IRCC orders asylum claimants who crossed U.S. border irregularly to leave or face deportation

2026/04/16 Leave a comment

Implementation:

Asylum seekers who crossed the border from the United States irregularly and claimed asylum are being ordered by the immigration department to leave Canada as soon as possible or face being deported, after the passing of a new law tightening up asylum rules. 

Immigration lawyers have expressed fears that many foreign nationals receiving warning letters from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will now cross back into the U.S. and be detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and deported. 

The immigration lawyers are also raising concerns that the letters don’t adequately inform asylum seekers that they may be eligible to remain in the country despite the new restrictions. The new law limits who can receive a hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, or IRB, potentially putting many asylum seekers on a fast-track to deportation.

The IRCC warning letters were sent to refugee claimants within days of the new law, known as Bill C-12, receiving royal assent last month. …

Source: IRCC orders asylum claimants who crossed U.S. border irregularly to leave or face deportation

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Douglas Todd: Metro Vancouver’s housing growth ‘isn’t free.’ It’s an election issue.

2026/04/16 Leave a comment

Nothing is free!

“Growth isn’t free.”

So says professor Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program and a fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners.

“It’s not a question of population growth or not,” says Yan. “It’s a question of how do we pay for it and who should pay for it fairly and transparently.”

Despite the financial burden that new housing places on taxpayers, Canadian developers are increasingly demanding that governments reduce the amounts they are asked to contribute for infrastructure: sewer and water hookups, electrical connections, schools, transit, community centres, road maintenance, park bike lanes, libraries, fire halls and sidewalks.

These are not luxuries, Yan says. They have to be maintained — and, if we are to host bigger populations, expanded….

Source: Douglas Todd: Metro Vancouver’s housing growth ‘isn’t free.’ It’s an election issue.

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Asylum crackdown passed under Carney first requested by Trudeau’s immigration minister

2026/04/16 Leave a comment

Not surprising. Miller was able to successfully change course in terms of lower levels and limits on temporary workers and international students, which of course did not require legislation, unlike these changes:

Major changes to Canada’s asylum system passed into law this year were first sought by the federal immigration minister in 2024 — but the Trudeau government largely did not act on them.

In a letter obtained by CBC News from the fall of 2024, Immigration Minister Marc Miller wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland requesting that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) be permitted to bar asylum seekers from making refugee claims if they had been in Canada for more than a year.

The request from Miller was retroactive to June 25, 2020 — one day off from the date included in the Carney government’s border law.

Miller also sought to stop asylum seekers from making claims more than 14 days after crossing into Canada from an irregular port of entry on the Canada-U.S. land border, another measure that only wound up passing under Bill C-12 last month.

“The in-Canada asylum system has faced mounting pressure in recent years, largely driven by increasing numbers of asylum seekers, resource constraints and evolving global migration dynamics,” Miller wrote.

“The system has been strained as the number of claims increased dramatically, leading to lengthy processing times and backlogs, and resulting in prolonged uncertainty for migrants.”

There is one provision, eventually passed under Bill C-12, that appeared to have the support of Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office.

Miller advocated for IRCC’s ability to mass-cancel groups of visas, which the government publicly mentioned in a suite of border security measures in December 2024. 

Reached for comment, Miller declined, citing cabinet confidentiality. 

The Prime Minister’s Office referred CBC News to current Immigration Minister Lena Diab for questions. A spokesperson for Diab’s office said it could not speculate on the actions of the previous government. 

‘Risk mitigation’ for U.S. policy

Miller wrote that the stricter rules for irregular crossings would “act as a risk-mitigation strategy” for “anticipated changes to U.S. immigration policies” that could cause major changes to “asylum migration trends impacting Canada.”

It is unclear whether the letter was sent by Miller before or after the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Miller also wrote that the U.S. was “the only comparable jurisdiction internationally that has a similar limit on eligibility.”

“The one-year time limit was chosen in part because a significant majority of claimants make their claim within their first year of being in Canada,” says an annex attached to the letter.

“The use of a one-year period is also a clear and easily communicated timeline for claimants to understand the period in which they are allowed to make a claim.”

Miller was turfed as immigration minister under Prime Minister Mark Carney in March 2025 and returned to cabinet with the heritage portfolio last fall.

