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An “overheated” immigration system that is admitting record numbers of newcomers into the country has taken a toll Canada’s decades old consensus on the benefits of immigration, Minister of Immigration Marc Miller said, as he reflected on the changes in his department in a year-end interview.
The system, he said, needed some discipline to get the country back on track.
Through 2024, Miller moved to cap the number of student visas, reduce the number of permanent residents it plans to admit, make it harder to get a working visa and pause most private refugee sponsorship applications.
All of that came as record levels of immigration pushed population growth up more than three percent in 2023, twice what it averaged in the previous decade.
“There’s no shame in the fact that there are some things that I think we could have done better. I think there’s also been a lot of good,” said Miller.
This interview took place on December 11, before Chrystia Freeland’s resignation as finance minister and deputy prime minister upended Canadian politics. Miller, who was appointed as immigration minister in July 2023, kept the role in a shuffle on Friday.
Miller said the worsening of public opinion on immigration is rooted in a number of factors, including high rates of asylum seekers, the high cost of housing and political movements in the Western world.
This climate created the challenge for Miller over the last year, to infuse “some discipline” into the immigration system.
With an aging population and birth rates below replacement levels, Miller said immigration is essential to ensure a strong workforce to help pay for important programs like health care.
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“We still need immigration, but we need to be able to say to Canadians that we’ve listened to them and respond when we see things overheating,” Miller said.
In the eyes of the minister, this includes bringing in more economic immigrants to bring down the average working age of Canada’s population.
The increase in the number of temporary workers is one of the biggest problems that have arisen since the pandemic. Initially, the goal was to use the program to fill gaps in the labor market, but the program grew so quickly that it opened the door to fraud and exploitation of workers.
The government recently moved to make it more difficult for an employer to get a permit approved, and low-wage applications are denied in geographic regions where unemployment is above six percent.
Labor market impact assessments, necessary paperwork to bring a worker from abroad, are also worth 50 to 200 points in Canada’s points-based express entry system for permanent residents. CBC recently published an investigation that revealed these assessments are being sold, sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars.
“It’s played out and I think I recognize that there’s fraud that comes in different forms. I have a certain role to make sure that people don’t use that to get permanent residency, for example,” Miller said.
On December 19, Miller announced that these points will be removed from labor market impact assessments as part of a suite of measures linked to increased border control in response to President Donald Trump’s tariff threat on Canadian products.
That change includes having temporary residents apply exclusively online to extend their stay, in an effort to curb a practice known as “flag polling.” This is when someone crosses the US border from Canada, only to turn around and return to the border for faster processing of the application at a port of entry.
The government will also introduce legislative amendments to allow it to suspend or cancel immigration documents, including visas, if they are deemed to be in the public interest. Miller used mass fraud as an example.
Trump is threatening both Canada and Mexico with 25 percent tariffs on all U.S. imports from those two countries unless they increase border security to stop illegal crossings and drug trafficking.
“I think the rhetoric that we’ve been hearing in the U.S. is unfortunate. It’s not one I’ll ever support, but we also need an immigration system that doesn’t look like it’s being abused by people who are trying to game the system,” Miller said.
“And I think that’s something we’re seeing more and more often with false asylum applications sometimes from certain countries.”
There are roughly 250,000 asylum applications awaiting processing by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. The highest number of claims in 2024 came from India, followed by Mexico.
Miller said he is seeking to introduce further asylum reforms in the next month to “streamline” the system and deal more quickly with illegitimate claims.
But introducing further reforms in a sensitive area amid a heated debate over border politics may be easier said than done. For Miller, it’s about trying to strike a realistic balance between obligations under humanitarian law and what Canada can handle.
“What we can’t do is fall victim to our base instincts. We have to come out and look at this in a way that is rational, that sees these people as human beings, without being naive about the ability of the Canadian government, Canada’s ability to absorb the number of people coming in here,’ Miller said.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
