The federal government is set to announce major changes to Canada’s immigration system on Thursday, three sources tell Global News.
It comes amid a push from up to 30 backbench Liberal MPs to have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quit.
One of those sources said there will be a reduction in the number of permanent residents admitted to Canada on an annual basis in future years and changes to temporary immigration streams.
Canada has planned to admit 500,000 permanent residents in 2025 and had planned to maintain this target in 2026. The number of permanent residents admitted on an annual basis has increased by 59 per cent since the Liberals first came to power.
Canada will now seek to gradually reduce the number of admissions per year to 365,000 by 2027, down from 485,000 in 2024, a government source told Reuters.
The number of temporary residents, meanwhile, will decrease by about 30,000 to around 300,000 in 2025, the source said.
Both Trudeau and Immigration Marc Miller hinted at major changes to immigration streams at the Liberal cabinet retreat.
“We’re looking at the various streams to make sure that as we move forward, Canada remains a place that is positive in its support for immigration,” Trudeau said on Aug. 28.
In 2023, there were more than 2,500,000 temporary residents in Canada, accounting for 6.2 per cent of the population. Miller said earlier this year the government was looking to reduce that number to five per cent.
Migrant advocates slammed the impending change.
“We are witnessing one of the most egregious rollbacks of migrant rights in Canadian history,” Syed Hussan, spokesperson for the Migrant Rights Network Secretariat, said in a statement.
“Cutting permanent resident numbers is a direct assault on migrants who will be forced to remain temporary or become undocumented, pushed further into exploitative jobs.”
—With files from Reuters