C-12’s passage was a battle

The legislation Carney’s government wound up passing was not without controversy. 

First presented in late spring 2025, it was eventually split into two different bills after opposition parties raised a number of concerns over its security and immigration components.

Re-introduced as Bill C-12, it was scrutinized closely by the Senate, which took the unusual step of suggesting multiple amendments, including removing the one-year bar. However, senators agreed to drop those amendments once the government turned them down.

In his 2024 letter, Miller foresaw “vocal criticism from stakeholders and legal challenges” to the proposed changes.

Immigration and refugee advocates and lawyers indeed raised concerns about C-12. 

The law passed with the Liberals finding support from the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois. 

Since coming into effect, IRCC has begun telling tens of thousands of asylum claimants they may not be eligible for refugee status.

Source: Asylum crackdown passed under Carney first requested by Trudeau’s immigration minister

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Expatriate Voting: Québec a écarté une limite de dix ans

2026/04/16 Leave a comment

Thanks to Anne Meggs for flagging. Same as previous federal policy before Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. Small number of expatriate votes in 2022 election, less than 2,000. Similar to federal expat votes, about 2,500 in 2021 (increased to over 8,000 in 2025):

Adopté et sanctionné au début du mois, le projet de loi 18 allonge de deux à cinq ans la période durant laquelle un électeur temporairement absent du Québec peut voter par correspondance.

Le but étant d’arrimer cette période à la durée maximale d’une législature, permettant ainsi à cet électeur d’exercer son droit de vote à au moins une élection générale suivant son départ.

Dans son mémoire, le ministre responsable des Institutions démocratiques mentionne qu’une limite plus longue, pouvant aller jusqu’à dix ans, a été envisagée, sans toutefois avoir été retenue.

« Il aurait été possible d’envisager une limite temporelle plus longue, par exemple de dix ans afin de viser deux législatures », indique Jean-François Roberge.

« Néanmoins, une limite temporelle de cinq ans a été jugée plus cohérente avec l’intention du législateur ayant introduit la limite de deux ans », explique-t-il.

Le ministre rappelle que le vote par correspondance pour les électeurs hors Québec a été introduit à la Loi électorale en 1989.

« À ce moment, cette possibilité était offerte à toute personne possédant la qualité d’électeur et se trouvant à l’extérieur du Québec depuis moins de dix ans. En 1992, cette durée a été réduite à deux ans, accompagnée d’une exigence domiciliaire minimale de douze mois avant le départ », dit-il.

« Ces modifications visaient à circonscrire le droit de vote par correspondance aux électeurs ayant un lien réel, actuel et significatif avec le Québec, dans une optique de préservation de l’intégrité du processus électoral et de limitation de l’influence de personnes durablement absentes sur les décisions collectives », souligne le ministre.

« Les motivations ayant guidé cette réforme demeurent pertinentes aujourd’hui. La limite de cinq ans permet de prolonger raisonnablement l’accès au vote hors Québec, tout en assurant que les électeurs concernés maintiennent un lien significatif avec le Québec. »

Hausse d’inscription

Jean-François Roberge indique également au Conseil des ministres, dans son mémoire, que la nouvelle limite de cinq ans pourrait faire augmenter le nombre d’électeurs inscrits au vote hors Québec lors des prochaines élections générales, qui s’élevait à 3 482 en 2022.

« Cette hausse resterait toutefois plus modérée qu’en l’absence de toute limite temporelle. La mesure vise ainsi à favoriser la participation électorale tout en maintenant une balise qui assure un lien réel, actuel et significatif entre l’électeur et le Québec », précise-t-il.

Confusion?

Il mentionne aussi que cette modification, à quelques mois des élections prévues en octobre, pourrait entraîner une « certaine confusion » quant aux règles en vigueur.

« Toutefois, puisqu’il s’agit d’un ajustement ciblé touchant une seule modalité de vote, Élections Québec disposera d’une période suffisante pour informer adéquatement les électeurs concernés, avant la tenue du scrutin », dit-il.

Source: Expatriate Voting: Québec a écarté une limite de dix ans (paywall)

Adopted and sanctioned at the beginning of the month, Bill 18 extends from two to five years the period during which a voter temporarily absent from Quebec can vote by mail.

