True Patriot Love - October 21, 2025


Canada’s Immigration Crisis： Bill C-12 Explained


Episode Stats

Length

58 minutes

Words per Minute

176.60655

Word Count

10,315

Sentence Count

16

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

10


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 on this wednesday we learned that the government was changing immigration forever bill c12 will
00:00:07.200 change the landscape of immigration and asylum seekers in canada forever and we're about to see
00:00:13.680 the impacts 200 000 people with claims sitting in the queue are about to get their fate decided
00:00:20.800 so stay tuned and join we are so concerned about what we're doing on this front people came to
00:00:28.880 canada with the intention of being residents they paid into the system they got educations they
00:00:35.920 funded tuitions they took loans back home and they got their parents to fund
00:00:42.080 their education with the dream of becoming canadian and now all that is about to end
00:00:47.600 those people who dropped into the asylum seeker category are about to be given their fate as this
00:00:53.280 bill passes today on the social experiment i'm speaking to near rosenberg council for canadian
00:01:10.480 visas.com welcome near well thank you very much appreciate being here and i met near a few years
00:01:17.440 ago um through a friend and it was uh over someone who needed help in the immigration field and it's
00:01:24.880 been a really good relationship and i'm i'm happy to have him on today near was the past director by the
00:01:30.560 way of the canadian association of immigration consultants professional integration consultants
00:01:36.080 and uh you know which is really important because i know sometimes you know people uh immigration
00:01:42.320 sometimes gets a bad name there's some characters out there and i think near and uh another gentleman
00:01:48.640 phil uh spent a lot of time in their career kind of working towards making it reputable and getting
00:01:55.120 people into a set of standards that help the industry right near yeah absolutely yeah uh over over
00:02:02.240 many many years i would say yeah yeah it's got to be 20 years since i met phil so yeah so today we're
00:02:09.520 talking about asylum seekers so um and this is a topic that's been uh in the news in the newspapers it's
00:02:18.400 been uh talked about a lot uh probably since you know late 24 mid to late uh 2024 and into the first
00:02:27.920 quarter 2025 and it it really popped up near um and we did a show on it yesterday with respect to people
00:02:35.760 entering into uh the ports of canada right the number of people coming over the border walking
00:02:41.200 and flying and i wanted to start the show off today just kind of talking about some information and then
00:02:47.760 kind of delve into students because it's a big issue here and it it continues to be um and you know i did
00:02:55.680 some research as i was prepping for the show i was doing a lot of research and i came across some really
00:03:01.040 interesting uh information and i wasn't aware of and you know the ircc the department of immigration
00:03:08.560 refugee citizenship of canada um basically has a budget uh for 2024 and they spent it of 6.3 billion
00:03:18.640 dollars so you know this is a big bigger industry than i even i thought to tell you the truth when i got
00:03:24.480 into it you know and and it's interesting you know they uh since 2023 they ramped up and they
00:03:33.440 increased their funding the ircc funding uh ramped up and it it hit its kind of peak in 24 when it went
00:03:41.680 to the 6.3 and now the government wants of the government of canada is saying okay let's kind of
00:03:47.760 try to slow it down a little and let's ratchet it back and i threw a graph up on the screen that
00:03:53.520 basically shows the expenditures you know going down and they really want to kind of get it back
00:03:59.680 to where it was kind of i'd say before covid um the expenditure on the file um and then i said okay
00:04:08.320 well that's interesting because how many asylum seekers do we have so you know and where does the
00:04:14.480 money go so the the money they spend on right now the 6.3 in 2024 i looked into it and i said okay where
00:04:22.320 where do they spend their money well they they transfer a bunch of money to the provinces so
00:04:27.520 you know it was very interesting because they transfer roughly three billion dollars to the
00:04:33.520 provinces in 2024 then they uh they take about 167 billion dollars and they transfer or give that or
00:04:43.760 pay that to a consulting a set of uh people who are not on payroll but they actually assist immigration
00:04:51.120 and then they have personnel of about 1.66 billion dollars so it massive you know a lot bigger and
00:04:57.920 it makes up immigration as an expenditure for the government makes up about 1.2 percent of the total
00:05:04.560 budget so you know a little different than what i thought um they're trying to kind of ratchet that down
00:05:11.600 uh as i mentioned go to a lower spend but they still want to spend four billion dollars uh in 2025
00:05:19.840 this year on asylum seekers so that that brought a lot of uh questions to my mind and and the first
00:05:27.360 one that came up is you know who's submitting claims and where are they submitting claims so
00:05:32.960 i looked at okay um how many claims are they getting well they're getting about right now uh if
00:05:39.040 you look at the chart that's on your screen july 2025 they're at just below 14 000 people making asylum
00:05:48.400 claims a day right so 14 000 as you can see most of those claims are either in quebec or ontario
00:05:57.840 makes sense not a lot of claims happening anywhere else in canada um because all the provinces are
00:06:04.080 recommend uh are represented in this graph and then i said okay well are they coming in like
00:06:10.160 where are they coming in to the country from because i thought they were all you know it's funny near i
00:06:14.960 thought when they said asylum seekers they basically were talking about people who were coming through
00:06:21.120 you know a port through land or air but it includes students and other people in the country
00:06:27.760 yeah yeah it does yeah um and now now we're seeing that more and more um we we uh there are
00:06:37.200 really only a couple of different ways someone can really make a refugee claim um we have convention
00:06:43.200 refugees um which are essentially um individuals that um have to go through the united nations high
00:06:49.600 commission for refugees uh outside of canada so they they're individuals that can't get to canada
00:06:55.200 either by land sea or air uh and they go through an interview process they go through a lengthy
00:06:59.440 process and they get some uh they get a certificate from the unhcr that calls them a convention refugee
00:07:04.320 and then they make a claim uh for permanent residency through uh some sort of a sponsorship
00:07:09.120 to canada or it's individuals that are say crossing the border uh landing uh into one of the canadian
00:07:16.640 airports or crossing the border uh through a land crossing whether it's a secured line crossing or an
00:07:22.560 unsecured line crossing and through canada and the us i mean we have the most the longest uh say
00:07:27.920 unprotected border in the world uh or unsecure border in the world uh you've got a lot of areas where
00:07:33.520 there's no uh no formal port of entry where you are being uh interviewed by uh cbsa or canadian border
