An “overheated” immigration system that has admitted record numbers of newcomers to the country has suffered. of Canada A decades-old consensus on the benefits of Immigration, Minister of Immigration said Mark Miller, as he reflected on the changes in his department in a year-end interview.
He said that this system needs some discipline to bring the country back on track.
Through 2024, Miller moved to limit the number of student visas, reduce the number of permanent residents he plans to admit, make it harder to obtain working visas and sponsor most private refugees. Requests are blocked.
All this comes as record levels of immigration push population growth to more than three percent in 2023, double the average of the past decade.
“There's no shying away from the fact that there are some things that I think we can do better. I think there's been a lot of good things,” Miller said.
The interview took place on December 11 before Chrystia Freeland resigned as finance minister and deputy prime minister in Canadian politics. Miller, who was named immigration minister in July 2023, kept changing the role on Friday.
Miller said the bitterness of public opinion on immigration is rooted in several factors, including high rates of asylum seekers, high housing costs and political movements in the Western world.
That climate created a challenge for Miller over the past year to “bring some discipline” into the immigration system.
With an aging population and a birth rate below replacement levels, Miller said immigration is necessary to ensure a strong labor force to help pay for critical programs like health care.
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“We still need immigration, but we have to be able to tell Canadians that we're listening and when we see things get too heated, we're going to respond accordingly,” Miller said. react.”
In the minister's view, this includes bringing in more economic immigrants to lower the average working age of Canada's population.
The rise in the number of temporary workers is one of the biggest issues to emerge since the pandemic. Initially, the goal was to use the program to fill holes in the labor market, but the program grew so quickly that it opened the door to worker fraud and exploitation.
The government recently moved to make it harder for an employer to grant a permit, and in geographic regions where unemployment is above six percent, low-wage applications will be rejected.
Labor market impact assessments, the paperwork necessary to help bring in 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 exposed reviews that sometimes sell for tens of thousands of dollars.
“It's being gamed and I think it's important to recognize that there's fraud that comes in different forms. I have a special role to play in making sure that people aren't being taken advantage of, e.g. As such, permanent residence,” Miller said.
On Dec. 19, Miller announced that points would be removed from labor market impact assessments related to expanding border controls in response to President-elect Donald Trump's threat of tariffs on Canadian products.
The change involves temporary residents exclusively applying online to extend their stay, in an effort to eliminate a practice known as “flag polling.” This happens when someone crosses the US border from Canada, only to turn around and go back to the border for expedited application processing at the port of entry.
The government will also introduce amendments to the legislation to allow them to suspend or cancel immigration documents, including visas, when deemed to be in the public interest. Miller used massive fraud as an example.
Trump is threatening both Canada and Mexico with 25 percent tariffs on all U.S. imports from the two countries unless they increase border security to prevent illegal crossings and drug trafficking.
“I think that, the rhetoric that we've heard in America, unfortunately. It's not something that I would ever support, but also, we need an immigration system that's not like that,” Miller said. People trying to game the system seem to be abusing it.
“And I think that's something we're seeing increasingly with sometimes false asylum claims from certain countries.”
About 250,000 asylum claims are pending 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 was considering introducing more asylum reforms next month to “streamline” the system and deal with invalid claims more quickly.
But it may be easier to push for further reforms in the sensitive area during a heated debate over border politics. For Miller, it's about trying to strike a realistic balance between commitments made under humanitarian law and what Canada can handle.
“What we can't do is succumb to our base instincts. We need to rise up and look at this in a way that's rational, that looks at these people as human beings, the ability of the Canadian government. Without being naive about Canada's ability to absorb the number of people coming here,” Miller said.
and copy 2024 Canadian Press