The goal is to tie this period to the maximum duration of a legislature, thus allowing this voter to exercise his right to vote at least one general election following his departure.

In his brief, the Minister responsible for democratic institutions mentions that a longer limit, up to ten years, was envisaged, but was not retained.

“It would have been possible to consider a longer time limit, for example ten years, in order to aim for two legislatures,” says Jean-François Roberge.

“Nevertheless, a five-year time limit was considered more consistent with the intention of the legislator who introduced the two-year limit,” he explains.

The Minister recalls that postal voting for voters outside Quebec was introduced into the Electoral Act in 1989.

“At that time, this possibility was offered to anyone with the status of voter and who had been outside Quebec for less than ten years. In 1992, this period was reduced to two years, accompanied by a minimum home requirement of twelve months before departure, “he says.

“These changes were intended to limit the right to vote by correspondence to voters with a real, current and significant link with Quebec, with a view to preserving the integrity of the electoral process and limiting the influence of permanently absent people on collective decisions,” said the minister.

“The motivations that guided this reform remain relevant today. The five-year limit makes it possible to reasonably extend access to voting outside Quebec, while ensuring that the voters concerned maintain a significant link with Quebec. ”

Registration increase

Jean-François Roberge also indicates to the Council of Ministers, in his brief, that the new five-year limit could increase the number of voters registered for voting outside Quebec in the next general elections, which amounted to 3,482 in 2022.

“However, this increase would remain more moderate than in the absence of any time limit. The measure thus aims to promote voter participation while maintaining a beacon that ensures a real, current and significant link between the voter and Quebec,” he says.

Confusion?

He also mentions that this change, a few months before the elections scheduled for October, could lead to “some confusion” as to the rules in force.

“However, since this is a targeted adjustment affecting a single voting modality, Elections Québec will have sufficient time to adequately inform the voters concerned, before the vote is held,” he says.

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Canada is overhauling its signature skilled immigration system. Here’s what is changing

2026/04/15 Leave a comment

Good overview with some of the usual worries about impacts:

Canada is proposing a sweeping overhaul of its skilled immigration system that would include prioritizing higher wages and lucrative job offers when it comes to deciding who gets invited for permanent residence in this country.

Among the proposed changes to the country’s signature “point system” for economic immigrants are factoring in wages and earning potential; offering an edge for those with a job offer in high-wage occupations; and downplaying the need for a Canadian education.

The reforms, currently undergoing public consultation, have created a buzz among experts and critics, some concerned about the use of wages to assess prospective permanent residents and their impacts on local communities where low-wage, low-skilled jobs are also unfilled.

“In the absence of strong pay equity and in the absence of strong employment equity, we know that women and racialized groups still earn less,” said Naomi Alboim, a senior policy fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University specializing in immigration. “If you’re doing it on what their wages were, you’re building potential inequity into the system.”  

…TMU’s Alboim said it’s hard to assess the impacts of these changes to economic immigration without knowing Ottawa’s plan with the provincial immigration nominee program and other regional immigration streams that are meant to meet local economic and demographic needs.

Immigrants who tend to leave are those who are highly skilled because they are in demand everywhere, and removing points for family ties in Canada may further erode their incentive to come and stay here, she noted….

Source: Canada is overhauling its signature skilled immigration system. Here’s what is changing

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Mohamed Fahmy: Carney Liberals stand against human rights at the United Nations

2026/04/15 Leave a comment

Odd, to say the least:

Canada backing the Islamic Republic of Iran to the U.N. Committee for Programme and Coordination—which helps shape policy on women’s rights, terrorism prevention, and human rights contradicts Ottawa’s foreign policy.

One must ask: Why did Canada lend its voice to the 54-member United Nations Economic and Social Council joining nations such as France, Germany, Holland, and the U.K. despite maintaining a firm stance against Iran’s appalling human rights records both within its borders and beyond?

The shocking move is underscored by Ottawa’s own policies and threatens the legitimacy of UN bodies meant to protect rights. Canada has imposed recent sanctions on Tehran and designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, highlighting a stark contradiction between its stated principles and its actions on the international stage….