00:07:39.920 services agencies um and so you've got you've got individuals that could come from uh latin american
00:07:46.720 countries step into the united states or even individuals that are american who are feeling
00:07:52.240 insecure or or or fearing of persecution of some sort of reason uh in the united states and so they
00:07:58.640 come to the canadian border we get a lot of calls from individuals like that who just say you know what
00:08:03.200 if we don't want to live here anymore what if we don't want to live in the united states uh and we
00:08:07.440 want to go to canada can we just go to the border and make a claim technically yes um but there are
00:08:13.360 things that uh that prevent them from doing that like uh the safe third country agreement between
00:08:18.000 canada and the us so um there are um uh individuals that do come into the country uh in in in uh in
00:08:26.400 different ways uh and make those claims and then of course you touched on um individuals that are in
00:08:32.560 canada perhaps students or foreign workers or individuals that just you know came into canada
00:08:37.520 for some sort of reason whether it was a visit a study a work permit and they don't want to leave
00:08:43.120 and so they'll make a claim from inside the country yeah yeah well you know in that you know i when i
00:08:48.560 got into it you know you in the movies you used to see you know the professional athlete or the
00:08:53.680 ballerina who came to town and then claimed asylum so i used to think to yourself wow that doesn't
00:08:58.320 happen very often but we're gonna in a minute we're gonna get into it you know it's interesting
00:09:02.800 because you know just quick story you know because you know i do a lot of building and i love to build
00:09:08.000 things um there was kind of a mass uh immigration of turkish trades this happened you know almost
00:09:15.600 around covet we started to see more people from turkey coming in wonderful uh stucco and concrete
00:09:21.600 guys and you you know i'd love working with them and as i was working with them i you know i asked
00:09:26.960 them the story how did you get here what do you what were you know what was your entry point and it was
00:09:31.760 interesting so this is so crazy when you listen to their story and i said you guys should write a book
00:09:36.960 they would they would go to mexico right they would uh come through get smuggled into the u.s
00:09:44.880 and then travel all the way up to quebec and then come into the country right and claim asylum
00:09:50.720 and i said wow what a what a journey you've been through like that's crazy well we wanted to come
00:09:55.040 to canada and i thought you know here's and it's interesting because you know how times change that was
00:10:00.480 you know during the covet times uh here now we're we just put something out the other day in
00:10:08.960 in ontario or all throughout canada we are having a housing crisis of course and we are five thousand
00:10:18.000 500 000 workers skilled workers short so these guys who and you know it's funny i called a friend of
00:10:24.240 mine a turkish friend and i said to him i said did you read that article he said he said i read it
00:10:28.960 this morning he said imagine if all these guys in this time they would be begging for them to come in
00:10:34.720 but in order for them to get him at that time they had to go through that journey which you can imagine
00:10:39.680 the perils of that journey like just the the risk of making it onto that border in in quebec uh what
00:10:47.040 must have been so large so anyways you gotta you know the stories you hear are amazing so then you
00:10:52.800 know yeah so then i i jumped forward and i said okay you know where uh people coming in through ports
00:10:59.920 is what you mentioned near you know basically which ports so you know the interesting part when i just
00:11:07.760 mentioned you know most of them are coming in through quebec so if you look at the graph the
00:11:12.320 brown part is basically ontario and the blue part is quebec or the blue green part um you know it's
00:11:20.720 quebec and you know it's interesting so quebec you know not known for great border port control right
00:11:28.080 because i don't know moneer you probably don't you might hear a little bit of it but you know it's kind
00:11:33.520 of a one of those things that we talk about car thefts in canada um and most of our cars that
00:11:38.720 actually do get uh go through the quebec port a lot of them get shipped to quebec and then out of
00:11:44.400 the quebec port and it's become an issue sort of over time but so they come through the quebec port and
00:11:50.960 i said okay great that must be where everyone's coming in then i flip to the next page and basically
00:11:57.520 people inside of canada um are mostly uh or a big portion of them are probably more than 50 are
00:12:06.800 actually in ontario so they're becoming asylum claimants inside of canada in ontario so not quebec
00:12:13.280 so i said okay a few of them you know are alberta uh you see that in the chart um i thought a lot more
00:12:22.480 would be on the east coast but no so and it made sense given the size so i i said okay well that's
00:12:29.840 kind of weird how many how many people okay uh so we probably have 5 500 people a day um and then i said
00:12:38.400 okay what happened what the next chart i went what happened to study permits and work permit holders well
00:12:44.880 then i remembered our uh immigration minister mark miller um before lena uh diav got in she he said
00:12:55.120 you know he came on tv and he said listen we're going to reduce the number of study permits and we're
00:13:00.960 going to you know reduce the number of work permits so then i went and took a look and lo and behold it
00:13:06.720 is true they they have actually moved quite aggressively to do that as you can see from the
00:13:12.800 chart that shows them declining so i'm like okay um so it's a kind of a weird graph you know we don't
00:13:21.120 have as many study permits we have a lot of people claiming asylum inside the country um and so then i
00:13:27.440 asked my you know a few friends of mine i said what's going on and they said well you know take a look
00:13:32.480 at the incoming asylum applications so i went to the next chart asylum applications and lo and behold
00:13:39.840 there's 200 000 uh as of 200 2024 asylum applications so when it spiked up like from you know 21 coming
00:13:51.200 out of covet 22 23 24 and it it appears to be based on you know the few quarters in 25 to be increasing
00:14:01.600 even more rapidly so you know what and i i asked then the question i said well where the heck are they
00:14:07.920 coming from who's making these claims so then i went to the source documents in in the irc websites and
00:14:16.240 and stats websites well you know you got it uh india haiti mexico iran nigeria bangladesh turkey china
00:14:25.920 afghanistan that should be columbia and then sri lanka pakistan and guinea right so those were the top
00:14:33.840 kind of leaders in uh q1 2025 for people who were making claims so that that's where they're coming
00:14:41.120 from um now you know i'm going to get into in a minute with you but you know the reason so like
00:14:49.760 you know we talked about a little yesterday if i'm just coming across the border making asylum
00:14:55.120 you know for the most part i'm doing that because i need protection or i'm uh i'm in fear
