True Patriot Love - Canada’s PR System Is Breaking Down ft. Ravi Jain

00:00:00.000 There's a lot of people who organize their lives according to the programs that are available now, right?

00:00:08.520 People will spend a lot of money. 1.00

00:00:11.240 Sometimes they'll spend their parents' life savings, especially if we hear a lot of people from India, 1.00

00:00:17.400 the parents have really mortgaged themselves with a hilt to pay for the kids' education.

00:00:24.080 And they come here in good faith.

00:00:26.140 and then they're lied to by many immigration consultants.

00:00:35.220 Today on True Patriot Love, I'm lucky enough to have Ravi Jain from Jain Immigration Law.

00:00:42.040 Welcome, Ravi.

00:00:43.420 Thanks for having me again.

00:00:45.500 Yeah, thanks for coming aboard.

00:00:47.000 So, I wanted to kick off because a new announcement just came out, and it talks about the issuance of 33,000 permanent resident status designations happening.

00:01:02.640 And, you know, when I heard about it, I got excited.

00:01:04.880 I thought to myself, well, this is good news, right?

00:01:07.240 Because, Ravi, we'll jump into it, and you'll take us through it all.

00:01:10.840 But I'm used to the old P&P, you know, being from Ontario.

00:01:15.560 I've heard this for quite some time now about the old PMP process where basically I call it

00:01:23.080 Canadian immigration gambling, where a bunch of people actually sit around, they look for a score,

00:01:30.860 they go into a lottery, and then one day, voila, right? You find out if you're a PR or not.

00:01:36.600 So it's kind of Canada's form of immigration gambling. But now we've come up with a new

00:01:42.800 program we've added on to the layer of programs and we've now call it uh i don't even know what

00:01:48.160 do they call this rabbi what is the program called anything or did we just announce that it was an

00:01:52.720 additional 33 000 people well the whole thing as i wrote in the globulin clause i was quoted

00:01:59.520 in the globe mail as saying it was a nothing burger you know uh i think the reporter liked that

00:02:05.440 that phrase, or that word, because essentially it encapsulates what we were, you know, feeling

00:02:16.700 as immigration lawyers, hearing from the public, who were quite excited about this TR to PR

00:02:24.600 version too, because they had a TR to PR, Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Program,

00:02:30.280 And it did capture a lot of people, you know, a lot of them who were, frankly, the minister was saying, you know, lower skill folks that, you know, we never really appreciated in COVID, right?

00:02:47.080 So, and that minister at the time, Marco Mendocino, he didn't like the whole high skill, low skill stuff.

00:02:52.940 I mean, it was the feeling he was trying to convey was that now we see who's critical, right?

00:02:57.760 In COVID, we see the grocery clerks and the others, you know, who are providing essential services to Canadians.

00:03:03.920 So, so he actually dropped the points really low and allowed many people to transition to permanent residents outside of the traditional point system,

00:03:15.480 where we look at age, education, work experience, et cetera.

00:03:18.840 So these are just folks that were here.

00:03:21.300 And in some cases, it felt like you're here, you have a policy,

00:03:24.740 we're going to make you a permanent resident.

00:03:26.700 And that's, I think, in response to the fact that the liberals campaigned on a set number,

00:03:33.380 whereas the conservatives were saying, let's just set immigration to economic need.

00:03:37.380 And so when the liberals said that in their campaigning,

00:03:39.780 it really bound the minister at the time to get people, right? And COVID prevented people

00:03:47.280 from coming. So what did we do? There weren't people flying into Canada. So we just looked

00:03:52.280 around and those who were here, he wanted to transition to permanent residents, I think,

00:03:58.280 to meet some numbers target. So now we have an announcement by the new minister. And the

00:04:06.040 minister says, you know, and it's right out, sets out in her levels plan that, you know, we're going

00:04:12.100 to have 33,000 spots for a new TR to PR program. So of course, you know, people got excited about

00:04:21.260 that. And then she said, surprisingly, that the program had already started. And then like, I'd

00:04:29.960 never seen this before. So again, I did a, I did an interview with the Globe Mail and I said, you

00:04:35.100 know, normally you announce a program, then you announce the criteria, and then you open the

00:04:42.920 program, and then, you know, we as counsel assess whether people are qualified, and we take clients

00:04:48.320 or we don't. But what happened is with the announcement, the way it was announced,

00:04:53.000 that the program had already started, that, or that it was coming, and that, you know,

00:04:57.140 all this stuff, it led to a lot of inscrupulous folks, a lot of non-lawyers, frankly, because I

00:05:04.860 see a lot of lawyers taking on a lot of cases i saw a lot of stuff and um out there where people

00:05:11.980 were saying you know we'll take you on you know do your english testing education testing and

00:05:18.140 take some fees and that's really irresponsible and i think that the criticism of the bar

00:05:24.460 was that the minister should never have really announced it the way she did

00:05:28.380 she shouldn't have sort of said it's coming and and then she said okay it's open and then

00:05:33.420 you know not knowing the criteria and then the whole thing's a nothing burger because

00:05:37.740 there is no new program all it was was that the minister was saying look for those already

00:05:45.180 in the atlantic immigration program or the rural program these programs that already exist

00:05:50.780 if you've been in this sort of you know smaller community for two years

00:05:55.980 you're going to get expedited well i mean the ndp wrote a letter saying what do you mean like

00:06:02.700 you're just going to do your job then like you're just gonna you're just going to process people

00:06:06.220 like you're supposed to so that was kind of a biting letter and then the bar association of

00:06:10.380 course you know we were pretty critical uh in terms of the canadian immigration lawyers association

00:06:15.740 the group that i co-founded and initiated uh wrote a letter and then many of us were interviewed in

00:06:20.780 the press and we sort of you know said the same thing so you know that's the tr to pr in a nutshell

00:06:26.940 okay yeah you know and i i was reading up on it over the weekend to get ready for the show

00:06:32.140 and you know bang on roughly when before it was even announced and when it was announced they

00:06:38.620 basically said you know 3 600 people had already been processed through it so it already started

00:06:43.260 to move before the 33 000 then it gets off and rolling and then it was interesting because i was