Source: Mohamed Fahmy: Carney Liberals stand against human rights at the United Nations

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Tamil refugee who arrived on MV Sun Sea granted stay of deportation

2026/04/15 Leave a comment

Sloppy not doing the risk assessment:

A man who arrived in Canada seeking asylum with a boatload of Tamils 16 years ago has been spared deportation after court ruled Canadian officials have failed to properly assess the risk he’d face if returned to Sri Lanka.

Kugatheeswaran Thuraisinkam was among the 492 passengers aboard the highly publicized MV Sun Sea in 2010, who were deemed a national security threat by then prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

Officials associated them with the separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and suggested some might have been terrorists. As a result, they had been detained for months and challenged at every step of their asylum process. 

Thuraisinkam has for years dealt with prolonged separation from his wife and three children, homelessness and mental illness. He says an agent mishandled his case and so it didn’t get properly assessed.

“This has been a very difficult process,” Thuraisinkam told the Star through an interpreter. “I am so scared of being deported. I have some relief now. I am very grateful to the courts for saving me.”

In staying Thuraisinkam’s April 16 deportation, Federal Court Judge Sébastien Grammond said Canadian authorities have not yet assessed the risk the man would be facing upon returning to Sri Lanka by virtue of having been a passenger of the MV Sun Sea.

And that’s what Judge William Pentney at the same court had asked the Canada Border Services Agency to do in quashing an officer’s refusal to defer Thuraisinkam’s removal last year.

“It is curious, to say the least, that CBSA is attempting to remove him again when the issue highlighted by Justice Pentney has not yet been resolved,” Grammond wrote in his ruling released this week. 

Like all passengers on the MV Sun Sea, Thuraisinkam was detained for months by Canadian border officials and made a refugee claim based on the fear of persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka….

Source: Tamil refugee who arrived on MV Sun Sea granted stay of deportation

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Dimitri Soudas: The secular state we’ve forgotten

2026/04/14 2 Comments

Largely a lost “battle” outside of Quebec but valid reasons to limit some of these accommodationsL

…But freedom of religion has two sides to it — and we have become dangerously comfortable with only one of them.

A secular state means that the state does not favour one religion over another. It also means that the state does not allow religion — any religion — to colonize public institutions funded by the common purse. A school funded by taxpayers is not a cathedral, a mosque, a synagogue, or a temple. It is a public institution, bound by a civic compact: to educate every child, regardless of background, to the best of its ability, for the maximum number of instructional days possible.

Prayer rooms in public schools are a violation of that compact. Not because prayer is wrong. But because prayer belongs in the home, in the house of worship, in the private sphere that a free society zealously protects. When we install prayer rooms in schools, we are not being inclusive — we are blurring a boundary that exists precisely to protect everyone equally, including the believers. The moment the state endorses one form of worship through the infrastructure of a public building, it has taken a side. And the secular state has no business taking sides on matters of faith.

The same logic applies to diamond days. If a school board is scheduling days off to mark religious observances — and doing so more frequently than it schedules days for teacher training — it has drifted far from its mandate. The mandate is education. The mandate is to provide every child in that school with the maximum number of quality instructional hours the calendar allows. Parents who wish their children to observe specific religious holidays have every right to do so. They also have options: religious schools, private schools, charter schools.

The public system should not be bending its calendar to accommodate the liturgical schedules of any faith — including mine.

I say this as someone who will be in church on Sunday, deeply grateful for the freedom to be there. That freedom is real. It is precious. It was won at great cost. But it ends at the doors of public institutions — and that is not a limitation on freedom. That is the very architecture of freedom.

Canada is not a collection of solitudes pressed together in geographic proximity. It is, or aspires to be, a civic nation — a country where what binds us is not ethnicity, not religion, not heritage, but a shared commitment to certain principles. Chief among them: equality before the law, and equality before public institutions.

If we allow those institutions to fragment along religious and cultural lines — accommodating some, ignoring others, pleasing everyone a little and no one fully — we do not end up with a more inclusive country. We end up with a weaker one. A country where the child who shows up to write a test on Greek Orthodox Easter is told there are no exceptions, while the school itself has prayer rooms and religious days baked into its calendar.

