True Patriot Love - Express Entry - Canada's Immigration Lottery

00:00:00.000 Canada's flagship immigration selection system, Express Entry, is designed to bring skilled

00:00:10.060 workers to fill labour shortages here in Canada. But in 2026, critics are asking a serious question.

00:00:16.160 Are we selecting the right immigrants for Canada's economy or repeating the same structural

00:00:21.040 mistake? To talk to us more about that, our very own Nir Rosenberg. Thanks for being here, Nir.

00:00:25.780 and Phil Mooney, also an immigration consultant.

00:00:29.340 Guys, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us about this.

00:00:32.940 Now, this has been around since 2015 in its current form.

00:00:36.980 Are you alongside or can you understand where the critics are coming from

00:00:41.180 when they say that this might not be as applicable anymore?

00:00:44.820 And why is that?

00:00:46.880 Phil, I'll let you start that off.

00:00:50.140 Okay, well, first of all, Express Entry is an intake control system.

00:00:55.780 okay it was brought in after the last immigration act came in in 2002 we had

00:01:02.380 something called a federal skilled worker program which was based on points

00:01:05.780 but the process said anyone who applied who had more than 67 out of 100 points

00:01:11.140 their application had to be processed so in the early days this didn't seem like

00:01:16.660 much of a problem but a backlog soon began to build because this is early

00:01:20.860 2003, 2004, the demand for Canadian immigration all of a sudden went up to much more than the

00:01:27.060 target numbers the government was prepared to accept. So what happens when you have a limited

00:01:31.460 intake, but an unlimited demand, backlogs started to build up. And those backlogs got to be pretty

00:01:39.860 serious in the numbers of, if we're accepting of, say, 150,000 people under this program,

00:01:45.900 the backlogs all of a sudden were up to 200, 300, 400,000.

00:01:50.940 And although the point system was geared

00:01:52.500 so that we got the people we needed,

00:01:54.820 how do we know that if it's gonna take four or five,

00:01:56.840 six years to bring them in,

00:01:58.340 that they actually were the people we needed

00:01:59.840 six years from now?

00:02:01.640 So the control actually ended up

00:02:03.700 with a really serious problem.

00:02:06.160 They tried a couple of different ways

00:02:07.680 to control it in 2008, 2009,

00:02:10.640 but the backlog just kept growing

00:02:12.080 and the law said they had to process every file.

00:02:15.540 so that led to one of the worst episodes in canadian immigration history where people who

00:02:20.340 had been waiting five and six years who had paid their money who were in line who were qualified

00:02:24.980 had all of their files wiped out okay the government just said well thanks for waiting

00:02:30.740 here's your filing feedback it was like saying you know there's a hockey game and you're up six

00:02:35.940 nothing in the last minute and the referee says low score wins okay so that's when when they

00:02:42.020 They actually borrowed this idea from New Zealand originally,

00:02:46.340 and it said, okay, we don't want you to apply for immigration.

00:02:49.700 We just want you to send us a profile.

00:02:52.080 Now to get in the profile,

00:02:53.000 you gotta prove you have good language skills

00:02:54.840 and you have to prove what your education is.

00:02:57.260 Those are the two tickets to get in.

00:02:59.720 So you send us your profile, we're gonna pick you,

00:03:03.140 but we promise if we pick you,

00:03:04.820 we're gonna process you in six months, okay?

00:03:08.020 We were really skeptical at the time.

00:03:10.040 We didn't think they were going to do that.

00:03:12.260 And when we saw what the profile was,

00:03:14.320 it became pretty clear.

00:03:15.280 The profile looked like it needed

00:03:16.880 and wanted young people, right?

00:03:19.560 I wanted young people because we have too many people

00:03:21.580 like me, you know, boomers, right?

00:03:23.800 And we're all retiring.

00:03:25.360 And yeah, I'm a very early boomer, okay?

00:03:30.180 But I'm still not retired.

00:03:31.580 Anyway, we have all of these people retiring.