00:06:49.260 uh i was down east on last week and in in st john's and i was talking to someone in the airport

00:06:56.700 coming back and they started telling me about this program so i'm having this conversation

00:07:00.700 and this young man's telling me that he's thinking about moving to a small town because if you live

00:07:07.600 in a small town for two years and you have a job and you're part of the community you can get PR

00:07:14.260 and I said to him I said are you sure like yeah I would actually ask someone about this because

00:07:18.900 it seems weird so anyways I got back and I took a look and and apparently you know I wish I would

00:07:23.920 have got his number because quite frankly you already had to live in a small town it it was

00:07:29.740 something you would have already had to do. It's not something that starts today. So just for our

00:07:34.740 listeners that are listening, please do not go rushing to live in a small town to get a job,

00:07:39.960 hoping that it'll get your PR. And Ravi, there's other programs, and a lot of people don't realize

00:07:48.080 there's a bunch of programs you can still get a PR from, whether it's the PNP program or the

00:07:55.300 atlantic program or the uh caregiver pilots and there's a number of programs yeah that one's

00:08:03.380 close i mean i did want to pick up on something you said because i find it very interesting

00:08:07.360 there's a lot of people who organize their lives according to the programs that are available now

00:08:14.840 right and people will spend a lot of money sometimes they'll spend their parents life

00:08:21.620 savings especially if you know we hear a lot of people from india you know the parents have really

00:08:27.620 mortgaged themselves with a hilt to pay for the kids education and they come here in good faith

00:08:35.140 and then they're lied to by many immigration consultants who are not lawyers in india who

00:08:41.460 basically say there's a guaranteed pathway to permanent residence or they were joining these

00:08:46.500 private public colleges which are now defunct because the federal government put a cap on the

00:08:52.660 number of study permits that can be issued and so the provinces of course control education

00:08:57.460 by constitutional right uh and so they were forced to choose between universities

00:09:04.500 pure community colleges or community colleges with private partnerships and they got rid of

00:09:08.020 all the private partnerships that's all the studying in strip malls and movie theaters and

00:09:11.540 stuff so all that's pretty much gone um but those students were misled saying that they could study

00:09:17.700 in some of those purely private ones and then or with a partnership and then they'd get a work

00:09:22.420 permit afterwards and then they wouldn't right so people organize their lives they um many people

00:09:29.460 are learning french many people will go to a small community now because they think that this program

00:09:35.140 will surface again in the future and you know there's good and bad with our immigration system

00:09:41.620 relative to say the american system the american system is arguably more democratic because it's 0.98

00:09:48.180 got to go through congress etc changes but we still have the same alphabet soup of h1s and l1s

00:09:54.660 and all the all the different you know uh immigration categories really hasn't changed

00:09:59.380 and you know even don trump was saying look i want i want our immigration system to be more like

00:10:04.500 canada's which is ironic because he doesn't like canada you know pretty much in any way in terms

00:10:10.500 of the way you know canada runs you know we run the country uh but ironically saying i want canadians

00:10:17.860 you know the canadian immigration system because we have a point system where most of the people

00:10:21.860 coming in are in the economic you know we're choosing economic immigrants maybe two-thirds

00:10:28.420 roughly a third family class whereas in united states it's like two-thirds family class and

00:10:33.380 one-third economics he said i want to be like can we uh but he can't because there's so much

00:10:38.180 there's so much gridlock in congress whereas in canada we have immigration changes shoved through

00:10:47.300 budget implementation bills that have nothing to do with immigration uh we have ministerial

00:10:54.020 instructions where the minister can just ram through all kinds of changes we have the act

00:10:59.220 which empowers the regulations which empowers a lot of rules which just live on the website that

00:11:03.860 can be changed on a dime and it's the same thing with our immigration programs like the

00:11:08.020 ministerial instructions right it doesn't go through standing committees parliamentary standing

00:11:13.060 committees just the minister just changes the rules right and they and that that's what we're

00:11:17.620 going to see how that's what we saw happening with the 32 000 uh we're going to start to see

00:11:23.140 in terms of implementation like if it's going through anything going through express entry

00:11:27.220 For instance, those changes can happen relatively quickly, and I would argue that they're not so

00:11:33.220 democratic in terms of change. Now, the Liberals have a majority now anyway, but the point is

00:11:37.540 just the way we do things, it's good in a way because we can respond to stuff. We can pivot

00:11:44.020 on a dime. It's bad in the sense that if we use that power too frequently, then people aren't

00:11:53.940 able to reliably plan their lives and they spent a lot of money they spent a lot of years of their

00:11:58.900 lives working towards a goal that can change and i'll give you another example express entry

00:12:04.500 economists say you know express entry should be like it used to be three years ago before

00:12:10.500 three years ago uh it was just based on the number of points you had and then the government started

00:12:16.340 doing targeted draws so they said if you speak french if you are an education or if you're a

00:12:22.180 position or you know construction like certain there's winners and losers now and and they can

00:12:27.300 do stem and they can change that they can say oh you know uh we have enough it workers we're 0.84

00:12:32.580 dropping now right uh we're gonna get rid of french now we're gonna do this so it's very 1.00

00:12:37.940 frustrating for people who are trying to you know um to plan their lives and and it's not about

00:12:44.980 who's got the highest points and that's also problematic for an express entry program where

00:12:50.820 the whole reason for the program is to select people and their ability to successfully

00:12:55.860 economically establish in Canada but right now we're letting in a lot of people maybe they speak

00:13:00.180 French and that's wonderful but it's really a political goal to increase the French language

00:13:04.580 outside of Quebec to counter a separatist argument that the French is eroding all around them

00:13:09.620 it shouldn't live inside express entry which is really about the ability to you know establish

00:13:14.820 yourself and and make money and pay taxes etc so so the system's a little you know i have some

00:13:21.540 criticism of it but yeah i'll let you jump in yeah no no i'm with you you know and if you look at it

00:13:29.300 quite frankly you know it's it's very interesting because their goal is to get the um temporary

00:13:37.700 residents down to about five percent yeah i guess so they've said you know let's get that number

