Ottawa, ON – The Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner, Conservative Shadow Minister for Immigration, released the following statement:
“Here are seven issues anyone writing or reporting on the federal Immigration Levels Plan should be looking for today:
1.) Showing one set of numbers today’s immigration Levels Plan but increasing levels in the Immigration Levels Report (the supplementary details document to be tabled in coming weeks)
Last year, the Liberals announced a “cut” to 380,000 permanent residents in its Immigration Levels Plan. But outside that headline number, they went onto set up two side programs to give permanent residence to up to 148,000 more people over two years. So what they presented as a cut in the Immigration Levels Plan later turned out to be an increase. Expect the same trick today.
2.) Misleading Information And Graphs
The government recently published a graph showing a steep drop in new permanent residents. But when that data is closely studied it shows a different picture: 40,155 new permanent residents in August 2026, up from 26,080 in December, and higher than some months in 2024. To make it look that way, it split the 2026 monthly totals into three separate bars. Be on the lookout for similarly misleading charts in today’s plan.
3.) Setting levels then issuing way more permits
In three of the last five years, when looking at actual levels, the government exceeded its own permanent resident target. In 2026, the government planned for 385,000 new temporary residents and issued more than 950,000 permits (120,000 TFWs, 230,000 study permits, 603,000 IMP activations). In 2026, the government planned for 60,000 temporary foreign workers and has issued more than 120,000 permits. In 2026, the government planned for 170,000 International Mobility Program work permits and issued more than 600,000. Expect the levels plan to be silent on this issue.
4.) Claims that levels are down when they’re still historically high
In the text of today’s Immigration Levels Plan, expect the Liberals to compare today’s numbers against 2022-2024 levels instead of actual housing, healthcare and jobs capacity. Expect immigration levels are still historically high and outpacing job creation, housing and healthcare supply.
5.) Levels set outside of job creation, housing levels, and healthcare capacity
Expect a mismatch between the levels the Liberals post, their claims that levels are sustainable, and the actual statistics on Canada’s jobs, healthcare and housing figures.
- Jobs: Canadians lost 68,000 full-time jobs in September, while the government permitted more than 120,000 temporary foreign workers.
- Housing: The government’s own housing department admits immigration-driven demand is a driver of the housing shortage, and that its housing target won’t be met this decade.
- Health care: The median wait for treatment is 28.6 weeks. At least 23,746 Canadians died waiting for care last year.
6.) Miscounting
Expect today’s levels plan to fail to address the government’s inability to count and track who enters and leaves the country, further contributing to inaccurate levels. For example, in September, Statistics Canada added about 240,000 temporary residents to an estimate it had published just three months earlier. In total, it found about 300,000 more people living in Canada than previously counted.
7.) Expired visas not considered in levels
According to the CBC, up to 2.1 million people could be in Canada on expired or expiring visas in 2026. The federal government has not stated a plan to remove them. Expect these numbers to have not been considered by the federal government in setting levels.
“Conservatives have been clear about what we want to see in today’s levels plan:
- Levels must go way down, not up to keep up with housing, health care and jobs.
- Immigration levels should not be set to benefit wealthy investors who profit off of an endless supply of foreign labour.
- Targets must be set based on real capacity in housing, health care and jobs.
- The government must publish complete, honest data, not charts designed to flatter its talking points and figures that fall apart three months later.“