00:15:01.520 uh it seems like a very complicated process that whole process um when i looked i kind of delved
00:15:09.520 into it for a few hours and the amount of case law and information and diligence that goes give me a
00:15:16.080 little bit of flavor of that near before we jump into students well um yeah as far as you know the numbers
00:15:27.200 um are concerned um i think that uh the the increase in refugee claims um overall are due to lack of um
00:15:42.160 ability to i mean from those in canada lack of ability to remain in canada using a regular process
00:15:48.960 those that are coming from outside of canada i i would say probably over the last few years since covid
00:15:54.720 um probably relate to um uh situations you know with uh volatile uncertainty around the world in
00:16:02.640 different countries like ukraine um like the middle east um so we're seeing you know canada be a little
00:16:09.200 bit more open to certain refugees from different countries and so they'll create certain policies
00:16:14.800 around a very specific circumstance or around a very specific country um and so you know the numbers
00:16:22.160 are increasing but canada's recently starting to kind of put a a a stop to it essentially um you
00:16:30.400 know they they realized that they created this problem um and i truly believe that canada created
00:16:36.080 this problem over the last several years uh since covid primarily you know yeah they're bright you
00:16:43.120 know the first quarter of 25 i think the the minister came out and said listen we we uh put some measures
00:16:49.440 in we seem to have decreased the year on year by 34 percent um and we're going to keep being diligent
00:16:56.320 on asylum seekers coming through the port of entry which you know i think that was a cry that we got
00:17:01.520 when uh all the expenditures for hotels and onboarding came out and people were totally shocked at the
00:17:09.120 numbers tell you the truth so yeah they spend again i i need to cut you off they they do spend uh tens of
00:17:16.560 thousands of dollars per uh individual on a refugee claim uh whether it's temporary housing it's uh you
00:17:23.680 know food uh it's shelter it's uh clothing uh they they they give grants uh to individuals and then and
00:17:31.360 these refugees uh don't necessarily in there are certain cases they do but 90 majority don't have to
00:17:39.920 repay that back ever um and so when you're letting in so many refugees from so many different countries
00:17:48.320 you have to support them um a lot of these uh individuals that come in aren't some of them some
00:17:54.880 of them are well educated but don't have english some of them are not very educated uh some of them
00:18:00.160 just don't have the ability to integrate very fast or very fairly quickly into the canadian
00:18:05.360 uh society or into the canadian market uh and so you have to support them for a certain extent of
00:18:12.000 time um and that's where we saw majority of uh the funding the the statutory uh funding going into
00:18:21.040 resettlement of refugees uh to to resettle these refugees in the country yeah no i know and and uh you
00:18:28.880 know the guys from true north another podcast they did a i was watching it the other night they estimate
00:18:34.960 kind of each of those claimants uh cost the government roughly 81 000 by the time they get
00:18:40.960 through the process um and i think that's what caught attention of a lot of canadians because
00:18:45.360 they were like you know my incomes you know average 61 and so they were like we're spending 81 000 to
00:18:52.560 onboard someone who that's seeking asylum and i'm only making 61 a year and so there was a lot of
00:18:58.240 comparisons going on of course yeah that's just human nature but sure i think that's flagged it for
00:19:04.480 a lot of people you know so the next one that caught my and this was something that really um hit home
00:19:11.920 with me right and uh it's the people who have kind of entered into canada under student visas um
00:19:22.400 and they they arrived and you know they're the people who you know left their hometown and their village
00:19:32.320 or their city they you know got their parents to mortgage lands that had been in their family for
00:19:41.200 decades and 100 you know 100 years and a lot of these a lot of these places that you saw on the list
00:19:47.360 that we talked about a few minutes ago you know wealth is really generated by um bequest by transfer of
00:19:56.320 uh land between or homes between families so you know these are people that kind of came here their
00:20:03.680 parents you know mortgaged their lands you know sold their lands uh worked hard all their lives to get
00:20:10.000 them to come here and start their um start their journey uh through education in the country in canada
00:20:18.000 and you know that kind of caught my eye because i started looking at the stats and i'm like wow a lot of
00:20:23.280 these people have now are now claiming asylum they've they've they've reached their end of their
00:20:28.720 student visas and quite frankly the government said well you know your path to potential pr here or
00:20:36.480 citizenship here is you know going to come to an end and they said well what am i going to do so they
00:20:41.360 panicked i guess and they jumped on to the asylum system so um you must see that and i just want to
00:20:48.480 get your take on and then share a few stats because i was i was i was actually shocked at the numbers
00:20:55.440 yeah yeah the the numbers are high and and um they they they are going to go down uh and i we believe
00:21:02.400 very quickly um the issue around international students coming to canada i think became well we
00:21:11.360 didn't know it was going to be an issue um or some people must have uh but what they did was in uh in
00:21:18.080 and around the covet era uh when schools were struggling and canada wanted to inject funding
00:21:24.640 and money into these international schools and a lot of these international schools are private schools
00:21:29.280 so you know they they needed to stay afloat during the covet era and so what canada did was they
00:21:35.120 basically kind of opened the doors to a lot of international students over half a million annually
00:21:40.880 uh well above that uh actually and what they did was they they they they have brought in these students
00:21:46.640 they increased revenue but what they did was they allowed so many people into the country when the
00:21:54.960 country couldn't necessarily absorb that amount of people um you know and that's where we find today
00:22:00.880 the housing shortage the health care crisis um you know they're but they are addressing this problem
00:22:07.120 by essentially putting a little bit of a band-aid um students came to canada back around the covet era
00:22:14.320 and when you uh become as as an international student you have the opportunity if you qualify if
00:22:20.720 you study in the right program if you study in the right uh the right length uh you have the opportunity
00:22:25.120 of getting something called a post-graduation work permit and essentially that's an open permit
00:22:29.600 that is uh for a duration that is equivalent to the same of your study program for a maximum of three
00:22:35.360 years so if you study for a year you get it for a year if you study for three you get it for three
00:22:40.000 these open work permits allowed these students to gain canadian work experience all within the
