An expert immigration panel led by the C.D. Howe Institute is urging the Canadian federal government to implement deeper cuts to the temporary resident population. The council, chaired by Parisa Mahboubi, argues that current targets fail to account for significant one-time programs and that the government lacks sufficient data to track residents once their visas expire.
The 148,000-person gap in official immigration targets
The federal government’s current immigration levels plan may be significantly undercounting the actual number of people entering the country through specialized programs. While the government has reduced permanent resident targets to 395,000 for 2025 and 380,000 for 2026,the C.D. Howe Institute council warns these figures are incomplete. Parisa Mahboubi, chair of the council, noted that one-time programs are set to grant status to approximately 148,000 people between 2026 and 2027, a figre not reflected in broader planning.
This discrepancy includes 115,000 protected persons and up to 33,000 skilled workers. Because these groups are being processed through separate channels , the council argues it is difficult to determine if Canada is truly "correcting the course" regarding its total population growth. Furthermore, Mahboubi suggests the government's goal of reducing temporary residents to 5% of the population should be viewed as a ceiling rather than a floor, advocating instead for a target of 3% to 4% to align with historical averages.
Why Parisa Mahboubi claims Canada is "flying in the dark" on departures
Canada currently lacks the granular data necessary to track non-permanent residents once they have arrived on Canadian soil. parisa Mahboubi, chair of the C.D. Howe Institute's immigration targets council, stated that the government is "flying in the dark" because it cannot accurately monitor how many people leave the country after their visas expire.
The council's findings suggest that officials are operating on assumptions rather than hard evidence regarding the exit of students and workers.. Without clear data on the number of visa renewals or the volume of people exiting with expired status, the government cannot effectively manage the total number of non-permanent residents. This lack of visibility makes it nearly impsosible to verify if the recent sharp drops in new arrivals are actually resulting in a lower total population of non-permanent residents.
Rempel Garner’s warning of a "two-tiered justice system"
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner has raised concerns that the legal system may be inadvertently protecting non-citizens from deportation. rempel Garner argues that a "two-tiered justice system" exists where non-citizens receive lighter sentences specifically to avoid the immigration consequences of a six-month or longer prison term.
A 2019 study from the University of Saskatchewan College of Law provides evidence for this pattern. The study found that in 40 cases where sentences were near the six-month threshold, every single one resulted in a sentence below six months, often to prevent the individual from being deemed inadmissible to Canada. Rempel Garner has raised dozens of these cases in the House of Commons, claiming that lawyers have confirmed this practice is a frequent occurrence.
The decline from 124,000 students to 22,000 arrivals
Recent data indicates a significant slowdown in the influx of temporary residents, even as the total population remains high. Between January and June of this year, only 22,410 new foreign students arrived in Canada, a sharp decrease from the 124,930 arrivals recorded during the same period in 2024.
Temporary worker arrivals have seen a similar contraction, according to the report. The number of new arrivals for the first six months of this year stood at 98,130, down significantly from the 244,985 arrivals seen in the first half of 2024. despite these drops, the non-permanent resident population remains substantial, with Statistics Canada estimating it at approximately 2.5 million people as of last spring. As of June 30, data showed there were still 632,000 study permit holders and 1.5 million temporary work permit holders residing in the country.
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