Canada’s reduced immigration targets are election ploy, says advocates

Newcomers have gone from guardian angels during the COVID-19 pandemic to being blamed for national and provincial social problems, according to Montreal’s Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC).

In October, both the federal and provincial governments announced immigration restrictions. Quebec’s Immigration Minister Jean Francois Roberge tabled the province’s 2025 immigration plan with a moratorium on two permanent immigration programs.

“Yes, there is an increase of temporary levels of migration throughout the pandemic or just before the pandemic up until this very moment,” said Mostafa Henaway, a community organizer at the IWC. “But these restrictions actually aren’t going to resolve those issues.”

There’s now an eight-month freeze in two programs that allow people to obtain permanent residency: the Regular Skilled Worker Program and the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ). The latter is used by international students to fast-track their eventual citizenship.

Roberge said it’s being done to curb the increase in the number of permanent immigrants for the coming year.

Around the same time, Ottawa announced it will admit 20 per cent fewer immigrants over the next two years, with its target for 2027 even lower.

The Immigrant Workers Centre says the measures are being implemented by the government to gain popularity before the elections and in the end, they “create more problems.”

“We believe all this it’s based on the elections,” said Manuel Salamanca Cardona, an IWC community worker.

“Basically using this anti-immigrant, xenophobic, anti-immigrant environment created by the different governments, blaming the immigrants without proof really, it’s just a feeling they have.”

The group says it’s adding undue pressure onto people who are already in a vulnerable situation.

“The fact that they are unwanted, the fact that maybe they’ll be deported, of course worsens their conditions,” said Susana Ponte Rivera, a member of the women’s committee at the IWC. “And employers are affected by this discourse and some, of course, may take advantage of it.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in August, while at a retreat in Halifax, that Canada is “also responsible in the way we integrate and make sure there’s pathways to success for everyone who comes to Canada.”

Henaway says it’s a major misconception that temporary foreign workers are a strain on Canada’s housing and health-care system.

“If you’re not a permanent resident, you don’t have access to social housing,” he said. “So how can we say that this is creating a burden upon our social welfare state, our public services?

“So if you’re undocumented. You have access to nothing. You don’t have access to health care. You don’t have access to aide social. You don’t have access to employment insurance. You have access to nothing. You live in the shadows.”

Ankush arrived in Montreal six months ago from India. He’s taking French classes and has sent out more than 550 job applications to date – without success.

“I have computer experience. I have hospitality experience. I have a security experience, but still I don’t have the job,” he told CityNews.

“We are also humans, we are not saying anything to any citizens, but we are helping people, but they don’t want to understand that.”