00:22:46.800 pretense of a path to permanent residency uh when these students acquired canadian work experience
00:22:56.080 a lot of them went on to filing permanent residency applications through the federal programs through
00:23:02.160 provincial nominee programs um but there's a lot that um uh it came to canada a little bit after
00:23:10.880 covid um in 2022 in 2023 and they're still students and they're those that have graduated already now are
00:23:18.960 in their first year or second year of post-grad uh work permits and they're working towards their
00:23:25.120 path the path that they originally came to canada on uh thinking that that is what the path was going
00:23:31.040 to be for them and over the last uh year we've seen a change in government we've seen a change in
00:23:37.680 policy and what we've seen is um the biggest factor is canada reducing the number of immigrants overall the
00:23:47.040 number of permanent residency visas that they're going to admit uh or approve um students are are
00:23:53.200 getting um uh cut down international uh foreign workers uh are are are you know getting uh less
00:24:01.520 and less opportunities to come to work in canada there's many different reasons for how that's
00:24:07.360 how they're doing that they're they're limiting employers on hiring foreign workers they're refusing
00:24:12.240 labor market impact applications they're not allowing employers to file so there's a lot of
00:24:16.400 different ways that they're actually making this happen but what they've done is they've closed the
00:24:21.120 doors on a lot of those students that came in thinking they're going to have the opportunity
00:24:26.960 and so you've got individuals now that are working in canada and their work permits are going to expire
00:24:33.120 you know in three months or in four months and they talk to immigration consultants or they talk to
00:24:37.760 immigration lawyers or they read things online and they realize they don't have an opportunity to stay
00:24:42.480 so they get bad advice and they go and file a refugee claim and so now we're seeing in the last uh i want
00:24:51.360 to say six to 12 months we're seeing a higher number of international students requesting refugee
00:24:58.320 making refugee claims from inside the country and that could also show us a correlation as to why the
00:25:06.240 graphs are indicating majority are in ontario so a ton of students in ontario um a ton of students worked
00:25:12.400 in british colombia moving to ontario worked in quebec studied in quebec couldn't find jobs couldn't
00:25:18.400 speak the language moving into canadian or canadian english speaking provinces and so you were finding
00:25:25.360 most of those claims made in these particular areas um but there are there are ways that canada has
00:25:32.800 actually uh tried to put a stop to this so you know there there there are things in place that
00:25:38.960 they're putting now and that they're trying to um implement uh and that's uh what they hope is going
00:25:46.400 to reduce uh the number of refugee claims and uh uh essentially you know solve the problem that they
00:25:53.680 actually caused uh about four or five years ago yeah no i remember you know it's interesting you know
00:26:00.080 i remember going to events and parties and things and you'd meet all these administrators from the
00:26:04.880 different educational institutions you know and and they're always uh sharp dudes and gals
00:26:12.240 and uh they were killing it you know they were doing very well you know they'd come out of covid
00:26:17.280 the the international tuitions were very high so and the programs were were you know a lot of them
00:26:24.720 were not very good quality personally you know that's uh my sort of opinion but uh you know what
00:26:31.200 you would see they'd come in do two-year programs quite frankly they weren't great programs a lot of
00:26:35.840 the students didn't get a lot out of them and then they the students would be kind of stuck right they
00:26:40.240 were here um and and you know that so in 2024 you know the 200 000 that we had mentioned we had about a
00:26:48.880 171 000 claims of students and then just year to date were over 30 000 so in 25 um and i think you
00:27:00.160 hit it right in the head near you know it did cause some housing health care public issues that that you
00:27:06.240 know still kind of linger and we're we're going through right now um you know you you see all the
00:27:12.880 time there's a cbc's been running a bunch of videos about how housing insecurity is going to be
00:27:18.880 causing mental distress to international students you know they can't right now you know our rents went
00:27:26.960 crazy for a while and now they've leveled out again thank goodness for some of these students but still
00:27:32.160 finding a place getting set you know a safe uh uh you know well built uh housing unit or apartment is
00:27:41.760 very difficult now and uh you know we're we're kind of running into a bubble on our condo market so
00:27:49.200 uh a lot of them have been lucky enough to kind of shift over and get into that market on rentals but
00:27:54.880 still a problem um so you know we we hit it so they they capped the uh study permits at 550 000
00:28:05.200 and then you know we have a bunch of people coming in i i get it um
00:28:10.480 um how many of those people you know you're down in the u.s so how many people uh of that group
00:28:20.000 are coming from the u.s given what's going there are you noticing are you noticing any of kind of
00:28:27.440 migration that way whether it be from students or just quite frankly people who are on other political
00:28:34.080 parties yeah yeah we are um you know yeah you mentioned that we're we're i'm in the u.s yeah
00:28:39.280 so we we're we're based in canada but we also have a u.s based office um and we do get a lot of
00:28:45.040 individuals uh who call us uh in the last uh year or so um uh and also since the trump um presidency
00:28:53.040 again uh we get a lot of individuals who are fearing uh you know their their uh uh
00:29:01.200 their life in in in essentially not being able to remain in the united states the tps uh program you
00:29:07.680 know the temporary protected status program in the united states you know trump wants to
00:29:10.800 end that um and he's placed essentially a temporary uh uh date when he's going to end and that uh and
00:29:16.400 those those policies are um you know individuals are fearing that right uh i've got a lot of people
00:29:22.880 that call us and say you know our tps status is expiring it's not going to be renewed i don't want
00:29:28.880 to go back to haiti i don't want to go back to cuba i don't want to go back to you know uh colombia
00:29:34.480 where do i go what can i do is there a path for me to canada and a lot of these people don't
00:29:39.280 necessarily have a path to canada either um and for different reasons but um they end up resorting
00:29:45.760 to asking what if i go to the canadian border and i ask to go in as a visitor and i make a refugee claim
00:29:52.880 um technically they can do that um but i believe that canada is now also looking at solving that
00:29:59.760 problem so uh there there are uh measures that canada is putting in place they're trying to uh now
00:30:06.800 with uh two bills c12 and uh bill c2 uh and though those bills uh when they do get royal ascent they
00:30:13.840 will um become law and and canada will be able to uh stop and prevent uh you know individuals from