That contradiction should bother all of us.

Secularism is not the enemy of faith. It is faith’s greatest protector. It is the guarantee that no religion may dominate the public square — and therefore, that every religion remains free in the private one.

That is why I believe the answer is not complicated, even if it is uncomfortable to say. Public schools should close on statutory holidays — the ones enshrined in law and shared by all citizens. They should schedule PA days as their operational needs require. That is the extent of their calendar obligations to any creed. And there should be no prayer rooms within their walls. Not because faith is unwelcome in the lives of students, but because a public school building is not the place where the state should be making space for worship, any worship. The classroom is not a chapel. The hallway is not a corridor to the divine. Students who need to pray may do so privately, as students have always done, and as the Charter fully protects. But the institution itself must remain neutral ground.

We would do well to remember that.

Source: Dimitri Soudas: The secular state we’ve forgotten

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HESA: Boycotts and Antisemitism

2026/04/14 Leave a comment

    Reasonable call for firm set of principles that reduce the risk of double standards:

    …So, here’s where I want to divert a bit to get back to the issue of Israel’s actions since late 2023 because I think they change the context for the “what about actions of other regimes” argument. October 7, 2023, was of course a terrible atrocity and there were few who thought that Israel did not have some kind of right of response. Equally, however, few would suggest that a response which involved killing twice as many as lost their lives on that day every month for the next 30 months is a proportional one. The actions of the Government of Israel since the events of October 7, 2023 – which was, let us all agree, a terrible atrocity – have been inexcusable. You may not be OK with use of the term “genocide” for what has happened in Gaza and more recently South Lebanon (and the term genocide often seems too elastic to be useful), but when a former Likud prime minister feels comfortable describing Israel’s actions as war crimes, it suggests that there is a degree of inhumanity involved in Israeli policy that can’t dismissed as the ravings of antisemites. 

    Back to McGill and the issue of how to create boycott policy. What if the LSA had used language such as “this institution should boycott universities in any countries whose current regimes are in front of the International Court of Justice for War crimes or crimes against humanity” (at present, I believe that would yield a list of Israel, Russia, Myanmar, and Iran, which doesn’t sound so bad to me). Would a referendum like this still have passed: or might it perhaps have passed with a bigger margin? Would it still be considered antisemitic?

    My guess is no. Obviously, there are some that will simply always hold that criticism of Israel = antisemitism, but that’s, as I have been arguing, an untenable syllogism that should be beneath any serious academic or group of academics. But a firm set of principles, which take concerns about double-standards seriously, would have a similar effect on institutional posture towards Israel while avoiding the trap of appearing hypocritical. Perhaps all parties in Canadian universities could think about the value of such an approach rather than getting involved in unnecessary and unseemly slanging matches about “antisemitism”.

    Here’s hoping, anyway.

    Source: Boycotts and Antisemitism

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    Canada saw a plunge in new study permit approvals. Here’s what that could mean

    2026/04/13 Leave a comment

    Given that much of the increase and thus decrease happened in colleges with over aggressive recruitment practices and considerable fraud, the necessary correction will likely “dry out” the talent pipeline less than ApplyBoard estimates:

    The number of new study permits approved for post-secondary international students in Canada dropped by 64 per cent last year — a crash that came amid a push to reduce the population of temporary residents in this country.

    It’s a development that experts say risks drying out a much-needed pipeline of foreign talent with Canadian education and work experience.

    According to the analysis, the Immigration Department processed 211,000 new post-secondary study permit applications in 2025 and approved just over 75,000, a drastic decline from 209,023 in 2024 and the peak of 435,345 in 2023.

    It represented the lowest total in the past decade, even compared to the 92,132 new permits issued in 2020, when the system was upended initially by the COVID pandemic. Meanwhile, study permit extensions made up almost three-quarters of all permits approved for colleges and universities in 2025.

    The drop in new post-secondary international enrolment will dry out the pipeline of talent, warned Meti Basiri, CEO of ApplyBoard, which released the report Thursday. A lack of Canadian education and work experience will reduce the number of candidates for permanent residence when students currently on extensions ultimately graduate….

    Source: Canada saw a plunge in new study permit approvals. Here’s what that could mean

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