00:03:34.340 We need to, our demographic need is,

00:03:36.680 we're not having kids,

00:03:37.660 so therefore we gotta bring in immigrants, okay?

00:03:39.840 we need skilled people and the department of immigration brought in their own emphasis if you

00:03:45.840 will to say when and they needed to be um excellent at english or french okay you had to meet that

00:03:52.560 standard whether or not that was appropriate we had lots of arguments at the time so they brought

00:03:57.520 in the system to control it and lo and behold it worked you know they stopped the processing ended

00:04:02.960 up going down to six months um it seemed like a really good idea um initially but by and large

00:04:12.000 the profile of the people coming in ended up being young people under 30 who had a canadian

00:04:18.640 education who had canadian work experience and who had excellent language skills okay

00:04:25.440 now it didn't matter if those language skills meant you were an expert in egyptian hieroglyphics

00:04:29.920 or you were an engineer it just didn't matter you got points

00:04:33.680 okay those are the comprehensive rating system points

00:04:37.440 okay there were some variations as to what the ticket was to get in

00:04:41.520 for one whole group was if you worked in canada for a year

00:04:45.120 that's called can experience class you were in the other was the federal

00:04:48.160 skilled worker program and they had a federal skilled trades

00:04:51.440 worker where the past marks might be a little different

00:04:53.840 okay and that was going along basically normally um the past marks were

00:04:59.680 roughly around out of let's say 600 they were sitting around 420 430 and they were slowly

00:05:06.320 going up but everybody said well that's good we're just getting better educated people okay

00:05:10.240 more able um however then covet hit and i don't want to get into too much of this but covet hit

00:05:18.880 and for the canadian immigration system covid was equivalent if you know the system functions on

00:05:27.280 three legs if you will the first is it's a factory it's a factory that process some

00:05:32.560 eight million applications a year and that factory at the time was consisting of four

00:05:39.040 or five major processing centers in canada 65 visa posts and 110 visa application centers

00:05:46.640 where you could just go to get a visitor visa submit your documents and they work for for the

00:05:51.440 the US and for England and all that.

00:05:53.680 So that whole processing system when COVID hit

00:05:56.660 was basically thrown up in the air and smashed to pieces.

00:05:59.800 On March 20th, everybody went home.

00:06:02.200 All of the people in Ottawa went home.

00:06:04.800 All of the people in the embassies came back to Canada.

00:06:07.460 All of the locally engaged staff went home.

00:06:10.200 So for five or six months, as we all remember COVID,

00:06:14.340 nothing happened.

00:06:15.360 Nobody was processing that, you know,

00:06:17.000 there's no big issue.

00:06:18.900 Then they started to allow people in

00:06:20.800 who were at least tested.

00:06:22.760 You know, again, we all remember what 2020 was like,

00:06:24.900 and then into 2021,

00:06:26.580 then when vaccines started to come about,

00:06:28.560 again, the demand wasn't so great,

00:06:31.020 but they had a real problem

00:06:32.480 because nobody was coming in as a permanent resident.

00:06:35.980 And the government's saying,

00:06:36.820 hey, if we're not getting people in,

00:06:38.260 we're not replacing the old people who are dying or retiring.

00:06:42.260 Then in September of 2021, the gates opened, right?

00:06:45.660 We said, okay, now you can get on a plane

00:06:47.600 and come to Canada, just prove you've had a test.

00:06:50.020 All right, but basically everything opened up

00:06:52.800 and the department was flooded,

00:06:55.040 but the system was still broken.

00:06:57.680 All other people were living and working from home.

00:07:00.440 Half of them didn't have computers that were privacy rated.

00:07:03.860 The visa posts were not staffed

00:07:06.180 and they ended up in big trouble.

00:07:08.520 So the department in 2021, 2022 was just running around

00:07:12.780 like crazy, trying to solve problems.

00:07:14.340 And if this is a manufacturing facility,

00:07:16.640 it wasn't a state of the art facility.

00:07:18.960 We used to complain that their IT system

00:07:20.740 was back in the 20, around 1950, okay?

