Canadians have historically welcomed immigration because it has, in the past, contributed much to our economy and social stability. This positive impact was due not only to the quality of immigrants, but also to our immigration policy, the envy of the world. It was based on the point system whereby an immigrant’s eligibility was determined by points awarded for a number of factors, including level of education, job skills and language facility, etc. This point system encouraged those immigrants who could not only fill jobs but also had the potential to assimilate into Canadian society to create a flourishing country. This was reflected in former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s use of the point system to recruit those immigrants who were able to adapt to this country’s values.
The policy, however, changed under Liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. He opened the floodgates to immigration permitting 5 million unskilled immigrants to arrive in Canada over a five-year period. In 2022-23 alone, over 1 million immigrants entered Canada. This influx of immigrants under Trudeau made Canada the country with the highest immigration rate in the western world. In a grand exercise of wishful thinking, the Trudeau government believed that these new immigrants would ignite the stalled economy and launch Canada into a new era of prosperity. Unfortunately, like so many other Liberal policies based on fantasies and electoral count calculations, the immigration plan turned out to be a disaster.
Immigration disaster was the only possible outcome given Canada’s declining economy, broken healthcare system that can’t even provide timely care for the current population, and an increasingly fragmented social contract based on the myths of multiculturalism. For example, despite the well-known challenges facing the healthcare system, incredibly, on Thanksgiving Day 2025, the federal government posted on social media, an invitation to foreigners to take advantage of Canada’s public healthcare. The post stated, “Thinking about moving to Canada? Did you know that Canada has public healthcare?”
New immigrants are also arriving in the country at a time of high unemployment and a lack of affordable housing, making it even harder for them to be a positive addition to the economy. During these last five years when 5 million immigrants were flooding into the country, Canada was enduring a decline in the standard of living and persistent low productivity. Canada’s economic problems can be directly attributed to the Liberal/Trudeau economic policies that reduced productivity and foreign investment. The former governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz (2013-2020) stated in April 2025, “We have been fundamentally weak in this country for 10 years.” Poloz’s concerns were echoed a year earlier by current Bank of Canada senior deputy governor, Carolyn Rogers, who in a speech in Halifax addressed the productivity crisis: “You’ve seen those signs that say, ‘In emergency, break glass’? well, it’s time to break the glass.”
The high influx of immigrants has exacerbated Canada’s dire economic situation. On July 24, 2025, the Bank of Canada issued a report warning that immigrants did not represent a benefit to Canada owing to Canada’s sizable output gap, lackluster growth and increasing unemployment. In September 2025, the economic think tank, the C.D. Howe Institute, stated that under the present immigration system, new immigration into Canada was “depressing wages, hurting per-person-productivity and serving as a pathway to low wages, rather than ensuring the entry of global talent.”
A Broken Immigration File
Both Justin Trudeau, and his successor Prime Minister Mark Carney seem either unwilling or unable to fix either the economy or immigration problems. Instead, the government is overwhelmed by the chaos caused by the broken immigration system.
The following information is alarming and indicates the extensive failings of Canada’s immigration file. The truth is the government has proven itself to be highly incompetent in this regard.
The Grim Story Behind Canada’s Immigration Failure
The hard truth is that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), responsible for tracking and controlling illegal immigration, has admitted that there are now between 600,000 and 1 million undocumented individuals residing in Canada. This has been caused by an immigration system that is deeply flawed as it permits foreign nationals to enter Canada without proper screening due to large numbers of immigrants. As a result, observers have concluded that Canada is a haven for terrorists, criminals, and other undesirable individuals.
The inadequate screening of immigrants has allowed criminals from other countries to slip into Canada undetected. The criminals are aware that when they carry out their illicit activities here, there will be little backlash and minimal police surveillance (see REALity Update, Are Canadian Families Safe in Their Own Country?, August 22, 2025). On August 7, 2025, opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, demanded that these criminals, who number approximately 600, must be immediately deported. If the illicit criminals in Canada were not enough of a problem, Canada incredibly has a policy that allows the legal admission into Canada of foreign criminals to be rehabilitated here, providing that a five-year period has elapsed since the completion of their sentence or conviction. According to Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), it had received 25,350 rehabilitation applications between 2014 and 2024 from foreigners with a criminal background. Of this number, the department has, during this period, approved 17,600 applications. Last year (2024), the IRCC received a total of 2,605 applications, and of this number the agency has approved 1,505 applications. Canadians should ask why they are paying for the rehabilitation of foreign criminals as we seem to have enough of our own citizens to rehabilitate.
Categories of Immigrants to Canada
Immigrants to Canada fall into three categories: (1) permanent residents, (2) temporary immigrants holding visas – either working visas or student visas, and (3) refugees or asylum seekers.
(1) Permanent Residents
Trudeau shifted the immigration system, from one which selected immigrants based on the point system to a system which prioritizes unskilled candidates who only meet short-term labour market needs. This is one of the major causes of the current immigration problem. These “Trudeau Newcomers” are experiencing difficulty in adapting to Canada due to the lack of jobs, lack of housing and inflation. Adding to the calamity is the fact that Canada’s healthcare system is already collapsing providing for the current needs of Canadians and does not have the capacity to deal with the newcomers.
