Before the 2025 Canadian federal election, Conservatives were set to win their largest majority in recent decades and Liberals were about to lose party status. Trudeau realizing that the backlash over immigration could lead the country down a right-wing endless loop, announced some immigration reforms as immigration became the 2nd highest concern for Canadians.
You can see Trudeau talk about this directly here
The government announced they are cutting permanent residency seats by 25% every year for the next 3 years, will decrease the % of temporary residents to 5% from a record-high of 8.5%.
The amount of available permanent resident quota is going from 600,000/yr 365,000 in 2027. to These are reasonable policies, but the timing could not be worse for immigrants in Canada.
First, to understand how Canada's immigration system works, I will provide some quick context.
Canada has a few separate permanent immigration programs ran by their own directors and quotas.
The family reunification which covers marriage, couples, and children.
Humanitarian/Compassionate pathways which covers refugees, emergency programs/last-chance pleading applications.
And economic migration. This is the important one.
Its the main pathway for students, temporary workers, and people living abroad to become Canadians. This is done through a draw/point based system where the highest points receive approval to apply. The better your profile (language skills, education, job, experience, age) the higher your points.
Canada has always been able to provide permanent residency to all temporary foreign workers in Canada because the supply of permanent residency quotas matched or even surpassed demand.
However, in 2021-2023, the amount of temporary foreign workers/students skyrocketed to 3 million. This anomaly was due to COVID-related labour shortages, the fact that immigration was at 0 during the COVID years, and general popularity of immigration.
And they all are graduating, working, and requesting permanent residency at the same time. And now dealing with a government that has REDUCED its quotas.
What has that led to ?
In 2019, graduating from a Canadian university and working for 1 year with average English scores was enough to secure permanent residency with a score of around 450.
Right now the score is around 540.
That means getting a Masters in Canada, working for 3 years, perfect english scores, being younger than 30 is NOWHERE close to becoming eligible. The government now requires you speak French or have a Canadian sibling
The point requirements are so high and the government is not extending work permits that we are already seeing the population of Ontario and British Columbia DECREASE. And within the next 2-3 years, the population is set to decline by 0.5% across Canada with up to 4 million work permits potentially expiring.
Carney/Trudeau have launched one of the largest mass deportation policies that seek to drive out the very skilled workers they invited and very few people are talking about this.
You can check out r/canadaexpressentry to see the difficulty of receiving permanent residency.
– UWaterloo grad can't secure permanent residency
– McGill grad cannot secure permanent residency
– Been in Canada for 10 years, no PR
Everyone agrees that Canadian immigration had to be reformed, but the government is taking it out on skilled workers INSIDE Canada.
Carney is not going on the news announcing "we are getting rid of immigrants". Instead, they're just not doing anything until all work permits expire. Per capita Carney will be deporting more people than Trump ever could since Carney knows skilled immigrants will self-deport. I personally know 2 Koreans, 2 Indians, 1 Italian, and 1 Sudanese person who all make +100k and will be forced to quit their jobs and self-deport if they don't want a lifetime immigration ban.
In my opinion, they should regularize all skilled high-income immigrants inside Canada and temporarily reduce future growth until the economy improves.
Posted by iBikeAndSwim