00:07:24.780 They probably had vacuum tubes.

00:07:26.580 And they kept trying to do things

00:07:28.300 which was making things worse.

00:07:30.640 And we got involved with them through our association

00:07:33.180 that trying to help them solve problems like this,

00:07:36.160 made some recommendations.

00:07:37.900 But in doing all of that,

00:07:39.000 they started to think that more is better.

00:07:41.860 Because if you remember, again, after COVID,

00:07:43.480 everybody thought the economy is in terrible shape.

00:07:45.740 It recovered far faster than anyone thought.

00:07:48.840 And all of a sudden we had a shortage of everybody.

00:07:51.380 Okay, so they came in with a program

00:07:53.200 under the temporary resident to permanent resident program.

00:07:55.760 And they said, look, we don't care what your background is.

00:07:58.480 As long as you've got a job in Canada

00:07:59.880 that you've had for a week at McDonald's, you can file.

00:08:02.960 And the pass mark went from 440 down to 70.

00:08:07.220 And everybody started coming in.

00:08:09.200 Okay, now they managed to fill up the supply line again,

00:08:14.340 so that although we didn't have enough people coming in

00:08:16.460 in 2020, in 2021, we started to meet the targets

00:08:20.020 in 2022, we're meeting them again.

00:08:22.300 But by then the philosophy was we got way,

00:08:27.300 you know, we need way more people.

00:08:29.540 And that's when the Trudeau government

00:08:31.060 increased the immigration targets up to,

00:08:32.900 you know, what's supposed to be half a million,

00:08:34.820 you know, and everything looked great.

00:08:36.740 The universities, a combination of lack of funding

00:08:40.240 from provincial governments, you know, said,

00:08:42.220 hey, foreign students, we can charge anything to, all right.

00:08:45.340 And a whole lot of entrepreneurs came in and said,

00:08:48.040 oh, let's open up a school.

00:08:49.800 You know, and it was particularly like in our area,

00:08:53.580 the community colleges said, boy, we need more people.

00:08:58.060 We can bring in a whole lot more students,

00:08:59.460 but we don't have space.

00:09:00.300 So they would farm out their class, their curriculums

00:09:03.760 to strip mall people.

00:09:05.280 And it really helped like Laurentian College

00:09:08.020 and colleges in the north

00:09:09.140 that were almost going out of business.

00:09:10.840 It helped them.

00:09:11.680 And all of a sudden, effectively,

00:09:14.260 department lost control of the number of people coming in okay at the same time when they finally

00:09:21.300 realized this in about 2023 they also realized that in the previous year um of the 180 000

00:09:29.940 people they admitted under express entry 179 000 of them were 22 years old all of them with degrees

00:09:38.580 with a year experience because the universities and schools were feeding these people into the

00:09:43.700 system and they were feeding them in in the hundreds of thousands now it doesn't take much

00:09:50.180 of a genius to figure out that if you're bringing in half a million people a year but you're only

00:09:53.940 letting 150 000 become permanent residents which includes their kids and spouses you know you're

00:09:59.780 going to have a big problem and that's where we are so it's interesting that you say that because

00:10:03.940 today the numbers come out and we are at all-time highs for unemployment in this country um and

00:10:10.420 And it starts to add up that when you have this influx of people entering the job marketplace that have been, you know, by the hundreds of thousands, that's going to be one of the net results.

00:10:23.060 Nir, what are some of the negative fallout that we've seen recently that kind of shows us that this system is outdated?