00:13:43.700 down it's currently at about 6.45 so they're trying to get it down so the interesting part

00:13:50.180 of this is that would mean roughly 600 000 people so 600 000 people would have to be exiting if you

00:13:58.900 look at the number of people entering between 26 and 28 we we project about 755 000 so on the low

00:14:08.260 end we'd have to be exiting 1.3 million people on the high end we'd have to be exiting in my

00:14:16.020 estimation about 2.3 million people so we're somewhere around that you know based on the

00:14:22.340 people that are in the country today we have to be and i think the government if i if i'm correct

00:14:27.620 you know you can uh tell me if i'm not the if i'm correct part of this all this uh rigmarole that

00:14:36.740 we're doing currently is to slowly kind of get people you know some cash flow to get them in a

00:14:44.260 position where they can pay off some school loans and get them moving back home right now it really

00:14:49.360 is because if you look at this i started off the show with it's a gamble it really is kind of a

00:14:54.520 system where people get enough points to your point they go and they get french and they get

00:14:58.980 50 points because they got uh you know uh they passed their bilingualism test um and then they

00:15:06.260 get an additional 50 points they get into a category that gets them above a score of 500

00:15:11.380 and whatever and then they go into a lottery well they don't even know when the draws are going to

00:15:16.420 be picked the draws are how how much notice do you get on a few weeks but you don't know like

00:15:22.020 which category right so now that they have category here selection it can you know it can take a while

00:15:27.700 yeah so then you know they go into these categories they don't know when they're coming

00:15:31.460 so you're right they're they're moving all around they're they're trying to figure it out

00:15:35.620 and then the surprise pr programs come out you know with an additional 33 000. so

00:15:41.700 i think you know it's kind of and we've alluded to it before we're kind of putting a band-aid on a

00:15:47.860 on a you know a major cut and we're trying to figure out ways to kind of hodgepodge systems

00:15:52.980 in to deal with an issue we created after covid and here we are sort of not sitting down and

00:16:00.260 figuring out a fulsome solution now it's interesting because we did a we did a show uh the other day

00:16:06.820 on crime and one of the topics that came up was conestoga college and this issue you know we had

00:16:14.100 the discussion about you know uh doug doug ford and the the conservative government stepping in

00:16:21.540 and taking over the board of the college and taking a look at some of the financial challenges

00:16:27.940 that were happening and we did we were talking about how that translated to immigration and

00:16:34.020 you know then we get the announcement that the government is now going to start tracking the

00:16:40.820 number of people in the country through these colleges through the designated learning centers

00:16:47.940 and i'm like oh my goodness these are the designated learning centers that basically

00:16:53.460 you know we all of a sudden you know during and after covet we saw you know programs we'd never

00:17:00.340 seen before pop up all over canada people's uh going to these colleges to get degrees we never

00:17:06.740 heard of uh very odd um you know is it you know is this a i guess in your mind is this something

00:17:16.740 because to me i i just don't know how this is a uh reasonable way to drag uh people that are

00:17:25.860 in the country and to figure out who's here who's not here uh when their permits are up

00:17:34.260 is there is there anything you're seeing from your side well they were slow to do it i mean

00:17:40.340 the americans had a system called service and you know there was a real linking you know when

00:17:45.700 you applied for a student visa that you know the school would confirm that there was admission

00:17:50.420 uh there was follow-up you know canada was a bit late to implement it and it wasn't a perfect system

00:17:56.980 uh by any stretch now you have these reports the auditor general reporting um i think it's

00:18:05.620 pretty significant right i think they said that uh only 2.6 percent um of flag international

00:18:12.900 students were investigated just 150 153 000 students non-compliant potentially so they

00:18:22.820 had the resources apparently to only investigate four thousand minas was ridiculous between 2023

00:18:28.420 and 2024. so the auditor general you know has said that and um and that you know the public

00:18:35.220 i'm sure and you know raised some eyebrows uh so i think i think that there needs to be that

00:18:41.380 investigation uh there is now i was just looking before our talk today of the immigration of the

00:18:48.100 immigration refugee protection uh acts the regulations uh to the act and there's section

00:18:55.060 222.1 it talks about some power so essentially you know within 10 days of the minister inquiring

00:19:04.340 uh at a designated learning institution so that's all the universities and community colleges

00:19:09.940 Within 10 days, the college has to confirm whether the student has actually been accepted.

00:19:18.560 And then within 60 days of the minister inquiring, the college or university has to explain the

00:19:26.980 enrollment status of each of the foreign nationals that have been accepted.

00:19:31.620 And then there's sort of a back and forth.

00:19:33.520 And then the end result is that they can suspend the designated learning institution for up

00:19:38.480 12 months if they fail fail fail so this is a real like warning to the schools like you better be

00:19:45.440 tracking and you better be reporting when when the government asks which hopefully the government's

00:19:50.080 going to now ask regularly they have to disclose and the act says that if you are well the

00:19:57.040 regulations actually say that if you're not studying and 90 days goes by your study permit

00:20:04.720 is now invalid which is interesting because study permits can be valid for many years

00:20:09.760 and when a work permit's issued it could be valid for many years as well but if you get fired or you

00:20:15.120 quit that work permit allows you to continue to stay in canada i think the idea is you may be

00:20:21.200 supporting a family you may have kids in school maybe you can get a new job so and it happens

00:20:26.240 people get laid off etc or it's an intolerable work environment they quit you know and then they

00:20:32.880 go look for it so there's a there's a leeway there but study permits are treated very differently

00:20:39.120 if you say you're going to go to school and you pay some tuition and then you just don't go to

00:20:43.520 school even though the study permit on its face is still valid 90 days after you stop attending

00:20:51.760 classes you're out of status period so that has a lot of implications because some people they

00:20:58.480 come to me and they say i've been out of status because my permits expired maybe they you know

00:21:02.560 know studied or maybe they worked or whatever uh and then i have 90 days to restore their status

00:21:07.600 right i i go by the end of the the permit but if someone comes to me and they say well i studied

00:21:14.660 for three months you know two years ago and i haven't done anything after that then i i don't

