Prime Minister Mark Carney acknowledged that Canada's immigration system is broken during the first televised debate of the general election. “The system isn’t working,” he told French-language viewers in Montreal last night.

“Our population has gone up at about 3% per year because of immigration,” said Carney. “That’s why we need to have a cap for a certain period of time.”

In October, the Liberals promised to lower permanent resident targets to 365,000 by 2027. Conservatives promised even lower targets, under 250,000.

Mark Carney suggests maintaining Trudeau-level immigration numbers to further increase Canada’s population. pic.twitter.com/da74kmHj77

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) April 17, 2025

Organizers of the national election debates dropped immigration from Thursday’s English debate but kept it for yesterday’s French debate, without explanation.

Statistics Canada reports that most immigrants reside outside of Quebec, with British Columbia and Ontario leading the country; 39% of their workforce is foreign-born.

Canadians were almost equally divided on whether too many immigrants were coming to their city or town, with 41% saying there were too many and 39% saying the number was about right.

Editors from several Canadian news networks chose the English debate topics, reported Blacklock’s. The Leaders' Debates Commission confirmed that immigration would only be debated in French.

Immigration's broken says PM, acknowledges "system isn't working." Asked in debate if @CitImmCanada "went off the rails in the last 7 or 8 years," @MarkJCarney replies: "Well, yes."  https://t.co/ygUSi2AJnh #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/2vMPAgtFOL

— Blacklock's Reporter (@mindingottawa) April 17, 2025

“Would you say the immigration system in Canada went off the rails in the last seven or eight years?” asked a moderator. “Well, yes,” replied Carney. “The system isn’t working.”

A previous plan tabled 500,000 additional permanent residents in each of the next two years. “We didn't get the balance quite right,” admitted then-prime minister Justin Trudeau.

“The targets set by your predecessor Mr. Trudeau, you would bring them down further?” asked a moderator. “Well, there are some challenges,” replied Carney.

The Liberal leader stated that the cap will be maintained for a few years to increase capacity for newcomers, but did not provide further details, reported Blacklock’s.

The Department of Immigration plans to reduce temporary resident numbers from 7.3% of the Canadian population to 5% over three years.

Canada’s population, according to Statistics Canada’s real-time population clock, is now 41.62 million.

Poilievre slams Carney for hiring Mark Wiseman, a former BlackRock exec who co-founded the Century Initiative, a nonprofit that aims to balloon Canada's population to 100M by the year 2100.

Conservatives "will get back to moderate, reasonable levels of immigration," he says. pic.twitter.com/y6OKvMrUhJ

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) March 21, 2025

Pierre Poilievre also criticized the immigration system, saying quotas should be tied to housing capacity to fix the "damage" caused by Liberals.

Poilievre further proposed limiting immigration to also match the availability of jobs and healthcare. In 2014, under a previous Conservative government, Canada accepted 260,411 landed immigrants.

“We will get back to moderate reasonable levels of immigration,” he promised. “Our country was built by common sense immigration.” The Conservatives fell short of a moratorium on immigration.

In 2023, Canada had 2.3 million foreigners, including over 1 million foreign students, 766,250 migrant workers, and 471,550 landed immigrants. 

Additionally, up to 500,000 foreigners were estimated to be in Canada illegally due to expired permits.

Please donate to support our independent coverage of the Leaders Debate!

Mark Carney’s debate commission said Rebel News could send 16 reporters to cover the leaders debates — but secretly planned to muzzle 15 of us. Thanks to our lawyer Chad Williamson, we exposed their censorship scheme and forced them to back down before we could sue. Now five Rebel reporters — the biggest team at the debates — will be asking the questions the regime media won’t. But legal fights, travel, and production cost money. Please help us cover the $12,000 bill by donating today.

Optional email code

Amount

$25

$50

$75

$100

$250

$500

$1,000

$2,500

Other

$

One-time

Monthly

DONATE