Looking Ahead to 2025

Another year is in the books (more or less).

2024 saw reductions in immigration levels, restrictions to both the international student and temporary foreign worker programs, and a dramatic decrease in public support for immigration fueled by housing costs, availability or lack thereof of public services and a strain on infrastructure.

What lies ahead?

• The return of Donald Trump -another Trump administration is going to impact Canada in manifold ways -we’ve already witnessed some of that these last few days and weeks with his threat to impose tariffs on Canadian goods -but it’s what he does with the large undocumented population in the country is what will matter most -even if a fraction were to roll the dice by coming to Canada or crossing our largely undefended border would pose a significant challenge to our immigration system.
• The departure of hundreds of thousands of students and workers that expected to remain. It’s true that their status was ‘temporary’ but it’s also true that there were pathways to navigate that status to permanent and clear signals as to that fact from the then Minister of Immigration himself. Many were sold on these dreams and many will not simply pack their bags and leave and so will access non-economic pathways to remain or simply go underground. This is what they were told just 3 years or so ago:

“It’s more important than ever that we have vehicles to provide opportunities to international students to come to Canada,” said Minister Mendicino in his opening remarks.

“We don’t want international students to just study here,” he went on to say. “Increasingly, we want international students to stay in Canada. Put simply, international students make ideal newcomers. You’re well established in Canada. You have the education and skills that are needed to succeed. You’re hard at work in some of the most essential parts of the economy.”

• The death of amnesty? –there was talk of an amnesty well into this year and the Minister finally realized that the moment to regularize had passed long ago.  Has it been finally put to rest? Or will it return in some fashion given the immense backlog at the RPD and the proverbial floodgates opening?
• Asylum seekers/Refugees –it seems clear that there will be further ‘reforms’ to the refugee system. That is if this Minister has the opportunity to bring those forward in the near future. Look for restrictions both on eligibility and on access with fewer visitor, student and work visas issued overseas. The backlog at this moment is an unprecedented 260,000 claims. Asylum numbers have already created tensions between the Provincial government(s) and the Feds.
• Integrity > Integration; Enforcement > Settlement. CBSA will be asserting itself in ways we’ve not previously seen.
• What’s old is new again. We’ve already seen a return to policies that pre-date this government -despite ‘sunny ways’ and the Liberal government generous disparagement of the Harper-Kenney Decade -they seem to be revisiting many of those proposals -we already saw this government impose a partial visitor visa requirement on Mexican nationals (after Mexican refugee claims increased 2000% since 2015; they’re spending money on ads to discourage refugee claims (vs. billboards under the Harper-Kenney years); and the regression of immigration intake levels to pre-2015. Kenney did create a safe country list which resulted in expedited claims -let’s see if that comes back in an effort to deal with the backlog.