Migrant advocates slammed the change. “We’re witnessing one of the crucial egregious rollbacks of migrant rights in Canadian historical past,” Syed Hussan, spokesperson for the Migrant Rights Community Secretariat, stated in a press release.
“Reducing everlasting resident numbers is a direct assault on migrants who shall be pressured to stay non permanent or change into undocumented, pushed additional into exploitative jobs.”
The workplace of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not instantly accessible to remark.
The brand new immigration targets additionally mark a shift from the pandemic period when the federal government loosened guidelines on non permanent residents to assist fill labour shortages.
Final 12 months, Canada had deliberate to usher in 500,000 new everlasting residents in 2025 and the identical quantity in 2026. As of the second quarter of 2024, there have been 2.8 million non permanent residents, together with employees and college students, in Canada, based on Statistics Canada.
In an August interview, Immigration Minister Marc Miller informed Reuters “Canadians need a(n immigration) system that isn’t uncontrolled.”
Canada’s Liberal authorities, trailing within the polls as some legislators search to oust their chief, has been attempting to control immigration.
Below Trudeau, Canadian immigration officers have authorised fewer visas this 12 months and border officers turned rising numbers of visa-holders away, knowledge obtained by Reuters confirmed.
The federal government guarantees to scale back non permanent residents’ share of the inhabitants to five per cent over three years; it was 6.8 per cent in April.
It additionally capped the variety of worldwide college students Canada will usher in and tightened the principles on non permanent international employees beneath a program that brings non-Canadians to the nation to work on a short lived foundation. This system has come beneath hearth for suppressing wages and leaving employees weak to abuse.