Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller speaks with reporters before cabinet on Parliament Hill, June 18, in Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Immigration Minister Marc Miller says the federal cabinet is split over whether to provide a pathway to citizenship – a targeted amnesty – for hundreds of thousands of “undocumented workers” living in Canada.
Some of those people, while in Canada illegally, have built a life here. Some have spouses, some have children. All are living in the shadows, vulnerable to exploitation by unethical employers and others.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau strongly believes in the importance of finding a path to citizenship for at least some undocumented migrants. In his 2021 mandate letter to then-incoming immigration minister Sean Fraser, the Prime Minister directed him to “further explore ways of regularizing status for undocumented workers who are contributing to Canadian communities.”
However, when Mr. Miller finally took a proposal to cabinet in June, he discovered that some of its members sharply opposed any amnesty program. As he result, he said, even a limited program “is not something that is going to get rolled out soon.”
But ministers are debating the wrong issue. Ottawa must first address the flaws in the immigration system that made it possible for those hundreds of thousands of migrants to remain in Canada illegally in the first place.
Only when those flaws have been fixed can there be a discussion about a circumscribed amnesty. Without significant reform, it will only be a matter of time before other migrants choose to live in Canada without status or documentation, rather than leave.
Locating and removing undocumented residents is difficult and expensive. But that does not mean the government should simply give up enforcing immigration laws. Public confidence in Canada’s immigration system is already weakening. A recent Leger poll showed negative attitudes to immigration among many millennial and Gen Z citizens.
An amnesty program, even if limited, without stepped-up enforcement would further erode confidence. If the Canadian consensus in favour of immigration is lost, one of this country’s most important competitive advantages and proudest achievements would be in peril.
Let’s be clear: Undocumented residents are in Canada illegally. They may have come to this country on a student visa and then failed to depart when the visa expired. They may have sought asylum, had their application rejected, and then failed to return to their country of origin.
As the Liberal government increased the number of permanent residents, temporary foreign workers and international students entering Canada, the number of undocumented migrants appears to have increased as well. Although no one knows for sure, Mr. Miller believes there are between 300,000 and 600,000 undocumented residents.
One major reason for the uncertainty: Ottawa does not keep track of when people voluntarily leave the country. According to data from the Canada Border Services Agency, there are 21,236 people whose refugee claims had been denied prior to 2015, but who may still be in the country. The agency is not able to say whether those people – who should have departed Canada nearly a decade ago, or longer – had left on their own, or had remained here illegally. That’s just one facet of a yawning data gap that needs to be closed so the government can enforce Canada’s immigration laws.
A lack of resources is not the problem. The number of people working in the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has nearly doubled since the Liberals came to power in 2015. The Immigration and Refugee Board has more than doubled its numbers. (The CBSA has grown by a more modest 17 per cent.)
And yet it can take years for an asylum claim to go through the hearing and adjudication process. There are legal protections for asylum claimants that can slow things down. But knowledgeable observers say that, with sufficient effort, the claims process could be streamlined so that cases are resolved within six months and removal, if the claim fails, occurs within two months.
So far, the Liberals have taken only halting steps on immigration, in the face of obvious problems and growing public concern. Bolder action is needed to restore the integrity of the immigration system – a critical precursor to any debate over even a limited amnesty program.