Inside Canada’s ‘troubling’ shift on migrant, refugee rights
Al Jazeera – News
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Toronto, Canada – When Diana Gallego listened to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s widely touted speech at the World Economic Forum at the start of this year, she couldn’t help but feel a disconnect. As Canadians have grappled with rising economic and social pressures in recent years, a decades-old consensus on the benefits of immigration has frayed. Hostile rhetoric blaming newcomers for Canada’s ills has intensified, and Carney’s government has slashed temporary visas and restricted access to asylum . For decades, that influx of newcomers was widely viewed as a positive thing: immigration was fuelling the country’s economy, staffing key job sectors and counteracting a rapidly ageing population. The policy changes began under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau , whose Liberal Party government had dramatically increased temporary immigration during the COVID-19 pandemic to fill labour market gaps. Public attitudes quickly hardened, and a 2024 poll ( PDF ) found a majority of Canadians saying for the first time in decades that there was “too much immigration”. The government has justified the measure – which is expected to face a constitutional challenge in court – as part of an effort to streamline a backlogged asylum system and prevent “fraud”. At the end of last year, nearly 300,000 cases were pending at the independent tribunal that adjudicates refugee claims in the country, known as the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB). A spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the federal immigration department, told Al Jazeera that it had introduced Bill C-12 “as global migration pressures intensify”. But experts say the law will do little to address the backlog at the IRB.
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Experts say Canada 'closing the doors' as socioeconomic issues upend decades-long consensus on immigration.
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