This desired “reasonable” and “relatively ambitious” target however won't be finalized until Ottawa unveils its new immigration levels plan in the fall, after the federal government receives the input of the provinces and territories, Miller told a news conference in Ottawa March 21, 2024.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller
“When it comes to immigration it is a shared responsibility,” Miller noted, with some provinces having more responsibility than others.
“But that comes with duties as well,” he said. “In those discussions, when provinces tell us we need X amount of people for our economy, we also have to have a discussion about X, Y or Z needs in other areas, including housing, health services, education where we’re seeing some strains on the system,” he explained. The FPT meeting "will be an opportunity to be able to talk about it because. . . the point. . .we make to provinces is, ‘if you want to bring in all these people on a temporary basis there’s got to be a better plan.’”
Miller said setting a target for temporary residents, for the first time, will strengthen the alignment between immigration planning, community capacity and labour market needs, and support predictable population growth.
Asked by a reporter whether the targeted reduction of temporary residents from 6.2 per cent to five per cent amounts to a “cap,” the immigration minister responded, “any time you put a number in those plans, they become for public servants a soft cap. The reality is I don’t want to speak before I’m able to have a good conversation with provinces and our teams to work together to ensure we can affect that. There are a lot of things not within our control.”
Stating caps were not a common practice in the past, Miller said “but now we are seeing the need to ramp things down, it is possible that in certain areas we would limit applications. We wouldn’t exclude that, but I wouldn’t say we’re going to cap all streams because it’s, one, functionally impossible in some senses, and, two, not something provinces will be ready to accept. But if they don’t, they need to tell us and take responsibility for it.”
Miller said the government will direct its efforts to transition temporary residents to permanent residence. “We’ll have more domestic draws for us, the feds, and ask provinces and territories taking part in the provincial nominee program to do the same with their allocations," he explained. "This will realign our efforts and provide a pathway for those who are in the country who wish to stay and contribute to the country and to the economy.”
Miller said Ottawa has “already taken big strides forward” to limit the number of temporary residents. “Earlier this year we imposed a two-year cap for new international students to address integrity issues in that program,” he pointed out. “We also restricted eligibility for post-graduate work permits and work permits to spouses of students. Recently as well we announced a partial visa requirement for Mexican travelers. As we continue to see the impacts of these measures over the next few years, we’ll continue to adjust those approaches if necessary.”
Meanwhile, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has been instructed to review existing programs that bring in temporary foreign workers “to better align streams with labour market needs and weed out abuses in the system,” he said. (See related story here.)
“As I said this fall when I tabled the levels plan for the next three years, immigration accounts for the vast majority of our population and labour force growth,” Miller said. “Temporary residents enrich Canada’s economic, social and cultural fabric. Canada’s future economic vibrancy depends on those we bring in today, whether we like that or not.”
While many temporary foreign workers are filling needed job vacancies in critical industries like construction and will be needed for the future to build new homes, and work as early childhood educators and in healthcare, "changes are needed to make the system more efficient and more sustainable,” he said.
IRCC identified the main categories of temporary residents as: international students (42 per cent); temporary foreign workers under the “temporary foreign workers” program (nine per cent); and temporary workers under the “international mobility” program (44 per cent).
The international mobility category of temporary residents breaks down further into: post-graduate work permits (26 per cent); spousal work permits for students or workers (nine per cent); workers under reciprocal youth mobility agreements that in turn allow Canadian youth to work in other countries (i.e. the International Experience Class, 10 per cent); workers here through intercompany transfers, trade agreements and the like (17 per cent); arrivals through special humanitarian pathways, including people fleeing Ukraine (26 per cent and growing); and people waiting for their asylum claims to be heard by the Immigration and Refugee Board (five per cent).
“As part of our response to Ukraine, we will have close to 300,000 arrivals of Ukrainians in Canada by the end of the month,” Miller said. “To be clear, these are important global commitments to Canadians and Canadians should unabashedly be proud of this. At the same time there should be an honest conversation about what the rise in international migration means for Canada as we plan ahead.”
Moreover, Miller said “we can’t ignore the pressures created by the historic volume of asylum seekers in Canada, consistent with worldwide trends and ensuring a well-resourced system that can quickly and fairly process asylum claims is critical to managing the volume of temporary residents.”
If you have any information, story ideas or news tips for Law360 Canada, please contact Cristin Schmitz at Cristin.schmitz@lexisnexis.ca or call 613-820-2794.