Immigration transformation

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Canada has long been known as a country that welcomes immigrants, but its immigration system is changing quickly. New legislation is restricting access to refugee hearings, and thousands of legal challenges are making their way through an already overwhelmed Federal Court.

The federal government has touted the changes as a way to make the immigration system more manageable. But some experts worry it’s creating barriers to fairness and access to justice.

Immigration lawyer Christine Beltempo knows the process firsthand. Not only does she advise clients on immigration procedures and chair the CBA’s Immigration Law Section, but she also sponsored her own husband's move to Canada a decade ago. She says things have changed in the years since, making it more challenging to come to Canada and become a permanent resident.

“The first thing is processing times. Ten years ago, my husband's entire permanent residence application took six months …,” she tells Verdicts & Voices guest host Jessica Brando.

“Nowadays in Quebec, for an exactly similar application, it would probably take somewhere between three to five years.”

Removing pathways

Beltempo says the biggest changes have come since 2024, when the government decided to significantly reduce the number of permanent residents allowed into Canada each year. It was in marked contrast to the years since 2015, when things were moving towards admitting about 500,000 annually. Two years ago, that was reduced by 25 per cent to about 380,000 permanent residents per year.

^{From left:  Jessica Brando, Christine Beltempo, and Cheryl Robinson}

“That had really, really significant impacts both on the labour force, on our international commitments with regard to refugee applicants, and also with regard to family reunification, humanitarian, and compassionate ground applications,” she says.

“It really had massive impacts throughout all the immigration pathways in Canada.”

Among them? Uncertainty for people pursuing refugee claims.

“The new changes have meant that if your claim was made a year after you first arrived in Canada, you don't have access to that,” says Cheryl Robinson, a Toronto lawyer who primarily works with clients who are refugees or people without status.

“That level of unpredictability has spread a lot of fear.”

She says people are worried that if they don't have a pathway to claim refugee status, what does that mean for their future when they can't return to their country of nationality?

Robinson says it’s challenging for counsel, too, as it’s difficult to come up with alternatives to a refugee claim.

“Processing times have become steadily longer, and in many cases, we may have looked to the option of an application for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, but now we're seeing that those processing times are 10 years,” she says.

“During that time, someone could be at risk of removal from Canada at any time. It's a very uncertain, very scary time for a lot of people.”

In addition to shifting immigration targets, major legislative changes have made it harder to build a life in Canada, raising concerns among lawyers.

Beltempo says that when the shift occurred in 2024, there was a public outcry over the number of immigrants entering Canada, including temporary residents.

“At the time, if you were following politics, there was a lot of talk about the housing crisis and this difficulty to make ends meet between public services and just the number of new people arriving in Canada. That's how the government explained that there was a need for a shift.”

Running roughshod over a Charter-protected right

New policy measures and operational guidelines completely changed how immigration systems work. Initially part of Bill C-2, which was strongly criticized, the immigration provisions were moved into Bill C-12 last fall to fast-track them.

Robinson says the bill’s biggest change was new ineligibility provisions. There are now two groups who are ineligible to be referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) for a hearing on their claim: those who want to make their refugee claim more than a year after their first arrival in Canada, and those seeking asylum who enter Canada between ports of entry along the U.S. land border and make a claim after 14 days.

Instead of a hearing before the IRB, they are redirected through a paper-based pre-removal risk assessment.

“They never meet with someone to explain their story,” she says.

“They never get an opportunity to really give the full information about what's happened to them and to be able to present that story and to have their refugee claim there fully heard.”

Robinson says a hearing is a Charter-protected right that guarantees someone is present to listen to a claim and assess its credibility. The possibility that individuals will have a lesser version of the refugee claim process is the biggest concern for the Canadian Bar Association.

“In fact, for some individuals who are from countries that have a suspension of removal, they won't even get that pre-removal risk assessment for many, many years. They will be here in limbo without any kind of assessment of their risk. This leaves them at a distinct disadvantage and prevents them from having that refugee claim to which they should have access.”

Compounding the challenges is that not every change to the process requires a legislative amendment, Beltempo says. That means very quick changes can affect people's daily lives.

“[International] students who thought that they could easily renew their study permits or have a pathway towards permanent residence, well, suddenly that pathway was closed.”

It was a similar story for open work permits for workers’ spouses. One day they were eligible to get a job in Canada and start contributing to the household. But once the changes went into effect, those permits couldn't be extended.

Beltempo says predictability is essential for applicants so they can understand the immigration landscape in Canada and know what they need to be doing to have a successful application.

“Transparency, flexibility, and predictability are really what we've been advocating for in our meetings with government representatives. I think that's where we need to continue our advocacy for the next year,” she says.

“When I speak to individuals or employers, I think it's just [about] setting those expectations straight from the get-go, talking about processing times, talking about renewals, and really, really advising that people should have a long-term strategy to determine whether or not they're going to want to stay in Canada, because it takes a lot of reflection.”

Tune into the full episode to hear more about the slew of constitutional challenges to these immigration changes before the Federal Court. Also, our experts discuss what the close results of Alberta’s recent referendum questions on immigration tell us about public perception of immigration in Canada.