00:21:19.280 i can't restore their status it's not it's not possible to restore their status for the 90 days

00:21:23.660 they pretty much have to go so and that's because i don't do like there are some again i've seen a

00:21:28.960 of immigration consultants who aren't lawyers sort of offer what's called a temporary resident

00:21:32.960 permit when someone's inadmissible for criminality or medical inadmissibility they throw that at them

00:21:38.080 and get some money and then it gets refused and then they finally go so we don't play those games

00:21:42.480 i mean we just tell them straight up i mean you know you're without you're beyond the restoration

00:21:46.960 period nothing i can do for you um and that's that so so yeah there are these new relatively new

00:21:54.240 tools uh that the the government has and let's just hope that they actually use them and that

00:22:00.720 they fund themselves properly to investigate because there has to be integrity in our system

00:22:05.040 right yeah no there is you know it's interesting and i i'll just tell a brief story but

00:22:10.560 i i'm i'm a young man i'm going to university and my cousin calls me and he says you know i'm

00:22:16.080 i'm going up to western and i said oh that's great and he says you know i'm i said i'm playing some

00:22:20.800 football so i'm trying to get a bursary and he says come with me and i said no i'm not interested

00:22:26.000 in going to london and he says well he says you should come because i'm i'm really not going and

00:22:31.600 i said what do you mean you're not going he says he says my dad's going to give me the money i have

00:22:35.280 to go sign up and he says i've already i've already got a line on a ticket to australia i'm going to

00:22:40.080 go to australia i'm going to take the money i'm going to head off to australia i'll call my dad

00:22:43.600 later and i said i don't my i said my father would kill me number one and i said number two i said 0.56

00:22:49.440 my uncle would kill me next because he they would think that i put you up to this so i'm not doing

00:22:53.600 it so he says no i'm going so he went and he actually got a job uh waiting tables then become

00:23:00.080 a bartender in australia and he got a working permit and it lasted for i think two years and

00:23:05.120 he lasted two years on the the last day of the two years of the permanent the immigration showed up

00:23:12.560 and they dropped him in fiji wow yeah and he he tells the story he's my age now he's not a young

00:23:20.960 guy but he tells the story how quick they were on him yeah like they knew they knew where he was

00:23:26.960 working they knew a job he had and as soon as his immigration was up he was out you know and and

00:23:33.440 we've just honestly we've kind of created this scenario where we don't seem to know where anyone

00:23:39.360 is we're depending on schools that were for the most part highly unstable you know these programs

00:23:45.040 that were popping up and giving these kids um you know it's a travesty that we let that happen

00:23:51.280 but we did let it happen and now we're kind of stuck with all these people mulling around

00:23:55.760 and if we think they're gonna exit so if it comes to the end they don't exit ravi what do we do

00:24:04.400 like where do they go at that point a couple of comments i mean you know it's i think what they're

00:24:14.080 the announcement has made been made that we're going to start tracking as a pilot project we're

00:24:17.920 going to start tracking people's exits i find that to be ridiculous right why would we want

00:24:23.040 a pilot project on it and why haven't we been doing so we've got to track people's outs right

00:24:28.160 we actually do have to track because no one really knows how many people are out of status in this

00:24:32.800 country that's also ridiculous so i think you know these things are coming to light there's been a

00:24:37.520 real shift in how people perceive immigration and temporary residence because we went from 300 000

00:24:42.400 people 10 years ago to 3 million you know in a 10-year period i mean that's it that's a huge

00:24:48.240 increase right so so what did you expect right and and so in terms of what's going to happen to

00:24:53.360 people here i mean you know now what they've done is again you know i try to be balanced and when i

00:25:01.600 talk about you know the different sort of people assisting people with immigration but

00:25:06.880 i mean the minister mark miller at the time called out the immigration consultants wrote

00:25:11.920 a letter to their regulator and said you know obviously he knows who's filing the refugee

00:25:18.640 claims he knows who the representatives are he didn't write to the law societies who regulate

00:25:23.680 lawyers he wrote to the regulator for consultants immigration consultants and he said what's going

00:25:28.880 on here you guys these are you know these these kids are coming from countries that traditionally

00:25:35.040 don't produce a heck of a lot of refugees right maybe in narrow circumstances and we're getting

00:25:39.440 flooded and you know so now what's happened is the the liberal government has passed something

00:25:47.200 that you wouldn't expect a liberal government to pass but they basically said if you're here

00:25:52.880 and you've been here for a year i don't care if you came when you're five years old the clock

00:25:56.800 starts ticking the moment you set foot in this country and if a year has gone by even if you

00:26:02.960 came as a five-year-old and left then you come back as a student later or whatever so if if

00:26:08.800 if you've been there's been over a year you're barred from making a refugee point which is

00:26:15.760 you know very problematic if you are an atheist blogger and you just you know you decide that

00:26:24.000 you're not you're not uh you know you don't feel comfortable with the religion of your country and

00:26:30.240 it's a theocracy there and you come and you say i'm an atheist new blog and then you know you

00:26:35.360 want to make a refugee claim uh maybe you're in second or third year university uh you know you

00:26:40.720 can't even if it's well established that you know you're something bad's going to happen to you uh

00:26:47.200 if you are a young woman who maybe is going to be a saudi client young woman who's going to be

00:26:52.160 married off to an older older man you know her uncle came here and tried to drag her away she's

00:26:57.520 fled and she'd been sitting here and i was able to successfully um protect her right so for the

00:27:04.160 liberal government to say that's it we don't care we don't want to hear anything from you i don't

00:27:07.760 care what your individual circumstances are you're banned you can't make a refugee that's really

00:27:14.560 problematic for me and i think they know that it's unconstitutional i think they know it goes against

00:27:19.200 Supreme Court jurisprudence. But I think that there's such a mess with respect to how mismanaged

00:27:26.400 the program was and the number of shared volume of the students. And I blame the liberals in part

00:27:31.600 for federally because they finally put a cap, right, which is fine. But I was sounding the

00:27:38.400 alarm bells well before anyone else, frankly. I mean, I was saying, look, I've seen a lot of kids

00:27:45.760 killing themselves right the funeral homes in brampton are full uh these kids have come here

00:27:51.280 they've been lied to by these consultants which i'm not a fan of right because i've seen i've

00:27:57.280 seen the carnage of my practice not to say that there aren't some who try to be diligent i always

00:28:00.800 say that there are some that are striving to do you know to be diligent and learn etc but i mean

00:28:06.400 they're practicing law and they haven't run a law school right and so and you see some who are

00:28:11.280 operating a business as opposed to practicing a profession, right? And trying to be professional.

