aspiring immigrants to first enter the country on a temporary basis.

He would like the government to return to emphasizing the more traditional economic-class pathway to permanent resident status, which relied on a transparent, above-board ranking system to select candidates.

Source: Douglas Todd: Canada should warn guest worker, student applicants they’re taking a big gamble

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , ,

Canadian immigration asks medical worker fleeing Gaza if he treated Hamas fighters

2024/05/20 Leave a comment

Sigh… Good comments by Kurland and Waldman:

….The federal Immigration Department said that an interview with its minister, Marc Miller, was not possible. In an emailed statement, spokesperson Jeffrey MacDonald said visa applicants may be asked additional questions about their employment and travel history, and their online presence, as part of Canada’s screening process.

MacDonald declined to comment on why it asked a medical worker about whom they had treated, citing privacy reasons.

Canada lists Hamas as a terrorist group, and Canada has the right to screen visa applicants for possible security threats, said Lorne Waldman, a Toronto-based lawyer who wrote a widely used textbook on Canadian immigration law.

“But this type of question is completely unacceptable,” Waldman said in an interview. “If there was a shootout in Toronto between members of a gang, a doctor wouldn’t stop to ask whether a person was a gang member before they treated them.”

Canada also cannot ask such questions of a visa applicant strictly for intelligence-gathering purposes, he said.

Richard Kurland of Lawyers for Secure Immigration, a group urging the government to ask pointed questions related to Hamas and terrorist activities, said he rejects the question on two grounds. One, because it only targets Hamas and not other terrorist groups operating in Gaza, and two, because it’s “problematic,” he wrote in an email.

“Even murderous terrorists deserve medical treatment,” he said.

Source: Canadian immigration asks medical worker fleeing Gaza if he treated Hamas fighters

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Asylum claims by international students have skyrocketed since 2018, figures show

2024/04/23 Leave a comment

Good collection and analysis of the data, showing the extent of the abuse of study permits, with good comments by Earl Blaney and Richard Kurland, among others. Another unfortunate signal that the Canadian immigration system has lost its way and the need for corrective action, which the Liberal government has initiated:

Asylum claims by international students have risen more than 1,500 per cent in the past five years, figures obtained by The Globe and Mail show, as experts warn that the study-permit system is being exploited as a way to enter and remain in Canada.

The sharp increase is particularly acute at colleges, where claims at some schools have climbed in excess of 4,000 per cent since 2018. Students at major universities, however, tend to lodge fewer claims than at colleges, the figures show.

The increase in asylum claims coincides with a steep rise in the number of international students arriving here over the past five years, which the government has now taken steps to reduce, partly to ease pressure on housing.

In January, Immigration Minister Marc Miller imposed a two-year cap on international study-permit applications to curb the rapid growth in foreign students entering Canada.

Figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, obtained by The Globe, show that in 2018 there were 1,515 claims for asylum among international students, with the number rising to 25,465 in 2023.

The IRCC data on asylum claims at each college and university have not been published.

Earl Blaney, a licensed immigration consultant from London, Ont., said it was easier for people from some countries to enter Canada by obtaining a study permit than a visitor’s visa, as they have a better chance of being allowed into the country if they possess the right credentials to study here.

“To effectuate a front-of-the-line claim for refugee status, you need to be in Canada. The issue is that there is exploitation happening using a legitimate study-permit framework to legitimize entry,” he said. “Some immigration consultants are encouraging students to claim asylum to stay.”

At many colleges, the increases in asylum claims are significant. At Seneca College in Ontario, which offers courses ranging from accounting to civil engineering and fashion, there were 45 asylum claims in 2018, and 1,135 in 2023 – an increase of 2,400 per cent.

At Niagara College, the number of asylum claims jumped to 930 in 2023, from 20 in 2018, a rise of 4,550 per cent. At Conestoga College, there were 25 asylum claims among 6,000 study-permit holders in 2018. Five years later, there were 665 asylum claims among the 81,335 permit holders.

At Cape Breton university in Nova Scotia, there were 15 asylum claims in 2018. That increased to 665 asylum claims last year. And at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, there were only 20 asylum claims by students in 2018, and 700 in 2023.

The numbers are less pronounced at universities. For example, only 35 international students at McGill University, compared with five in 2018, lodged claims for asylum last year, according to the IRCC figures. Fifty-five students at the University of Toronto applied to stay in Canada as a refugee, up from 10 five years ago.

Toronto lawyer Vaibhav Roy said it was “common knowledge amongst the legal community” that students who would not have the scores required for permanent residence – with steep competition for express entry – have been claiming asylum to try to stay in Canada.

“A lot of immigration lawyers are telling them to file refugee claims to stay in the country,” he said. “It’s a last strategy to keep staying here.”

Immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said a lot of international students had been promised by consultants working abroad that a study permit was a route to permanent residence, which is not always the case.

“Where does that leave them? Return home poor and in embarrassment, or claim refugee status, which gets them another three to four years,” he said, adding that they could then qualify for a work permit.

Syed Hussan, executive director of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said many international students claimed asylum while here because the situation in their home countries changed.

He said some from Haiti studying in Quebec have claimed asylum as civil order has broken down in the Caribbean country, which has been ravaged by gang violence, and that many asylum claims have been lodged by Indians who have seen fundamentalists target particular ethnic groups.

In the two-year cap imposed in January, IRCC allotted a limited number of study permits to provinces, which they could then allocate to postsecondary institutions.

Figures from the Ontario government show that public colleges are being allocated far more study permits than public universities, this year, while private colleges have been squeezed out.

Ontario is awarding 35,788 study permits to public universities, including Toronto and Carleton in Ottawa, and 186,167 to public colleges.

Seneca College has been allocated 20,388 study permits, compared with 3,362 for the University of Ottawa this year. The University of Waterloo has been allotted 1,212 study permits while Conestoga College has been allocated 19,885.

Queen’s University only has 749 permits, while Fanshawe College of Applied Arts and Technology has 16,752. The University of Toronto has been allowed 6,256 study permits and Niagara College 9,516.

Conservative Immigration critic Tom Kmiec criticized the government for not acting earlier to deal with rising asylum claims among international students.

“Instead of acting immediately when they saw worrying trends in asylum claims by international students, they tried to ignore the problem for years until it was too late,” he said.

This month’s federal budget detailed $1.1-billion over three years for municipalities and provinces to help meet the rising cost of housing asylum seekers, including those fleeing war-torn countries. It followed complaints, particularly from Quebec, that they lack funds to accommodate the steep rise in asylum claimants.

Some asylum seekers have been living in shelters for homeless people or on the streets, with many housed in hotel rooms while their claims are processed.

The budget also earmarked $141-million for Ottawa to pay for temporary lodging for asylum claimants, who cannot be accommodated because provincial places are full.

Michael Wales, director of communications at Niagara College, said he did not want to speculate on whether the reduced number of study permits this year would translate into fewer asylum claims.

“Providing advice or support to students contemplating an asylum claim is beyond the scope of our licensed international student advisers,” he said. “If asked, our advisers would refer the student to a community agency that is qualified to offer that type of advice or support.”

Source: Asylum claims by international students have skyrocketed since 2018, figures show

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

← Older posts