Go Ad Free

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre did not mince his words Thursday in condemning Trudeau’s “radical uncontrolled immigration” policies.

“Canada made me a promise. It makes all of us a promise,” opined Poilievre. “Whether we're born here [or] arrived as immigrants, if you work hard, you get a good life. Anyone from anywhere … gets a powerful paycheck that buys affordable food and homes in safe neighborhoods.”

“And that promise, like everything else, is broken after nine years of Trudeau and the NDP-Liberals. Most of all, he broke our immigration system,” he said.

The Trudeau government, at a separate press conference on Thursday, agreed to a major reduction in the number of permanent residents it will permit entry each year.

This year’s Immigration Levels Plan will specifically cut back the number of permanent residents Canada plans to accept through 2027, from 485,000 this year to 395,000 in 2025. It also plans to cut numbers to 380,000 in 2026 and to 365,000 in 2027. 

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 Trudeau.

On February 12, MPs demanded a review of federal immigration policy after the House of Commons adopted a non-binding Bloc Québécois motion to revise quotas. The proposal passed by a vote of 173-150 but was ultimately ignored by the federal government.

Most recent immigration data uncovered 471,550 permanent residents, 766,520 temporary foreign workers and 1,040,985 recipients of foreign study permits.

A 2020 memo forewarned current targets could pose serious challenges to housing, education and health service infrastructure for provinces and municipalities but was also ignored.

“Trudeau suddenly admitted that ‘radical uncontrolled immigration’ and policies related to it are partly to blame for joblessness, [and the] housing and health care crisis,” Poilievre told reporters.

“And his immigration minister admits that immigration is out of control,” he added. Canada’s population, according to Statistics Canada’s real-time population clock, is now 41.7 million.

The prime minister’s “last minute pre-election reversal cannot be believed,” continued the Tory leader. “He said six months ago he's going to cap the number of temporary residents in this country to 5% of our population. Since that time, it's gone up to 7.3%.”

The Department of Immigration announced plans on Thursday to cap temporary resident numbers from 6.5% of the total Canadian population to 5% over the next three years. Their numbers exploded to 7.3% earlier this year.

“Today's immigration flip flop is a massive admission of failure by Justin Trudeau,” contends Poilievre, who notes the prior crisis at Roxham Road and failure to promptly cap temporary residents are areas of notable concern.

“He [Trudeau] left Roxham Road open for a year after President Biden offered to close it,” Poilievre said. In 2022, 39,171 asylum seekers crossed Quebec through the unofficial border crossing.

Despite the closure of Roxham Road on March 24, 2023, thousands more arrived by air, mainly at the airports in Toronto and Montreal.

Canada border agents processed no less than 3,420 applications at “air points” in Québec since May 2023, including the Montreal-Trudeau Airport — dubbed the “new Roxham Road.” Its closure only “momentarily” slowed the flow of migrants coming to Canada.

Poilievre also notes the Trudeau government removed the visa requirement for Mexican visitors, causing an explosion of false and fraudulent refugee claims.

As reported by Blacklock’s Reporter, Department of Immigration figures last September 30 showed refugee claims by Mexican nationals numbered 22,875 last year — the highest of any country. They previously peaked at 9,511 in 2009, prompting the previous Conservative cabinet to impose visa requirements that Trudeau repealed in 2016. 

The decision, reversed earlier this year, cost taxpayers $61.7 million annually, according to department officials.

“We will stop the legal arrival of false refugee claimants by securing our borders, our ports and our airports,” Poilievre promised.

The Conservative MP then pivoted to the impacts current immigration targets have had on Canada’s dwindling housing supply.

“Just nine years ago, we had a housing surplus. We had more houses than were necessary to house the new people coming to the country,” he said.

A 2020 memo forewarned current targets could pose serious challenges to housing, education and health service infrastructure for provinces and municipalities.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CHMC) projects the housing stock will grow by approximately 2.3 million between 2021 and 2030. However, an additional 3.5 million housing units are needed beyond current projections to restore affordability.

“We will cap population growth so that it is always below the growth in housing, health care and jobs,” Poilievre promised. “We will reverse the uncontrolled approach.”

“Conservatives will fix what Trudeau and the NDP-Liberals broke. We will restore the best immigration system in the world,” he said.