00:28:18.860 And as sworn an oath, like lawyers have to protect the public and, you know, dissuade people from

00:28:23.880 things that are not good to do. Anyway, so it's just, it's terrible. These kids were

00:28:29.900 killing themselves because they'd been misled, right? And had no hope and felt no hope.

00:28:36.300 So, yeah, I mean, I have I have a lot of I have a lot of issue with with the way what was what happened and then the remedies, because some of them are not are not sustainable from a legal perspective.

00:28:52.180 Right. Right. No, no, I'm with you. I'm with me, too.

00:28:56.520 You know, I find I find it a total travesty of what's happened, you know, solution building for me, because I know, you know, there's a lot we can, you know, go on and on about.

00:29:05.260 but i've been trying to figure out some solution so you know today before the show we were sitting

00:29:10.940 in the studio and i said okay you know uh we have all these major projects in canada they're in the

00:29:17.580 budget we talk about it all the time we're trying to get mining kick-started where you know whatever

00:29:24.140 happens with the war in the middle east right now we need a we definitely need to find oil strategy

00:29:29.820 um because that looks like something that's going to go on and on and that doesn't look like a short

00:29:34.060 term uh you know war for sure so we have a lot of challenges and opportunities also in canada right

00:29:41.740 now the challenge we have and this is someone brought it up as i started saying i said let's

00:29:47.340 designate people who have come here gone to school paid tuitions paid taxes through working filed

00:29:53.340 income tax let's try to find a spot for them in different parts of canada and different industries

00:29:58.620 that they match up uh best with so i you know my my strategic uh project managing management brain

00:30:06.700 started to go there then the other person said well unemployment is fairly high right now i said

00:30:11.660 okay unemployment's high um you know so you got a lot of people or you got many people in canada

00:30:17.420 right now are uh on the ei role as we see that go up and the government had budgeted i think in their

00:30:23.420 fall budget that EI would go as high as 10%. It's hovering at the 7% right now, higher in places

00:30:31.440 like Ontario and BC. But I look at it right now and I think, okay, are we offering the opportunities

00:30:41.440 to people that are on EI right now? And are we saying to them, listen, we have this many people

00:30:49.620 in the country that are basically exiting if we don't do anything with them soon. If

00:30:55.760 you want to work now, you have to find work. Your work opportunities have to be. So to

00:31:00.820 me, it's kind of an implementation of a restructuring of the EI system to force people who are on

00:31:06.840 EI to move to markets to work that are currently here first. And then secondly, if we find

00:31:12.800 that doesn't impact it, then we have to move towards trying to work with the people that

00:31:17.460 are here to match them up with employment opportunities and the shame of it is we're

00:31:22.020 not talking about that right we're talking about you know we focus on we're sole focused on prs

00:31:28.900 all the time and we're not talking about what to do with the employment structures of canada

00:31:34.580 you know any any thoughts on that and things you see from your clientele well the other piece of

00:31:38.900 it right is his education right and so i think uh mark carney uh announced a few billion dollars

00:31:46.100 right of funds to to for people as young as 15 uh and onwards to learn a trade right uh and so

00:31:55.620 i think that that's that's a good move right because it's you know i'm an immigration lawyer

00:32:00.580 but obviously i want canadians to you know to be trained and to do the work i mean we only really

00:32:07.220 want to bring people in if canadians are not available right so if we can retrain canadians

00:32:12.580 if we can get young people graduating from colleges and universities uh i think that's

00:32:18.180 great and i think you know there are some other challenges right i mean i've said i was blaming

00:32:23.700 the liberals in part you know federally uh but i also wanted to to share some blame for the

00:32:29.700 conservatives provincial because the conservatives provincially control education right and if they

00:32:37.300 wanted to stop the public private partnerships uh community colleges with the private colleges and

00:32:44.100 you know they could have right and these these colleges you met like there's so many of them

00:32:49.380 that have become so huge right and and again the talking points were uh you know we're competing

00:32:56.820 against uh australia the us the uk and you know we're bringing in these international students

00:33:02.340 it's billions of dollars coming into canada look at the shiny new buildings all across the country

00:33:07.300 from the east coast all the way through and i was saying yeah but people are killing themselves and

00:33:11.700 you know there's no other side of the story and you know and and you know they're getting really

00:33:15.860 substandard education so at least when you know at least now there's now there's change right we have

00:33:22.900 the feds put the cap on it forced the provinces to choose which they should have done before the feds

00:33:29.220 forced them to the provinces should have better managed you know the colleges uh and they didn't

00:33:35.780 they let them run wild and that's the fault of the conservatives uh particularly in ontario so both

00:33:42.340 parties are to blame for this and i don't want to i don't want to single out any one of them

00:33:46.660 and i'm non-partisan i'm professional i'm just saying both parties are to blame and if you look

00:33:51.860 at the enrollment now the the college enrollment is down 75 university enrollment is down 46

00:33:59.620 percent when if you look at 2023 24 24 to today um so yeah i mean it's just it's fascinating to me

00:34:08.580 that you know we have we're seeing a major change we're going to see lots of people leaving like you 0.61

00:34:13.540 said uh they can't once they send the signal that you can't make a refugee claim and they start to

00:34:18.340 say well you're not eligible many people will get those letters and they won't challenge them

00:34:23.060 and they'll just leave so you're going to have even though the government i think is doing something

00:34:27.060 that's morally incorrect because you know there's there are some some people who are vulnerable and

00:34:33.620 you don't want to take a hammer approach you want to take a scalpel approach or you want to sort of

00:34:37.620 figure out you know how to encourage people to go back um but yeah i mean there's you know there's

