Can Ottawa solve the problem of millions of expiring Canadian visas?

Douglas Todd: Half of Canadians now believe “mass deportations” are necessary to stop unauthorized migration. What can be done about the many temporary residents not willing to leave?

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Published Jan 06, 2025  •  5 minute read

The number of temporary visas to expire in 2025 is almost five million, about one for every 10 residents of Canada, according to government documents obtained by the Opposition. Photo by Adrian Wyld /The Canadian Press

“We didn’t turn the taps down fast enough,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller said last month.

He was admitting the Liberal government, after opening up migration volumes to extraordinary levels, took too long to slow down the recent rush of newcomers: three million in just three years.

And some of those new arrivals have been making their way across the U.S. border, much to the indignation of incoming president Donald Trump, who is threatening strong tariffs if Canada doesn’t clean up its border act.

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Despite admitting the mistake and suggesting helicopters start patrolling our international boundaries, Miller hasn’t come close to acknowledging Canada now has a plugged system.

Infrastructure can’t keep up with population demand. And, despite warnings, many guest workers and international students are in many ways showing they have no intention of leaving as their visas expire.

The Canadian public is clearly overwhelmed. An Angus Reid Institute poll found half of Canadians now believe “mass deportations” are necessary to stop unauthorized migration. And support for immigration targets is down by half since 2019.

More than a few Canadians believe the country’s housing, universal health care, refugee boards, job market and social services can’t handle the demographic stress. Trump is adding external political pressure since he won reelection.

Something’s got to be done in Canada, but Miller said he’s relying on people to leave voluntarily. Meanwhile, the number of people involved is staggering, bewildering.

The Conservatives in December got information from the Immigration Department that the number of temporary visas that are going to expire in 2025 is 4.9 million, more than one for every 10 residents of Canada.

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The federal government won’t actually admit to that huge number, but it has acknowledged the visas of 500,000 temporary migrants have already ended. And they haven’t left the country.

Meanwhile, the whereabouts of 30,000 of those required to depart is unknown. They’re on the “wanted” list of Canada Border Services Agency.

Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has gone on social media to say it’s outrageous the Liberals don’t know how many migrants remain in the country illegally.

And Miller, who is trying to clean up the wreckage created during the eras of immigration ministers John McCallum, Ahmed Hussen and Sean Fraser, is flailing.

The Opposition says it’s outrageous the Liberals don’t now how many migrants are in the country illegally. (Photo: Toronto’s Pearson Airport.) Photo by Chris Young /The Canadian Press

Last spring, Miller committed to reducing the number of guest workers and foreign students in the country to 2.1 million.

But one of the many voices who say that’s still too many is economist Mike Moffatt, whom Prime Minister Justin Trudeau brought in last fall to provide his cabinet with a special migration update.

Moffatt says the number of people on temporary visas should gradually be reduced to just one million. That would slowly reduce Canada’s population growth rate to zero, Moffatt said, after its been running at more than three per cent per year.

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Taking into account that Canadians’ birthrate is not enough to replace those who die, Moffatt said it would still mean Canada would have a “pro-immigration approach.” That’s because the country would accept about 300,000 new permanent residents each year.

How did we get to this muddled state, where the government admits the numbers are out of control — and that it can’t even track, let alone control, the movement of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of the country’s guest workers and foreign students?

In 2019 I wrote an optimistic column about how the Canada Border Services Agency was going to bring in “exit controls” to help fix our infamously leaky borders.

The upshot was that proper exit controls would increase the likelihood officials catch homegrown terrorists, individuals who illicitly take advantage of taxpayer-funded health care and, particularly, people who overstay their visas.

The plan was to better track when people leave the country by land, sea or air — using techniques long in place in Australia, the U.S. and the European Union. But even though upgraded exit controls were instituted in 2019, they have not made an obvious difference in compelling people to follow the rules regarding how long they can stay in the country.

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The volume of non-permanent residents (orange) entering Canada has soared in recent years. Many are overstaying their visas. Source: Mike Moffatt.

To add to the disorder, 2024 had a drastic rise in the volume of temporary residents — 130,000 — trying to overstay their work and study visas by applying for refugee status. That’s up from 10,000 less than a decade ago. The asylum claims process can take several years.

In response to questions from Postmedia, the CBSA said it does what it can to monitor and penalize people who overstay. Specifically, officials said that for various reasons it issued more than 3,700 “removal orders” in 2024, compared to 1,517 in 2020.

Sam Hyman, a retired Vancouver immigration lawyer, said Canada, unlike many countries, doesn’t have exit immigration controls that require all travellers who leave to be examined and their departure confirmed. But, he said, there is a certain degree of border-crossing monitoring.

Vancouver lawyer Richard Kurland, publisher of a monthly migration newsletter called Lexbase, says more rigorous entry and exit controls, while useful, won’t solve Canada’s border crisis alone.

He’s more concerned the government is trying a number of strategies to avoid taking blame for the migration turmoil, first by “denying” it, then by “distracting” from it and now by “repackaging” it, while making new promises.

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After Trudeau spent years accusing critics of his high migration policies of being xenophobic or racist, Kurland said he and Miller last year “did a 180 (degree turn) and offered a mea culpa,” admitting to overshooting.

However, they then compounded their blundering, Kurland said, by promising temporary residents who overstay their visas a general amnesty.

“But when you have immigration amnesties, why obey rules, when all you have to do is to hide and wait for the next amnesty?” Kurland said. After the public rose up in criticism, Kurland said the Liberals had to pull back their scheme.

“We are left with the chicken in the python,” Kurland said, “which will be a ticking immigration time bomb for whoever replaces the Trudeau government.”

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