New figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada show the federal government cancelled just 3,615 Temporary Resident Permits (TRPs) between January 2021 and March 2026, despite issuing tens of thousands of permits allowing otherwise inadmissible foreign nationals to enter or remain in Canada.

The data was released in response to a written parliamentary question from Conservative MP Eric Duncan and reveals that cancellations have steadily declined since peaking at 1,435 in 2023. Only 105 permits were cancelled during the first three months of 2026.

A Temporary Resident Permit is an exceptional exemption that allows a person who would otherwise be inadmissible to Canada to enter or remain in the country. Recent government records showed that more than 32,000 such permits were approved between 2021 and March 2026, including for individuals deemed inadmissible because of criminality, serious criminality, misrepresentation and security concerns.

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The latest figures show that nearly 2,000 of the cancellations involved Afghan nationals, largely reflecting permits issued during Canada's Afghan resettlement efforts. Other countries with significant numbers of cancellations included the United States (335), Ukraine (235), the Palestinian Territories (140), Mexico (135) and India (110).

The records also reveal that federal officials have little visibility into why permits are cancelled. IRCC acknowledged it does not systematically track the reasons for cancellations, whether permit holders had already entered Canada, or whether a cancellation was ordered by the immigration minister. Determining those details, the department said, would require a manual review of every file.

Of the 3,615 cancellations, 2,045 were carried out by IRCC officials, 920 by the Canada Border Services Agency, while 655 were recorded as "unspecified" because officials failed to enter the responsible department into the system.