00:34:43.940 going to be i think opportunities to retrain canadians i think you could look at ei uh i i'm

00:34:50.580 also thinking that you know we're we're on the cusp of like a revolution right i mean this is

00:34:58.980 ai is going to change everyone's jobs right and it's going to change the number of jobs

00:35:04.260 out there and if you talk to economists i mean if if if the guy who's um you know claude uh you

00:35:13.380 know that the the ai company that produced plod and and um mythos is the new product that uh you

00:35:22.180 know is out there that essentially is so dangerous that the governments of the united states canada

00:35:28.820 and the uk met within days of this announcement of it being released because it can identify

00:35:36.180 um you know problems with banking uh security and major companies and so they've been trying

00:35:42.740 to plug and they released it to the big banks and they released it to major fortune 500 companies

00:35:48.900 to fix those things but now they're going to release it to the world and then there's going

00:35:53.060 to be all this fraud and everything else but but it's really i mean that the ceo was talking about

00:35:59.060 you know how many jobs are going to be um are going to go away and uh yeah some people say

00:36:05.380 yeah don't worry they're going to be blue-collar jobs producing data centers and there's gonna be

00:36:10.180 this and that but but i just think that you know if unemployment goes up five percent it's it's a

00:36:17.380 big deal right it could be social mayhem right and if it goes up the numbers this guy's talking about

00:36:23.780 it could be quite problematic so i think um i think that's part of a broader conversation but

00:36:29.380 i think uh we've got to we've got to start thinking about things more broadly yeah well

00:36:36.180 and i think ravi you make a great point and i think that's why we have to expedite that solution

00:36:41.620 building mechanism so now's the time we got to jump in this is also what worries me and you know

00:36:47.220 the ai component layering it on top i don't think we have a lot of time to kind of futz around with

00:36:54.260 this waiting for two years to uh slowly kind of move people in and out of the system have that

00:37:00.740 exit i think we have to quickly figure out what we're doing right now with with people who are

00:37:08.260 not going to get their pr not going to be able to stay long term start to work solution build them

00:37:14.340 at the same time with the implementation of all these technologies and ai we have to figure what

00:37:20.660 we're doing with ei and all the things we have in our country and i think they're all culminating

00:37:25.380 together with unfortunately in canada quite a mess right we've kind of created our own mess

00:37:30.740 through our you know we lost control of our numbers as you alluded to earlier in the immigration

00:37:36.800 coming out of COVID it got it got off on us and quite frankly unfortunately we're now in a position

00:37:45.220 where we got to figure that out project you know as we build projects and this is the interesting

00:37:50.420 part that I've done on other shows right now we have all these major projects coming up we're

00:37:55.240 talking about them they're longer term projects i get it but you know we kind of have to figure out

00:38:02.520 i think right now we have to be asking our younger citizens and people who are um you know we have

00:38:10.840 an aging population so we have to figure out who in canada is willing to do those jobs who we need

00:38:17.560 to keep in canada to do those jobs so it really is a parsing exercise that we have to figure out 0.99

00:38:23.320 otherwise you know and this would be the worst case scenario we would slowly exit people over

00:38:29.160 a couple years we'd have ai eliminate a bunch of jobs and then at the end of it we'd find out that 0.52

00:38:34.760 no one wants to do the remaining jobs and quite frankly we'd have to go on an immigration push 0.97

00:38:40.280 again to bring all the people back into do like that's disheartening isn't it at this point it's 1.00

00:38:46.680 disheartening that we brought a bunch of people from other countries that came in and paid tuitions

00:38:52.440 probably not to the best sources all the time that enriched a bunch of canadians probably not

00:38:57.480 the best canadians and quite frankly now we're going to exit those canadians to bring in only

00:39:03.320 another group of canadians when we find out where we weren't able to manage you say canadians but 1.00

00:39:08.200 exit the immigrants yeah i know what you mean yeah yeah it's a it's it's just i mean it's cyclical 1.00

00:39:12.920 right i mean we see um things drying up and then like you know getting busier again and you know

00:39:19.800 out is frustrating and there are those who think that if you're good enough to to work here then

00:39:26.760 you're good enough to stay right that's a slogan uh for people who don't believe in any deportations

00:39:32.120 right um so there's there's people on the the far left who believe that uh and then there's people

00:39:38.840 who want a much more orderly immigration system uh on the right but i mean at the end of the day

00:39:44.360 or maybe that's not even such a right-wing you know view right i mean maybe it's just about having

00:39:49.320 um you know being fair to people i think is a canadian instinct right i mean you want to

00:39:54.600 people have paid a lot of money they they had the rules you know have changed you know on them and

00:40:00.840 in some ways and so you know that seems that doesn't seem right and and if there is a need

00:40:06.520 so what i mean a lot of people rail against immigration are the same sort of people who

00:40:10.920 you know who then call me and say you know there's this great person working for me and he's

00:40:16.040 amazing and i really need him to stay and all these other people can stay and why can't he stay

00:40:20.680 you know and or that you know they need a caregiver is caring for their parents or something

00:40:25.160 so there are there are there is a real need right i mean it's i would say it's not even an aging

00:40:30.600 population it's an aged population at this point right we're already an aged population and so

00:40:35.880 you need to have people who are going to pay taxes so they are revamping the system um i was just

00:40:41.720 invited to some stakeholder meetings uh with some senior people in the department uh and uh

00:40:48.760 i get my feedback uh what they're going to do is they're looking at economists are saying why can't

00:40:55.480 we select people based on their notice of assessments right like why can't we say these

00:40:58.840 people pay a lot of tax let's invite them because what happened is again because of massive fraud

00:41:04.680 by immigration consultants who are selling you know job offers sixty thousand dollars you know

00:41:09.960 a hundred thousand dollars uh if you could get a labor market impact assessment they coveted lmia

00:41:16.440 because people were graduating and they had nowhere to stay and they couldn't transition

00:41:20.200 from resident so they wanted to get some extra points that they would get for their the point

00:41:25.240 system immigration application if they had a job so they really wanted to get um you know a job and

00:41:31.320 to do that they had to go to the department of labor and get approval and to do that they needed