00:30:21.840 coming in whether it's from the united states or it's individuals that are in canada making claims
00:30:26.720 uh that that's kind of going to go away but even when that does go away that doesn't solve the problem
00:30:31.600 right away you have a backlog in the refugee claims uh system in the immigration refugee board
00:30:37.280 um hundreds of thousands of cases it takes well over a year to get your case heard um but you know
00:30:44.240 what they do in the interim they grant them a work permit so an international student whose work
00:30:49.280 permit is going to expire in a week goes and makes refugee claim gets an open work permit for another
00:30:54.720 year or two and then works wherever they want until that becomes a dead end but when that becomes a
00:31:01.840 dead end or when the refugee claim is heard and it's denied because it's not a substantiated claim
00:31:07.760 they end up leaving the country so it's uh it's an inevitable situation that uh that they they don't
00:31:13.520 necessarily um have an opportunity to overcome uh with uh the options that exist today right so they i get
00:31:23.520 you so you know the loophole gets them i guess the the backlog gets them a little extra time so it
00:31:29.280 gets them a year or two they get a year or two they they get the letter um you know it's been an issue
00:31:35.520 probably for another show but they get a letter and then we're struggling now with some issues of
00:31:40.080 finding people so right uh whether or not the tracking is very good or whether they moved around a
00:31:45.280 lot but you know getting them finding them and making sure they leave the country is becoming a more
00:31:51.120 critical issue as time goes on and you're now starting to read about it more and more um and
00:31:58.000 i don't know you know that that to me that to me is a resource issue but uh and i you know probably
00:32:05.120 trying to understand is that given the fact that we've secured gone and secured our border more on the
00:32:13.200 request of the president you know president trump you know are we now struggling with uh resource issues
00:32:20.400 from that perspective so that's probably a question we have to ask them but i assume that probably the
00:32:25.360 answer is yes on that front um so you know we talked about housing the strain on the public service
00:32:33.600 whether it be healthcare and you know asylum seekers you know join in the system they get the social
00:32:38.960 services and the health care of a normal you know an average canadian um which is something uh you
00:32:45.600 know we all understand um colleges are gone you know a lot of the colleges that popped up have
00:32:51.200 disappeared now so you know they're kind of gone by the by um are you you know i guess do we stop
00:32:59.840 being kind of a haven for people to educate and is that uh are you seeing people still interested are they
00:33:06.400 still wanting to come and explore canada or is that slowing at such an extent you're not getting as many
00:33:12.560 requests or in uh you know people looking for information yeah so so we are we are seeing um as
00:33:19.120 a steady i would say a steady uh interest in coming to study in canada um but it has gone down in the
00:33:28.720 sense that they when they when we submit applications for a study permit we got a lot more refusals today
00:33:35.520 so we're getting a lot more refusals and and and and it it explains why the numbers are down um they
00:33:43.040 just don't grant study permits enough um the schools uh that used to the the private ones uh that used to
00:33:52.000 accept pretty much any student from any country um are now uh you know slowly dwindling and going away
00:34:00.800 um and it's because they don't have the funding to stay alive um but what we're seeing is also
00:34:06.880 students who um call me and i know that other immigration consultants uh who i talk to are
00:34:13.520 experiencing the same uh same same uh same thing is that the students are asking okay if i come to
00:34:20.320 canada as a student you know if i do get a work permit because or sorry a study permit because i've got
00:34:25.680 you know a good education background i've got great funds i've got you know the ability to
00:34:30.720 study and i've got a great path is there a path for me to remain in canada after after i get my phd
00:34:38.080 after i get my master's degree after i've studied and i'm not we're not talking about individuals that
00:34:41.680 are coming in to study a one-year graphic diploma program at a private college we're talking about
00:34:46.400 individuals that really want to contribute uh individuals that have very uh good promising
00:34:53.760 possibilities with a career in canada uh in the health sciences in the mathematics in the
00:34:59.920 engineering world um these individuals want to rely on a path forward uh on a path to becoming
00:35:08.000 permanent residents and when there's no clear path they start to think why should we come and invest
00:35:14.960 all of this money into canada because it does it's not very cheap to go to school in canada
00:35:19.200 uh as an international student you're paying at least two to three times the cost
00:35:24.240 of any canadian citizen or canadian permanent resident and on top of that you've got to pay
00:35:29.360 housing and you've got to prove that you have uh financial support for yourself for that first year
00:35:34.720 and in the past uh and it goes up every single year but in the past um one individual on a study
00:35:42.000 permit required somewhere around eleven twelve thousand dollars uh to show that they had for the first
00:35:49.120 year of studies as financial support from themselves uh call it settlement funds uh in addition to the
00:35:54.880 study program tuition fees and all that stuff they wanted to see that you had at least at one point it
00:36:00.400 was 11 grand then it was 13 000. now uh in two years ago it was about 18 now it's 22 000. it went from
00:36:08.160 last year being twenty thousand dollars to uh to exceeding twenty two thousand it's that's another ten percent
00:36:14.160 increase so every year they're making it more and more difficult for students from different
00:36:19.120 countries to qualify it's not enough that you are getting into a you know a great tier uh university
00:36:26.560 it's not enough that you um have straight a's it's not enough that you want to go live in a rural
00:36:33.200 community and study at that rural college it's not enough you have to show that you have the money
00:36:38.480 and a lot of people will say well if i'm gonna have to go and spend all this money
00:36:42.320 into a school in canada and invest all this effort what do i get in return why i'm gonna study here
00:36:47.360 and then have to leave what's the point so they start looking at different countries around the
00:36:51.200 world they look at europe they look at australia they look at um you know um um these countries
00:36:57.920 where they do see a path to becoming permanent they some even actually go to the united states um
00:37:04.320 because there are ways in the united states for them to benefit from a work permit after
00:37:09.200 what's happening in canada now is that they're trying to put this temporary band-aid and what
00:37:15.520 they're doing is that they're doing it so quickly that it's it's going to take time to reduce
00:37:22.320 these numbers and it's going to take time to solve the problem they caused back in 2020 2021 2022
00:37:29.680 by eliminating these students by eliminating the the foreign workers it's going to bring those numbers
