Conservatives call for cuts to permanent residency admissions in immigration plan

OTTAWA – The Conservatives are calling on the government to implement temporary resident exit tracking, boost collaboration with the provinces and further reduce permanent residency admissions in the coming immigration levels plan.

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner outlined these and other demands in a press conference Thursday. She also blamed government policy for a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years.

She pointed to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent New York Times interview in which he discussed a link between Canada’s slow GDP growth and declining immigration.

In that interview, Carney said at some point the question for Canada’s immigration system becomes “when do we resume some controlled increase in the population?”

“(The prime minister’s) hidden agenda is to turn the once bright promise of immigrating to Canada into a low-wage, no hope scenario driven by corporate profit. That agenda is tearing at Canada’s social fabric and making foreign shareholders rich,” Rempel Garner said. 

“Mark Carney’s technocratic world view treats immigrants and Canadian workers alike, as sterile units of production and consumption.”

She added the government should be putting more emphasis on integrating newcomers to restore faith in the system and ease social tensions around immigration.

Carney said Wednesday the government “will not budge” on its goal of making immigration numbers sustainable and its plan is “getting them to that level now.”

Pointing to declines in new temporary resident arrivals, Carney said the government has “taken back control” of immigration and permanent resident admissions are back to “sustainable” levels.

Carney also said Wednesday Ottawa has been working with the provinces to discuss their needs ahead of the levels plan release. He has attributed challenges in providing services like health, education and housing to increased immigration in recent years.

Rempel Garner said the government’s push to attract the “best and brightest” is short-sighted as many Canadians, especially younger ones, struggle to find work.

“The people who are in our communities who are out of work, who are asking for lower levels, who don’t want immigrants scapegoated for bad Liberal policies, are saying things have to change,” she said.

Rempel Garner added the Conservatives will also push for more removals of people who have overstayed their visas and of temporary residents convicted of crimes.

The immigration department has said it is working with the Canada Border Services Agency to do a better job of tracking exits of temporary residents. A report issued by the auditor general in March found the department has no way of knowing whether students on expired visas actually leave Canada.

Last year’s immigration levels plan, which set a target of admitting 380,000 permanent residents annually between 2026 and 2028, also included two programs aimed at giving permanent status to more than 130,000 temporary residents who aren’t included in the broader target. These two one-time programs are in effect for both 2026 and 2027.

The government must provide an updated levels plan in the next few weeks. The legislated deadline is the end of October but since that date falls on a Sunday, the government has some extra time to table the plan.

Last year’s levels plan was published in the federal budget that was tabled in early November. This year’s budget is set to be unveiled on Nov. 5.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2026.