A recent report published by RBC, A Smarter Immigration Strategy for Canada, laid out five critical “questions” for resetting Canada’s immigration policy. The first asks whether there is a “magic number” of how many immigrants to admit in Canada’s “Levels Plan” released annually by the Minister of Immigration. The Levels Plan sets out who to admit based on who has the highest earning capacity, the criteria on which to admit addressing skills gaps, the ways to admit through various temporary categorizations, and finally, how to collect data on all the above.
The report discusses Canadian immigration in exactly the context that has made it a policy failure over the last decade: as numbers, population targets, skills gaps, and categorizations. The analysis presented in this 2026 report has been the norm in Canadian immigration policy for at least the last decade, if not longer. From the 2014 Syrian conflict that led to the then new Trudeau government viewing immigration as an election ratings boom; to the unprecedented 2022 scale back and deeper cut to immigration levels only two years later; to the international student and temporary foreign worker debacles, Canada’s immigration system has always been about “magic numbers.” In addition to the ever-changing number of how many new immigrants to admit annually, the system puts people into categories based on skill sets and, worst of all, how much expected monetary value their lives would contribute to Canada in terms of GDP and fiscal contributions versus strains.
Immigration should never be about numbers, but about human rights and the quality of life. As an immigrant to Canada, I refuse to see myself as only contributing to the country economically as a worker who earns an income and pays taxes. That is just one aspect of our lives, no different from anywhere else in the world. But I and others like myself, bring new ideas, perspectives and experiences, all of which can inform Canadian public policy and innovation – not least on immigration itself. We cannot be viewed simply under the lens of how to fix an aging population and sectors a current government deduces it needs workers for. If that is how immigration policy is developed, then it is an economic policy.
Immigration policy needs to be about building lives around family, professional aspirations, global connections, freedom from discrimination, social networks, and even finding love. It needs to inherently be a human rights-based policy.
As an alternative to RBC’s immigration report, Canadians need to ask five alternative questions of how Canada can build a more humane immigration strategy:
Why does Canada want immigrants? Canada cannot attract immigrants just because there is a need to fill jobs. Canada’s immigration objectives must combine the needs of prospective immigrants as well as its own. Assessments of need must align with why immigrants want to move to Canada. People not only want to move to Canada because of job prospects, but also for better social protections, freedom from discrimination, and for family and life partnership –these latter objectives are not considered when developing policy for normal immigration pathways. Instead, current policy only views immigration as a one-way tool of capitalist productivity.
What skills gaps is Canada missing out on? Skills cannot be based on a points system which rates economic productivity over creativity and independence. By basing selection on skills the federal government deems necessary for the economy in a given point in time, it is shutting out a range of skill sets in the arts, humanities, life sciences, and other fields outside of more economic and trade related skills. When I moved to Canada under the now defunct Federal Skilled Worker’s Program, I wasn’t only judged on what I could do for Canada, but what Canada could do for helping me build my skills further. That is the only way immigrants can contribute equitably. The federal government no longer believes in this kind of program, but that is how a humanized immigration, or any public policy for that matter, should work.
What is Canada doing for immigrants before they are invited? A progressive society prepares for its planned visitors much before they arrive in the same way Canada prepares its economy to welcome tourists in annual cycles. Why does it not do the same for its temporary foreign workers and permanent immigrants? Canada must ensure that there is enough housing, health care, employment, and community services available based on how many are expected, before they arrive.
Is Canada forgetting about immigrants once they arrive? When I first landed in Canada as a permanent resident, there was some level of community and state support that helped me navigate my way around a new country. Today, immigrants are admitted into Canada, but that is where the policy – and the support ends. We literally expect people to leave their families, move half way across the world, into a new culture, language and way of life and blend right in. And to begin contributing economically right away. This makes them an easy scapegoat on which to blame public services which have themselves not kept pace with a growing temporary and permanent immigrant population.
Why does Canada treat some immigrants better than others? The Canadian immigration system discriminates in skills selection, nationality, race, and other categorizations. Racialized immigrants have far worse employment, health and social outcomes than non-racialized immigrants. These failed outcomes are not because some immigrants are “bad,” but because Canada does not take the responsibility to look after all immigrants equally. Likewise, those with temporary status are more precarious than those who arrive through the regular economic streams; refugee and asylum claimants have less access to services and opportunities as well; and humanitarian immigration policy is based largely on Canada’s foreign policy relationships with other countries than with the humanitarian situation at hand. This has led to multiple tiers of humans being created in Canada through immigration policy.
In his recent speech to the European Parliament Prime Minister Mark Carney stated, “We should deepen our people to people side, allowing our youth to work, study, and live where they want in either side of the Atlantic.” While this is clearly his way of deepening ties with the EU, it is unfortunate that Canada does not apply this to its immigration approach overall. Unless Canada realizes that it must look beyond the numbers and into the needs, aspirations, and functions of its prospective immigrants, as a human right rather than an economic benefit, any immigration policy “reset” will continue its failures leading to erratic levels of admissions and unequal immigrant outcomes.