00:37:36.480 down it will take time but it will bring it down but what it's doing is it's already also hurting
00:37:42.320 our population overall we're we're not going to be able to have the population that we need to
00:37:48.240 sustain the labor market there's a lot of employers across canada that have no way of hiring and filling
00:37:54.880 positions because they rely on foreign workers there's the restaurant industries the hotel industries the
00:38:02.080 tourism industry they rely on these temporary foreign workers they rely on these international
00:38:06.800 students and the problem that they're trying to solve is is i can appreciate the problem but what
00:38:14.160 they're doing is they're using bill uh there's a bill c2 and bill c12 and what these bills are doing
00:38:19.680 is that they're proposing essentially to limit the number of refugee claims that are made from inside
00:38:25.760 to canada so for example if you came to canada after uh june 6th of 2020 it's retroactive so if you
00:38:33.760 came to canada after june 6th of 2020 and you stayed in canada for effectively at least um a year in the
00:38:43.760 last five right 2020 to 2025 you can't make a refugee claim if you do your refugee claim will get thrown out
00:38:51.440 so they're just basically saying if you came in any time after june 6th of 2020
00:38:57.040 up until now if you make a claim and you've been in canada for at least a year
00:39:01.520 you can't make that claim so if you were a student you had a postgrad work permit you completed a study
00:39:05.440 program whatever your case was you came to canada as an international worker as a as a temporary foreign
00:39:10.080 worker you worked for a year worked for two years now you see no path you can't file a refugee
00:39:14.560 claim you can file it it'll get thrown out they're not going to process it right so that's what they're
00:39:19.920 doing as it as it relates to the refugee claims because they've realized that the refugee numbers
00:39:24.960 are going up and that there's no way to control that so they're just going to say we're going to
00:39:29.760 throw it out you know if you came in during this period of time you stayed for this amount of time
00:39:34.000 we're going to throw it out so yeah wow so interesting because i didn't get that so the bill
00:39:41.040 the bill's passed right no the bills in uh in the house they're they're working to essentially get
00:39:47.360 it uh to pass uh and and get it through royal assent but there's a bc2 um and bill c2 essentially
00:39:55.440 uh proposes the solution right with the refugee claims um but it's got a lot of privacy laws in
00:40:01.360 there uh as well allowing essentially cbsa to do a lot uh and that means to check people's mail uh check
00:40:10.480 electronic communication um and dual investigative measures per se um and so because that is causing
00:40:18.800 a lot of delays they've introduced another bill um uh bill c12 which basically pulls out the refugee
00:40:26.560 solution into its own separate bill and that's going to and that's going to be something that's
00:40:31.120 going to be passed expeditiously and then once that's passed yeah the rules for refugees will
00:40:35.920 essentially become law uh much sooner and then that is what's going to be the new kind of norm
00:40:42.720 if you're in canada today you won't be able to file a refugee claim there are other other ways of
00:40:48.240 potentially staying in canada maybe a humanitarian and compassionate application right an h and c
00:40:52.960 consideration and that's a whole different story but that particular application doesn't grant you a
00:40:57.840 work permit for the year it doesn't grant you a temporary stay in canada it's an application
00:41:02.160 kind of happens in the background but you don't get an actual um uh stay uh authorization to stay
00:41:08.240 in canada while that's being processed that's the difference so near does that mean just so i and
00:41:13.040 i understand so it's retroactive back to 2020 and if you've stayed in the country at that point for a
00:41:18.320 year correct can't and you've claimed asylum so you're a refugee you'll be told right away so that
00:41:24.080 bill passes and then a bunch of letters so like almost like a mass those so you know uh those 200 000
00:41:30.480 people that we're talking about probably a lot of them are going to get the letter like it's done
00:41:36.720 once once the uh the bill receives royal assent yeah they'll pass the law and they'll retroactively
00:41:41.760 apply it and they'll throw out every claim um the only ones that will uh be allowed to go through
00:41:47.440 are the ones that it so for example if you came to canada illegally like let's say you cross the
00:41:51.600 border from the united states came to canada illegally you cross through one of the borders that you didn't
00:41:55.440 get interviewed by cbsa officer um and you don't claim within two weeks they'll throw out your claim
00:42:02.160 as well so you can't come in illegally stay for a year and then claim you have to claim within two
00:42:07.920 weeks and you can claim it at at at a cbsa office you can claim it at the airport you can claim it
00:42:14.640 you know at the border claim it wherever you want you can actually be in canada and go to an actual uh
00:42:19.680 immigration enforcement center office and say i want to make a refugee claim but you've got to do that
00:42:23.760 within two weeks and that's assuming the bill passes you right so so the interesting bill bill
00:42:31.600 passes the interesting thing is so those people get the letter but the people who uh made it up to
00:42:37.760 a border or came in through an airplane claimed asylum they're going to sit in the process
00:42:44.480 so they're not going to be impacted the same way because they're not uh correct are they yeah so
00:42:51.120 they're not impacted so the the port asylum seekers will not be impacted by it but the education the
00:42:58.400 people who came for a work permit did it will yeah it's it's anyone that's been in canada for more
00:43:03.440 than a year and hasn't claimed that if they claim now let's say the bill passed today if they claim
00:43:09.200 tomorrow they won't it will be thrown out because they won't accept that it was between the last you
00:43:13.760 know it's retroactive it's going all the way back to 2020 if you came in 2020 in 2019 then you can still
00:43:19.520 make the claim they're going based on uh june 6 of 2020 as the as the retroactive date um and uh yeah
00:43:27.920 so it it's it's uh it's that quick fix to try to solve the problem that they are essentially causing
00:43:35.360 by limiting the options for uh international students you know the the the limited number of
00:43:41.120 immigration programs the difficulty in claiming points towards express entry which is the federal system
00:43:46.880 to apply for permanent residency it's it's it's it's a point system where you gain points based
00:43:51.680 on different human capital factors work experience age education etc so those are the uh those are the
00:43:57.600 programs that those individuals who came to canada back in 2020 2021 2022 relied on right but are we
00:44:04.880 and this is where my mind is kind of uh you know my confusion with this the people came they uh you know
00:44:11.920 back home they mortgaged their land they came here they spent the time they paid the money to the
00:44:17.280 government they supported these new educational programs that popped up they supported traditional
