Toronto / August 2026
“We are taking back control on immigration”, Prime Minister Carney said to media recently – boasting that numbers of temporary (and permanent) immigrants and asylum claims were significantly reduced since this government came in:
- New international students decreased by 60%
- Temporary/Migrant workers decreased by about 50%
- Asylum Seekers/Refugee Claimants down by over 30%
For a long time, the Council and our allies have raised concerns about the pivot to temporariness in Canada’s immigration program. Not because we wanted our borders closed or access to Canada’s post-secondary institutions and labour markets restricted. But because few safeguards were put in place to prevent or respond to the exploitation that workers and students were facing from unscrupulous employers and bad faith actors in the immigration consulting and recruitment industry.
Since the late nineties, anti-poverty advocates have been calling on all levels of government to invest our tax dollars in building affordable, safe and accessible housing for the growing population. We raised concerns about provincial governments increasingly relying on ever-escalating international student fees to fund post-secondary education budgets.
At every turn, we called for a return to an immigration program that was about permanence and social investment, with human rights as a foundational pillar.
Each of the percentages mentioned above represent real people:
The international student whose family borrowed funds to finance their Canadian education only to find out that they will no longer qualify for a post-graduate work permit, and will no longer have a path to permanent residence. The current IRCC Minister recently offered a “clarification” that no changes were made to eligibility requirements since November 2024. But that is cold comfort for students already in Canada who were left out by changes from tightened permit eligibility to higher financial requirements. Many in our sector see it as a significant change in policy and its interpretation and application, to the great detriment of students.
The thousands of individual workers brought in as ‘low skilled, low wage’ workers to (wo)man the counters of fast-food restaurants, and if memory serves, to work in strip joints, now find themselves without a renewed permit to work.
Where will these individuals with dreams and ambitions just like you and I go? How will they survive if they stay, without status, made vulnerable by a system that encouraged their migration and is now working to shut them out? What obligations do we as a country owe to these people- the young student, or the aging mother?
How did we get here? How did we go in less than twenty-four months from dreaming and planning for a broad regularization program that would make permanent those who have spent time building their new lives here, contributing to our social and economic well-being to this place of increased deportations (23,160 in 2025 contrasted with 17,397 in 2024, and lower in previous years).
The most egregious of these immigration changes is the closing of our borders to those in need of protection from persecution for their political and religious/spiritual beliefs; their identity (race, sexuality, gender, etc.) or who are fleeing war and/or environmental degradation of their lands. Our hands are not clean as Canadians. Canadian mining companies and some of our trade agreements contribute to this degradation of place. And the persecution and exploitation of the people of these places.
Yet we shut our borders through public policies like the Safe Third Country Agreement with the USA. What happens to the thirty percent of the persons who knocked on our door and were refused entry? Who will protect them? The woman who is fleeing her country escaping rape as corrective measure for her sexuality? Or the man, jailed without trial, finally able to escape and make his way to a border that was presented as safe and welcoming only to be met with indifference and refusal?
Or those who are here. Welcomed with open arms and great support in the first years, only to have the proverbial rug pulled out from under them, left in limbo, status unclear. Over the Emancipation Day weekend (Canada’s August civic holiday) I received two emails marked urgent. Both from Ukrainian nationals who arrived at the beginning of the Ukrainian-Russian war. One writer shared that she had a young child born here in Canada. Both families are in search of a pathway to make their stay here permanent. They had reached out to service organizations, to their MPs and other elected representatives, to their churches. No answers. They were reaching out to the Council as a last resort- prompted perhaps by my July blog where I used Ukrainians to compare with other nationalities (Gazans, Sudanese, Haitians) that were treated less than by our federal government.
What am I to say to these (and others) Ukrainian families who were encouraged to settle and had access to immigrant and refugee services, income supports, access to provincial services and now- nothing?
I have no answers to give to these families. Nothing that will make a meaningful difference to their situation. I will reach out to our colleagues in the sector who work with and support the Ukrainian communities. We will as a Council continue to lend our voice and influence to movements working to build a Canada that is inclusive and welcoming. A Canada where public policies and economic investments centre the working ordinary person on the streets and not the billionaire oligarchs. A Canada that respects and honors all contributions regardless of the accent, gender, economic class or skin colour of the person making that contribution. A Canada where we all belong.
On the night of July 31st, I joined hundreds just outside the Vaughn TTC subway stop. We were gathered for the thirteenth Freedom Ride - an event commemorating the underground railroad that brought thousands (estimates are 30-40K between 1840-1860) of people of African descent fleeing enslavement in the USA. The symbolism of riding into freedom, into emancipation (the ride ends at 12:01am or so) never loses its power for me and those who participate year after year. It was particularly poignant this year, given the state of our world.
I hold on to the hope that in spite of our backward looking/moving policies, we will overcome as the old spiritual promises:
We Shall Overcome
We Shall Overcome
We Shall Overcome some/ (to)day
For deep in our hearts (and souls)
We do believe (and know)
That we shall Overcome some/ (to)day….
In Solidarity
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