Canada’s immigration system is lost in the bushes

Former Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau announced multiculturalism as an official government policy on October 8, 1971, that announcement helped to encourage immigration from non-European countries.

Since then, we have seen so many changes and improvements in Canadian immigration policy, such as introduction of the point based system to select immigrants based on skills and education and the codifying of humanitarian goals like refugee settlement. The recent changes made in the last few years have created a kind of confusion and uncertainty in immigration system. Having seen the disappointments in the last few years, due to a loss of opportunities, we need to set up long-term targets, to successfully achieve national development goals.

On October 24, 2024, Marc Miller, Former Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan. Due to housing, affordability and job market situations, the federal government took this step to reduce the annual quota for Permanent Residents to 396,000 from 485,000 and the temporary resident population to 2.52 million in 2025 from 2.96 million. Nearly 1,262,800 temporary residents will have to leave the country next year to maintain the level. 

These changes were supposedly announced to make sure we attract the best and the brightest, with long-term economic goals, which would positively help the economy and growth.

In a 2023 survey by the Toronto-based Environics Institute, 44 per cent of Canadians felt there was too much immigration to Canada, up from 27 per cent the previous year. And now for the first time in more than a quarter century, a clear majority of Canadians have expressed dislike of the increasing numbers. It’s not the fault of those who come here to look for better opportunities, it’s our failure to meet the expectations of the state and intended immigrants.

In a recent discussion at the Canada 2020 Future Forward policy summit in Ottawa on September 23, 2025, two former immigration ministers — Marc Miller and Jason Kenney one Liberal, one Conservative — agreed about the failings of Canada’s immigration system, both former ministers said Canada should keep immigration at the heart of its economic strategy. But both also said Canada needs to take major steps to fix the system before public confidence frays further.

The government wanted to bring in foreign students to Canadian universities to help them get better education and to help those institutions earn millions of dollars annually. But a report published in November 2024, says that more than 10,000 foreign students’ acceptance letters from Canadian colleges and universities were flagged as potentially fraudulent by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said at that time that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his former Immigration Minister; Sean Fraser, had created the problem by giving out a million student visas without paying attention to how this would affect the country. 

On top of this they turned a blind eye to the clear fraud and abuse in the International Student Program. Later they wrote to the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, which is the organization that licenses consultants who had allegedly lured many of these international students, asking them to fix the problem.

The government must acknowledge its failure in running a successful immigration system.

According to a report published by Employment and Social Development Canada, the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program experienced a surge in demand due to the post-pandemic economy, low unemployment rates, and record-high job vacancy rates in 2022. To address those labor shortages, the program adopted a series of policy changes. But, in March 2024, the Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, announced that some time-limited measures under the TFW Program Workforce Solutions Road Map will not be renewed, and the government will send 1.2 million temporary workers back to their countries. 

The changing immigration pathways, economic challenges and poor planning are the reasons for this situation.

A recent Statistics Canada report, cited in the Toronto Star, reveals that skilled immigrants are leaving Canada in record numbers, with nearly 48 per cent doing so within seven years of arrival. Common complaints include low wages, high cost of living, and unaffordable housing. Our top university graduates are being lured away to the US. Why are we investing in bringing in talented immigrants, educating and training them, only to lose them to the US?

I’ve been asking these questions for 26 years, since I arrived in this land of opportunity with a master’s degree in chemistry and started working at a gas station. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much change for common immigrants. 

The biggest question remains: what are the aims and objectives of our continually revised immigration policies? Can we expect meaningful change when our federal government operates on an ad-hoc basis?

The Band-Aid solution won’t work here. We need a new stable immigration policy based on true Canadian needs. It should also ensure the integrity of immigration system to be able to fix the current irregularities.

Dr. Lisa Brunner of University of B.C recommends in her recently published research paper:

§  Making immigration pathways for students clear and predictable.

§  Public investment to reduce institutional reliance on international tuition.

§  Universally accessible settlement services with shared accountability.

§  Stronger regulation and transparency in recruitment practices.

By rebalancing the policy landscape toward sustainability and ethical responsibility, Canada can also better support international students while protecting its global reputation and economic resilience, she added.

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