00:41:35.080 a company sponsoring them and to have that they were willing to pay and so there's a lot of

00:41:40.680 facilitating of fraud and a lot of people were you know scamming the system and and it was reported 0.91

00:41:47.560 and then you had people like calling them scumbag consultants like the premier of ontario 0.93

00:41:52.440 doug ford did and then you had the minister federally calling them out and the prime minister 0.92

00:41:57.480 uh you know there's so many people that were i thought there's finally going to be some change

00:42:02.040 here but there's not i mean they're on the third iteration of the college regulating these

00:42:06.600 consultants and it's just it's um it's not a great situation uh but yeah there's so what happened is

00:42:13.800 they took away they took away the points that people get for having a job offer in canada

00:42:20.680 which is one of the indicators of success long-term success but because of all the fraud

00:42:24.840 they took away the 50 points and they took away the 200 points that executives would get and so

00:42:29.800 then i have all these executives saying look i'm paying a lot of money like i really want to get

00:42:34.120 permanent residents i've got my kids in school here i've you know i'm paying so much tax and 0.54

00:42:38.760 i can't buy a house there's all these you know because we banned foreigners from buying home 1.00

00:42:42.680 so there's all this all these problems and all these ideal immigrants that i wasn't able to do 1.00

00:42:46.520 anything for and so the government then came up with the solution to say okay we're gonna we're

00:42:50.440 gonna have a targeted draw for senior managers and so now i think what they're looking at is

00:42:56.920 they're going to revamp the whole express entry point system and instead of looking at the actual

00:43:02.440 notice of assessment they're just going to pick the types of jobs for which normally people get

00:43:07.240 paid a lot now my problem with that is it could again lead to more fraud right you could just have

00:43:13.480 people selling jobs in those in those um you know in that at that level uh and you know i said to

00:43:22.360 them i think it's just you know so like you said things are cyclical like we close it we tell people

00:43:28.760 to leave they go then you know we have a labor shortage we bring them back same sort of thing

00:43:33.000 like they never seem to want to deal with the actual problem which is the representatives who

00:43:38.520 are committing all the fraud if they know just enough to game the system they will and there's

00:43:43.480 there's like 13 000 immigration consultants running around right now uh only a couple thousand lawyers

00:43:49.480 so it's really it used to be when i started practicing there were under under 2000 immigration

00:43:54.680 consultants so they've really gone from just under 2000 to now like you know 13 000. so they they had

00:44:00.600 a huge rise along with the international students because there was a thought that oh we need them

00:44:06.840 to bring in the international students but now you know they're we're graduating a class every

00:44:11.880 year and they're just we're putting hundreds and hundreds of more consultants out there

00:44:15.480 uh you know every single year and the number of lawyers practicing is sort of steady ever since

00:44:21.640 i started practicing but the consultants are shooting up and so then you get all these fraud

00:44:26.360 awareness weeks and don't trust representatives and blah blah blah and lawyers are frankly quite

00:44:31.560 offended by it um but yeah so it's uh it's a problem and i think we're gonna you know we'll

00:44:37.480 see what what they come up with and if it works this time but i'm i don't have a lot of faith

00:44:42.360 frankly yeah yeah well i hope so you know i find that interesting and i um if i'm correct ravi and

00:44:49.880 you know correct me if i'm wrong you know when i was uh working in the states there were many

00:44:54.920 programs above capital investment so you if you invested so much in the country you're able to get

00:45:00.280 uh status and different statuses whether you know from a green car to working you know they've been

00:45:07.400 severely limited in canada right so this is something that we've kind of and again you know

00:45:13.240 i find it interesting we're in on this purge to go around the nation to go around the world

00:45:18.680 and find people to invest in canada but if someone comes here uh even if they're working

00:45:25.160 here and they invest in a home they invest in a small business they still struggle with getting

00:45:30.200 residency in canada and it's really it's very frustrating i mean i myself have gone on trips to

00:45:37.960 vietnam dubai you know india like i've gone all over and i've been essentially marketing the

00:45:44.520 programs for the province or for the nation saying these are the programs you know if you qualify and

00:45:49.800 i'm vetting them and i'm doing a very good job not taking bad cases and then all of a sudden

00:45:57.960 you know the ontario government just killed the entrepreneur program now they're coming up with

00:46:02.120 a new one i think may 30th uh but you know things are mismanaged again you have a lot of

00:46:09.000 unscrupulous representatives same issue right it just i can't i can't not talk about these

00:46:13.720 immigration consultants because it permeates every single area of the field right and it's

00:46:19.320 you know it's just it's just so problematic because they've killed the ontario entrepreneur

00:46:24.200 program when there were good good people that were coming in they they they were putting a lot

00:46:29.720 of money into the province they were hiring a lot of canadians then virtually without notice they

00:46:33.800 just axed the whole program because of all the fraud right and same thing with the um the startup

00:46:39.640 visa which is a federal program is a small numbers program but then you had these agents and

00:46:45.480 consultants selling it for like you know fifty thousand dollars you know you can come and and

00:46:51.400 we'll we'll create a a fake you know business plan for you and everything else and we'll get

00:46:57.160 a letter of support from a federally approved designated entity it was called designated

00:47:02.760 organization who is supposed to be vetting like who the who has a good business idea and a bad

00:47:08.040 business anyway all this fraud was was permeating that program and what do they do they killed it

00:47:13.800 so you know if i wanted to bring in someone famous one of my colleagues used the example

00:47:18.680 of taylor swift if i want to bring in taylor swift tomorrow i couldn't do it because we don't

00:47:22.360 have an outstanding ability class of permanent residence anymore if i wanted to bring in an

00:47:28.680 investor i couldn't do it if i wanted to bring an entrepreneur to ontario currently i couldn't do it

00:47:33.640 if i wanted to bring in someone who wanted to do a great star amazing startup i couldn't do it

00:47:39.000 so all these programs are dead and i think it's a deep suspicion particularly by the liberal party

00:47:44.120 that you know we don't want people buying their way into canada right that's a you know there's

00:47:49.080 there's some they'd rather have nobody than to have a couple well not a couple they'd rather

