Trudeau’s immigration system in chaos as public residency backlog soars to several year wait
“It was important to reduce not only temporary residents, and international students like we've been doing for the last year, but also on the permanent [resident] levels to make them more manageable,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told CBC News.
Canada’s immigration system will take upwards of seven years to overcome the backlog of permanent residency claims, according to the Department of Immigration.
“It's absolutely terrible,” said New Democrat MP Jenny Kwan. “People's lives are left in purgatory for years,” she added.
The member of Parliament pestered Immigration officials for data on the backlog, with highest priority given to those people who applied through humanitarian categories.
As of May, more than 73,000 of said applicants awaited the status of their claim. MP Kwan says that number has likely risen further.
Canada’s population, according to Statistics Canada’s real-time population clock, is now 41.7 million – a staggering 8.4% increase since the 2021 census.
In October, the Trudeau government announced fewer permanent residency claims would be accepted starting next year to alleviate Canada’s housing crisis and essential service backlogs.
This year’s Immigration Levels Plan will reduce permanent resident levels in Canada 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 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller, in a CBC News interview, expressed the importance of listening to Canadians. “Canadians want a controlled flow of migration,” he said. “It was important to reduce not only temporary residents, and international students like we've been doing for the last year, but also on the permanent [resident] levels to make them more manageable.”
The Department of Immigration also plans to reduce temporary resident numbers from 6.5% of the total Canadian population to 5% over the next three years; numbers that had exploded to 7.3% earlier this year.
Most recent immigration data uncovered a total of 471,550 permanent residents and 766,520 temporary foreign workers.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, 200,000 fewer international students entered Canada this fall compared to the previous year.
Department of Immigration managers could not confirm how many dropouts or students-turned-refugee-claimants remained in the country. Some 1,040,985 foreign students were in Canada at the end of 2023.
The current cap is 606,250 nationwide, with another 10% reduction expected for next year.
Data provided to Global News found asylum applications from people on study permits rose nearly six-fold, from 2,230 in 2018 to 13,075 in 2023. Minister Miller claimed the “growing number” of “bogus refugee” claims was “quite alarming."
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland assured Canadians last Wednesday that its borders will remain secure. “We will do that,” she haphazardly told reporters at the time.
Freeland reiterated those remarks during a Tuesday interview with the state broadcaster, stating that “Every Canadian has the absolute right to expect that our country chooses who comes here and who doesn't. I want people to know their borders are safe and secure."
Alex Dhaliwal
Calgary Based Journalist
Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.
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Bruce Atchison commented 2024-11-13 21:13:07 -0500What a stuppid puke Trudeau is. He is totally responsible for the mess he’s caused. Let’s hope Pierre Poilievre gets in and can fix all the damage this turd caused in office.
