Elements of immigration system 'out of control,' says federal minister as pressure to make changes increases
CBC
This is Part 5 of Unsettling, a series on immigration by CBC Calgary.
About 150 people braved the cold to attend a CBC Calgary live town hall Thursday night to talk about international immigration to Calgary and if our city is ready for what's to come.
When it comes to immigration, the numbers are powerful.
Consider this: estimates indicate that by 2040, 40 per cent of our workforce will be immigrants.
There is growing acknowledgment that the country doesn't have the capacity to integrate the increasing number of immigrants.
Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller has said that the number of temporary workers and international students has grown too quickly in Canada.
"It's something we are going to look at in the first quarter, first half of this year," Miller said in an interview on CTV's Question Period earlier this week.
"That volume is really disconcerting. It's really a system that has gotten out of control."
International students were a focus of Thursday night's conversation.
Immigration lawyer Raj Sharma was one of the panellists invited to speak.
"International students went from heroes to zeros," said Sharma, pointing out that in 2022, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada introduced a pilot allowing international students to work more than the usual 20-hour-per-week limit.
"All of a sudden the international students are responsible for some sort of housing affordability and access."
Immigration Minister Marc Miller has also tried to turn the turn spotlight away from Ottawa and shine the light on the role he says the provinces need to play.
"It's a conversation we need to have with the provinces so that provinces not doing their jobs reign in those numbers on a pure volume basis."
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