00:47:55.720 have nobody than someone who's just getting in because they're wealthy well guess what some of

00:48:00.280 those wealthy people do generally want to start their entrepreneurs are successful entrepreneurs

00:48:05.400 they generally want to start up another business in canada they generally will employ a lot of

00:48:10.040 canadians we generally need them right we need because you know i don't know who you talk to and

00:48:15.640 what your sentiment is but i i talk to a lot of people who are successful entrepreneurs in this

00:48:20.840 country they are leaving there are so many people and if you look at the stats it's not just me and

00:48:27.640 anecdotally i look at this the statistics of canadians who are leaving this country

00:48:32.920 and a lot of successful people are just saying i've had it this country doesn't respect me they

00:48:38.120 want to tax me to the nth degree i'm gone right and and that's the problem if we don't have other

00:48:43.960 people coming in if we don't reform our tax system okay but we don't have any immigration programs

00:48:49.640 that attract these wonderful people who are going to employ a lot of canadians a lot of immigrants

00:48:54.440 have an entrepreneurial instinct to them right and a lot of you know maybe maybe more so than

00:49:00.200 canadians i was born here and you know and you know i have a lot of respect for people who are

00:49:05.640 born here but i'm just saying that you know i've also noticed in my practice there's a lot of

00:49:10.280 people that they come to a new country and they just are able to figure things out and start a

00:49:15.400 business that blows my mind and why wouldn't we want those people well you know and and the

00:49:21.240 interesting thing you know and i mentioned it before we are spending a lot of time trying to

00:49:26.440 change our trade relationships around the world based on what's going on with the us so again it's

00:49:32.440 it's it's it isn't uh it doesn't line up ravi in my mind you know number one i want to go to other 0.92

00:49:38.520 nations and i want them to invest in canada number two i can't get those people to immigrate here

00:49:43.000 because i'm stuck on immigration and they can't get immigration because it doesn't matter how much

00:49:47.080 they invest in canada so okay then show me a path so you know because if you go and you're trying to

00:49:53.400 pitch that you should invest in the natural resources of canada great i'm all for it invest

00:49:59.160 your money come into the fund come into the you know canada wealth fund i'd love to have you aboard

00:50:04.680 so you come in but you can't come and live here or you can't come and send anyone of your

00:50:10.280 employees or team to come manage your funds when they're here who would do that who would no one

00:50:16.600 would do that that's just not reasonable so that's where that's where i struggle i do think there are

00:50:22.360 you know and before we finish i do think there are solutions here so i don't want to be totally

00:50:27.240 negative i just think we've kind of closed our mind and again we put that band-aid on a major

00:50:33.000 cut a major injury and we're trying to kind of hodgepodge this through i think and i'm glad

00:50:37.880 you're meeting with people in the immigration uh you know department i'm glad you're meeting with

00:50:44.760 people to talk about it there are some ways to do this to align better and that's the biggest

00:50:49.960 frustration i have as an as an older canadian i'm getting up there in age i look at it and i think

00:50:54.360 to myself there's got to be a way to align new canadians into roles in canada if they want to

00:51:00.120 invest money here if i'm here i have a job i'm working for a couple years i want to buy a house

00:51:05.320 i want to invest in a small business there has to be a pathway because i've dedicated myself to

00:51:10.360 become a canadian if i'm just here for a short period to make some money and go back home and

00:51:15.000 i'm not ready to commit to the country that's a whole other thing but you know i really do think

00:51:19.960 there is a way to do it yeah there is and it's like i say it's a pendulum swinging right i mean

00:51:25.480 you know unfortunately there are some programs right when they recognize i think that there's

00:51:32.760 there's been a backlash right going from 300 000 to 3 million temporary residents but then what

00:51:39.000 they did is instead of instead of focusing just on that they reduced the number of permanent residents

00:51:44.920 so it was a it was a temporary residence problem but their solution has been to also reduce the

00:51:51.480 number of immigrants generally and when you do that you cancel things like the caregiver program

00:51:57.800 like i can't there's no there's no program for caregivers so elderly canadians who need them

00:52:04.600 what can i do right so you know there's there's also people as we exit people are exiting etc so

00:52:11.320 it's just frustrating because there are real needs for labor in this country that we're recognizing

00:52:16.840 and we're about to kick a lot of labor out uh there's you know there's

00:52:23.960 you know it's just a disjunct right i mean you've got and there's real needs for entrepreneurs but

00:52:27.960 then we because of fraud you know we eliminate that right and then again for executives same

00:52:34.120 sort of thing like they have to get this targeted draw what if you're not a senior manager what if

00:52:37.720 you just you know what if you're someone else who's you know even self-employment it's always

00:52:42.680 bothered me if you're if you're here as a student and you started a company isn't that the kind of

00:52:48.520 person you'd want to to to be able to immigrate and transition to permanent residence but we say

00:52:53.560 no if you have anything that's any self-employment you do it doesn't count so anyway i think there's

00:53:00.520 a lot of things to improve and i think uh you know there could be some steps in the right direction

00:53:05.320 we'll see what happens in ontario uh on may 30th um i've given some feedback on that program as

00:53:10.200 well so so i'm hopeful but uh pendulums will swing one way and hopefully they'll swing the other

00:53:15.960 yeah thank you rabbi and you know i'd like to get you back if we can do another show after may 30th

00:53:21.720 because i really want to i really want to see what happens in all the new programs and i really

00:53:26.840 appreciate it i have you know and i'm gonna but the next time i see you we have uh with another

00:53:32.440 company um that i have we're going to another job fair and so i i'm astounded i told the story a

00:53:40.920 while ago about this job fair i attended and all these young new can uh new people to canada that

00:53:46.360 i met and how uh educated and the programs they came out of applying for these jobs and some of

00:53:53.560 the some of the interesting observations i had so i by the time i see again i'll have another job

00:53:59.000 fair under my belt you'll have the may 30th report on sort of the new programs um and

00:54:05.320 hopefully we'll have some solutions that's good

True Patriot Love - May 20, 2026

Canada’s PR System Is Breaking Down ft. Ravi Jain

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