00:44:23.600 programs they paid rent they bought food so they've been in the economy right these are the people that
00:44:29.680 came with money right they came they came here we we didn't give them money they came and
00:44:34.640 gave us money and so now we're going to be saying to them go home right we're exiting them out and
00:44:43.600 we're going to be and aren't we incentivizing the people who are coming you know they're they're
00:44:49.120 claiming asylum for other reasons whether it be protection or other issues in their home countries
00:44:55.200 but we're kind of it just seems a little backward to me it seems quite frankly we should be
00:45:00.960 in my mind we should be trying to figure out some solution for these people and to fit so if
00:45:05.920 if we need trades or if we need jobs we should be trying to give them almost first priority first
00:45:11.440 right to kind of say hey we have some stuff coming up it might not be in your field but
00:45:16.560 if you're interested in doing it whether it be in mining or whether it be in forestry or whether it be in
00:45:21.680 skilled trades isn't that where we need to because that's where we need people right now yeah yeah and
00:45:27.360 it's it's absolutely true but what happened is um you had a shift in policy in government and you had
00:45:32.880 you have a liberal government that wants to please the canadian um population um and so you know when
00:45:39.440 they ran for uh office um they basically you know listened to the canadian public who said housing
00:45:47.120 shortage healthcare crisis too many international workers too many international students we got to cut
00:45:52.720 it down so they're putting this fix to cut down all of these people but what they've done is they
00:45:59.440 they they don't in my opinion it's not a very smart way to do it because when you apply like for example
00:46:06.880 the foreign worker program relies on you can't you can't just come into canada and apply for a work
00:46:13.200 permit right you can't just apply for a work permit from whatever country and come to work here
00:46:16.720 you have to have 99 of the time you have to have a job offer and that job offer has to be pre-approved
00:46:23.600 by the government under a department called employment and skills development canada esdc
00:46:30.640 employment social skills development canada this department reviews job offers and they look at
00:46:37.840 whether or not the position that is uh being um being requested to fill by the employer is going to
00:46:45.920 create a positive negative or a neutral effect in the canadian labor market and if it creates a
00:46:52.160 positive or a neutral effect typically it gets approved if it gets a negative effect it gets
00:46:57.920 denied so they do an evaluation they assess take several months you have to prove advertising you
00:47:02.720 got to prove you couldn't find a canadian to fill the position etc what they've done last year almost
00:47:09.040 a year ago now is or maybe just a year ago now just over a year i believe it was september of 2024
00:47:15.280 they implemented a policy called refusal to process they love using this term refusal to process and
00:47:21.200 what they do is they put a blanket refusal to process policy that says in this particular instance
00:47:26.960 they said if any employer is located in a region that has a unemployment rate of six percent or more
00:47:36.720 okay we will not allow them to apply for what's called a low wage application so they have a threshold
00:47:43.760 and for example i remember the number in my head in ontario so i'll mention ontario ontario has a
00:47:48.240 threshold of 36 an hour today if your position that you're offering a foreign worker is below 36
00:47:55.760 an hour that's considered a low wage application now which employers are going to fill these jobs so
00:48:03.680 we're talking restaurants we're talking hotels we're talking ski resorts we're talking um bakeries we're
00:48:10.160 talking manufacturing facilities we're talking the fishing industry uh in in different parts of canada
00:48:16.480 um these uh industries are lacking the workers they're sure there's a shortage of these workers in
00:48:24.240 canada uh agricultural workers also so you've got a lot of employers that are saying we need to hire
00:48:30.080 these people we will do whatever it takes to hire them but there's a cap to the number of of of of
00:48:36.800 dollars per hour that they could spend on a worker and they can't afford to pay 36 an hour to put them
00:48:44.400 into a high wage application i i spoke to a um an individual today um from a pharmacy uh in ontario
00:48:51.760 in cambridge ontario and this pharmacy um has three different locations and in their cambridge
00:48:58.080 location they're trying to hire a pharmacy uh what they call it a pharmacy um technical assistant
00:49:03.680 is 20 and 50 cents an hour and right now they're paying um someone that is already working there
00:49:16.160 about 22 an hour so they're willing to say you know what we want to keep this guy we'll pay him more
00:49:22.400 but they didn't know that there was a refusal to process policy which means you can't file an lmi
00:49:28.000 application for a low wage application you can't do that you have to put them into a high wage
00:49:32.560 application because cambridge falls into a region of six percent or more of unemployment and so what
00:49:37.920 ends up happening is you tell the employer look the only way you're going to be able to keep this
00:49:41.760 guy working beyond to say february when his work permits expiring is to apply for a new lmia but you
00:49:47.440 got a bump and promise to pay 36 an hour at the minimum rate so this employer is telling me uh i've got
00:49:55.600 to go from 22 an hour to 36 an hour that's a problem and now this gentleman has already worked in
00:50:02.160 canada for two years in that position and now has no option essentially if the employer can't afford
00:50:08.240 to bump the raise can't can't can't stay in canada work what are they going to do they could then talk
00:50:15.200 to someone who's going to give them bad advice and say go file a refugee claim right and so that's why
00:50:21.360 we're seeing a lot of these refugee claims not just from students but also from temporary foreign workers
00:50:27.040 and we i have uh clients in different parts of canada manitoba alberta very large restaurant chains
00:50:34.240 that you and i are very familiar with who are are are are potentially laying off employees canadians
00:50:43.280 because they can't keep their doors open the 24-hour shift that they need to because they just don't
00:50:48.480 have that they don't have the people and they're not located in in in toronto where you've got six
00:50:53.360 million seven eight million people they're located in rural places in alberta or in manitoba or in
00:50:58.800 saskatchewan or bc and in the mountains there's no workers there and so they're the the blanket
00:51:06.240 refusal to process on the temporary foreign worker program causes a major issue on employers in canada
00:51:14.160 it's not very smart in my opinion to blanket a refusal to process there are certain exemptions they
00:51:19.760 will say will will will allow it if it's a health care or if it's a uh you know a caregiver position
00:51:25.920 or if it's you know uh and that's another thing i mean they they limit the exemptions to very specific
00:51:32.240 industries which in my opinion based on my understanding of of who my clients are that's
