Canada one of world’s most immigrant-friendly countries is changing course

A late-night Uber ride from Toronto’s Pearson Airport into the city usually guarantees a good fare for the driver.

But not for Sachindeep Singh on the evening of September 19.

A few miles into the ride, his Uber app stopped working.

Singh’s work permit had expired at midnight and, like Canada, Uber was putting him on notice.

Singh, 23, arrived in Canada as an international student in 2019. His immigration status permitted him to work and offered a path to permanent residence, an approach labeled “study-work-stay” on the Canadian government’s immigration website.

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But after inviting millions of newcomers to Canada in recent years to help lift the economy, the government has reversed course amid growing concerns that immigrants are contributing to the country’s deepening challenges around housing, health care and other issues.

A series of measures unveiled this year, focused on Canada’s vast temporary residence program, has imposed barriers that have left hundreds of thousands of migrants like Mr. Singh in legal limbo.

Shifting Sands

The international student program that Singh followed has made one route to the Canadian dream of permanent residency, through education, appealing for hundreds of thousands of young people — many of them from India.

International students, who after graduating are eligible for work permits to continue living legally in Canada, represent one major category of temporary residents. Another group is made up of workers who come at the invitation of specific employers, while the smallest cohort are migrants seeking asylum.
The temporary residence program was ramped up after the coronavirus pandemic, as Canada’s economy struggled to fill a labour shortage.

As a result, nearly three million people living in Canada have some type of temporary immigration status, with 2.2 million arriving in just the past two years, according to government statistics.

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Temporary residents represent 6.8 percent of the country’s total population of 41.3 million, up from 3.5 percent in 2022.
But Canada’s economy is now creating fewer jobs, and unemployment, at over 6 percent, remains stubbornly high. It is even higher for temporary residents, at 14 percent.
Many Canadian cities face a housing affordability crisis, and several provinces have overstretched health care systems.

Critics say the large number of temporary residents make these problems worse, and the public mood toward immigrants has soured.

In response, Marc Miller, the country’s immigration minister, has announced a series of cuts to immigration quotas since the start of this year, including lowering the number of student visas issued and capping the number of temporary foreign workers that a company can employ.

As part of the government’s efforts to rein in the temporary residence program, expiring or expired work permits for many immigrants — like Singh — may not be renewed.