(2) Temporary Immigrants Holding Visas (Work Visa or Student Visa)
i. Work Visas
There are two types of temporary visas issued by the Canadian government – work visas and student visas. The visa holders total 3 million temporary residents in Canada. Work visas are issued to address labour shortages. This temporary foreign worker program supposedly allows Canadian companies to hire foreign nationals for temporary positions. Unfortunately, these visas serve as a magnet for foreign workers to abuse the system. At the present time, there are at least one quarter of visa holders working in the food and beverage industries, replacing Canadian high school and university students. As a result, the latter now face a 14.9% unemployment rate. Employers prefer the temporary workers because they work for less than minimum wage. Further, another problem arising once the work visas expire is that many of these workers continue to remain in Canada contributing to the large number of undocumented residents here.
ii. Student Visas
A student visa is a foreign national’s ticket to live and remain in Canada. In 2024 there were 485,000 student visas issued. Although in 2025, this number was reportedly reduced to 407,000 student visas. Of these, there were unfortunately, 50,000 foreign students who were no-shows at the universities and colleges at which they had been registered. The worst offenders in this regard came from India. Indian students with visas who were no-shows totaled 19,582. The next highest offenders came from China with 4,279 no-shows. There were 3,902 no-shows from Nigeria. The next highest no-shows came from Ghana, followed by Iran, and then Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines. Further, even if students actually attend educational institutions, when their visas expire some slip away to the U.S. Others continue to remain in Canada finding employment here for an unknown period of time.
Another problem is that some of the foreign students holding visas during their first year of residence here, apply as refugee or asylum seekers for monetary reasons. This is because the tuition fees for international students are twice that paid by Canadian students. It also means that since the government pays the cost of accommodation and healthcare for refugees and asylum seekers, Canadian taxpayers are contributing financially to the education of international students in Canada.
Finally, another problem has arisen with student visa holders in that many from the Middle East are using their visas to infiltrate educational institutions in order to dominate the student body for political purposes to promote the anti-Israel/Jewish pro-Palestine objectives. An example of this occurred recently at Concordia University in September, when a student handbook was distributed filled with anti-Israel/Jewish pro-Palestine propaganda. It provided little useful information for students, only propaganda, even though the students were required to pay dues to the student union, dominated by Muslim students who had prepared the handbook. Another recent example occurred on the second anniversary of the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, when the Muslim students at Concordia, McGill and University of Toronto held demonstrations celebrating the “Glorious Resistance” to Israel and the demand for a Palestinian state. These students were assisted at the demonstrations by left-wing professors who do not permit a grain of intellectual honesty to penetrate their extremist ideology. These professors are a part of the unholy trinity in Canada whereby the Canadian left is united with the Islamists to intimidate Canadian society in supporting their agenda. It is to be noted that student visas are issued to grant students the right to study here. They do not have any right or jurisdiction to agitate politically or try to intimidate Canadian society to support their agenda.
(3) Refugee or Asylum seekers
Asylum seekers have caused an intense strain on the economy. The federal government, since 2017, has been housing these asylum seekers in hotels at a cost of $1.2 billion. Effective October 1st of this year, they have ceased to use the hotels for this purpose, and the cost of housing these immigrants has fallen to the provinces and municipalities.
To date, 10% of homeless shelters are occupied by refugees and asylum seekers. The federal government also pays for the healthcare of these individuals. This includes benefits that are not available to Canadians. These benefits include prostheses, drugs, eye care, homecare etc. Preliminary estimates for healthcare for these individuals, refugees and asylum seekers, for 2025-2026 are $821,191,548, which is a 1,144% increase over 2016-2017 healthcare payments paid to refugees and asylum seekers.
Provincial taxpayers also give benefits to these claimants. For example, the province of Ontario pays asylum seekers $330 per month for rent, $343 per month for other needs, giving them a total of $673 per month. This means that the claimants, even fraudulent ones, can live fairly comfortably in Canada with their housing and healthcare being paid by the taxpayers of Canada via federal, provincial and municipal governments, for a period of 5-8 years pending the disposal of their case by immigration authorities. This long delay for a hearing is due to the huge backlog of applicants. Although these claimants are not permitted to take employment during their stay in Canada, they are allowed to take English language courses.
Government Pays Cost of Returning Terrorists
From the above, it is clear that the government is operating at an unbelievable high level of incompetence in regard to immigrants, but it is also operating at a high level of stupidity. This conclusion is based on the fact that a number of Canadian women born and raised here, abandoned Canada several years ago to join forces with the ISIS Jihadi terrorists in Iraq and Syria, becoming their “wives”. When the terrorists were unsuccessful, the women with their children moved into detention camps. A group of 8 such women requested that Canada permit them and their 10 children to return to Canada, the cost to be paid by the Canadian taxpayer. The Liberal government agreed to do so, which cost the Canadian taxpayer $170K. This sum included airfare in business class and lodging in the upscale Marriott Hotel upon arrival in Montreal. During their hotel stay these women used room service to order their meals including wine and chocolates, and also, ordered catering service amounting to $3,000. They also made purchases in the hotel gift shop. On their arrival the women were wearing niqabs, covered from head to foot, except for slits allowing their eyes to peer through. Their apparel indicates that they are still unrepentant in their support of the terrorist ideology. Although these women have now been charged with terrorist offenses, the government should also have them de-radicalized and require them to refund the taxpayer for the cost of their travel and upkeep on their return to Canada.
Conclusion
From the above information it is clear that the immigration system must be fundamentally changed as any piecemeal corrections will be insufficient. There is little indication, however, that the Liberal government intends to accept responsibility for the disarray that the immigration system has caused to Canada. Instead, the government will likely continue to blunder on, allowing immigrants to continue to exploit Canada and its overburdened taxpayers and economy, as well as to disturb the peace in this country.