00:51:40.000 not where the problem is the problem isn't necessarily in health care to keep the nurse it's
00:51:45.600 in the majority of the industries and they've done so many things you know to to to limit uh foreign
00:51:53.120 workers that it's you know i know we were talking about refugee claims but i'll i'll give you i'll
00:51:57.200 give you this that you know just recently they in january they implemented a new uh a new policy if
00:52:03.680 you're working in canada and you're not working in a particular occupation that we put on a particular
00:52:08.800 list you can't bring your spouse to canada to work so your spouse can't accompany you so there's
00:52:15.360 there's there's so many restrictions that they've placed and all within a matter of the last 10 to
00:52:19.440 12 months they removed the points that an international student who has a job offer from
00:52:26.240 an employer with a valid labor market impact assessment with that valid document they've
00:52:30.480 removed the 50 points that they would receive so anyone that had the number of points they needed in
00:52:35.040 order to qualify to become a permanent resident all of a sudden dropped by 50 points possibly putting
00:52:39.360 him into a um outside that window of getting an invitation so they've they've put in so many
00:52:46.160 measures in place overnight call it right in order to solve this problem that they caused five years ago
00:52:55.280 and we're gonna see this problem kind of linger for the next couple of years it'll reduce the numbers
00:53:00.400 for sure but it's gonna linger and it's gonna linger for a few years before
00:53:04.960 canadian population realizes that in fact you know this particular you know uh um very quick response
00:53:14.400 may not have been the the correct response necessarily yeah it's gonna create a labor shortage
00:53:21.360 you can just see it right because on mass we're gonna have a mass exodus um and then you know again
00:53:28.800 will a lot of canadians even do those jobs great that's another issue and then you know like you
00:53:34.640 said you just it's frustrating and it's frustrating because you know are we honoring our and i call it
00:53:41.760 an ethical obligation the people that came on the study visas and the educational uh you know visas and
00:53:49.200 went to school here they committed to the country they came here they spent money you know it's the way it's
00:53:54.160 supposed to work it's it's how it's how our grandfathers and our fathers all came you know
00:53:59.760 they brought money they invested they bought homes they rented they got on their feet that their
00:54:05.200 families were here or relatives they sponsored them you know that's how how we started off and
00:54:10.480 that that's what it's supposed to be and uh just because we hit we've hit a bubble now and it's to me
00:54:16.400 it's more of a reallocation of resources right now it's sitting down and saying where are we short where
00:54:20.640 are we not and then giving those people priority to make it through the system and that that's where
00:54:25.920 i'm so frustrated um near i really appreciate hey before we leave today i wanted to um and you
00:54:33.600 mentioned something when we were just setting up for the show and yeah your website um you guys have
00:54:39.120 automated it you talk a little bit about what you've done and i know what people have a lot of
00:54:43.200 questions and you know you guys are a real resource and and uh i think you know just talking about how
00:54:49.760 you're using some systems to answer a bunch of questions that people have sure sure thank you
00:54:55.120 um yeah so we we just launched our brand new site um on canadianvisas.com so it's canadianvisas.com
00:55:03.040 and we are are working to implement now a new system where individuals can come on our website and
00:55:09.360 complete a an assessment on any options uh that they're looking for uh in canada whatever visa they're
00:55:16.080 looking for so they'll be able to select you know what type of visa they're looking uh to apply for
00:55:21.600 um and if they're in canada or if they're outside of canada and they're looking to apply for permanent
00:55:25.440 residency they can fill out all their details uh their age their education level if they've taken an
00:55:30.560 english test um if they've got work experience they can list all of those details and our system would
00:55:36.560 take all of that information and spit out essentially a result um for them to be able to download uh
00:55:42.800 instantly and that's going to give them a full report on um any of their immigration options
00:55:47.920 in canada whether they qualify in any of the federal system uh uh that canada has today the
00:55:52.960 federal express entry system the canadian experience class programs um or any of the provincial programs
00:55:58.240 if they have job offers in canada or not so we look at all of that data and we give out a pdf that
00:56:04.320 basically gives them all of their options um we're going to be implementing an option on our website
00:56:09.280 for individuals to apply for visas uh essentially on their own um and if they need any assistance
00:56:14.320 they can always reach out to us they can uh hire us for consultation um we highly highly highly
00:56:19.840 recommend you know i can't stress this enough um and and they don't have to call me specifically
00:56:25.760 they can call anyone but as long as they call someone who is authorized who's an authorized
00:56:31.120 representative there's a lot of individuals from overseas that don't have the right information
00:56:35.280 they go on google they start typing they get some you know joe schmo who's going to tell them some
00:56:41.600 some uh some uh some of their options and it's not true they're going to give them some false
00:56:46.240 information some false hope you know there's a benefit to hiring an immigration uh professional
00:56:53.280 whether it's an immigration consultant or a lawyer um there's a benefit in in talking to someone who
00:56:59.360 understands the rules who understands the policies who understands the shift in changes because
00:57:05.440 if somebody gives you advice today that answer may not necessarily apply tomorrow um and so
00:57:11.920 we highly recommend i i strongly encourage uh they can call me they can reach out to us by email they
00:57:16.960 can reach out to us by phone um they could go on our website they can get some information there they
00:57:20.960 can fill out the assessment form but talk to someone who's experienced in the immigration world who's
00:57:26.240 got you know a license to do so um because there's a lot of uh ghost consultants out there that prey
00:57:32.880 on uh individuals in these particular situations those are in canada who feel like they'd have no
00:57:38.880 place to go who feel like there is a dead end and they are willing to do to do anything in order to
00:57:44.000 stay in canada it's not always the right solution we recommend to talk to someone so that you get the
00:57:48.880 right advice uh no thank you near and i really appreciate your time uh so thank you for today and uh we're
00:57:56.320 going to be following up with some more shows on immigration have near back on answer some more
00:58:01.360 questions so send your questions if you have along to us on our website we'll we'll use it for our next
00:58:07.360 shows and please subscribe and follow so thank you again thank you so much appreciate it