00:10:33.460 well i'm not sure you know that the system is necessarily outdated um i think that um you know

00:10:43.780 what they're doing now is they're looking at the occupations that need to be filled and they're

00:10:49.100 selecting individuals from these occupations um there's a lot of people in the pool um you know

00:10:56.780 everyone wants permanent residency um all the temporary all the temporary foreign workers that

00:11:01.320 here all the students that are here they all want permanent residency um the problem with this is

00:11:06.520 that you know canada is now looking at very specific categories and occupations that they're

00:11:11.640 wanting to select because as phil said uh this is a selection system it's not a program

00:11:17.880 so you can be in the pool and you can sit there for months if not years we i personally have

00:11:25.160 clients that have started with me back in 2015 uh i have clients from 2020 that are still in the

00:11:31.480 pool that every single year we renew them and uh you know every 12 months it kicks you out of the

00:11:38.120 pool and you got to come back in so uh we renew clients applications or profiles all the time

00:11:44.200 in order to keep them uh with that opportunity just in case there's some sort of a draw that

00:11:49.800 they get selected so I'm not sure the system is here failing I think that it's just now Canada

00:11:55.800 is looking at how do we solve the problem of the unemployment how do we fill these particular labor

00:12:00.920 shortages one of the problems that we're seeing is that labor shortages obviously are across the

00:12:06.920 country but the the express entry pool it's it's for the entire country so you might have one area

00:12:17.640 in the in the country or certain provinces that have higher demands but express entry doesn't

00:12:23.880 really target provincial they do federal so if somebody is in the pool in british colombia with

00:12:30.360 points that they can get selected for and now they get an invitation to apply but the in-demand

00:12:36.600 occupation is actually in a different province then they could still get that invitation but

00:12:40.920 they live in british colombia and and they're not really filling the labor shortage that is actually

00:12:45.400 occurring in a different province and is that actually sorry near at that point is that

00:12:51.000 accounted for provincially as well so for example if i'm applying to be in british columbia but

00:12:56.440 they don't need me that puts me back into the waiting pool no and it doesn't quite work that

00:13:02.040 way okay um first of all express entry is actually a really good tool it's just that it was never

00:13:07.560 used to select specific occupations you have a general category up until 2023 when they said hey

00:13:14.760 we need health care workers so if you can think of this pool you know everybody was whoever is at

00:13:20.040 the top of the pool gets selected while they put in a silo saying okay now there's health care

00:13:23.880 workers we're going to pick out of that silo okay and then they brought in a few more silos

00:13:29.640 but when you start doing that you squeeze the the general pool and the pass mark goes up to

00:13:34.440 where it's now like 510 and we'll probably go higher okay because there's more people in the

00:13:39.720 pool than we need but provinces have had the ability since the start to say look you know

00:13:45.640 we need left-handed carpenters in moose jaw you're in saskatchewan and saskatchewan could then say oh

00:13:51.800 there's a bunch of left-handed carpenters here you know who want to come to moose jaw um let's

00:13:57.080 let's nominate them and they can actually bonus them 600 points and so they get to be permanent

00:14:01.880 residents but you know again this isn't a this isn't you know the biathlon you can't shoot at

00:14:08.920 target and hit it in the bullseye this is you know large categories averages across the country

00:14:16.360 and and canada has different needs we have shortages of all kinds of people in certain

00:14:20.600 categories um express entry is kind of a broad pool okay that they try to they try to make that

00:14:27.000 and and it gets a bit twisted where if you say look we want people um well when the reason for

00:14:34.120 pick for the categories being selected is not being selected for the economic benefit of canada

00:14:41.480 which the department can do along with the the politicians okay you end up with something like

00:14:48.280 the french language category right which is now 48 of the whole total but that's a political

00:14:56.440 decision you know based on two things i think i was talking near yesterday it's based on that the

00:15:02.520 current government wants to look good to the people of quebec to say they're supporting the

00:15:05.640 french language across canada because we're binding for sure and the department itself says

00:15:10.840 you know everybody in the government has a hard time finding bilingual officers to hire across

00:15:16.760 the country because in terrorist bc they might not be able to find anybody and we have to deliver

00:15:21.400 services in in both languages so the department's great about that so you've now got this imbalance

00:15:27.720 And that'll have to be corrected, I believe, and the political backlash is building because that's taking away from trying to make the express entry system continue to work purely on economic indicators.

00:15:42.240 And just as the express, sorry, does the express entry system, it runs in tandem with all other immigration processes or it is the tip of the iceberg?

00:15:54.160 No, it's not. So Canada's immigration, I was just going to get to that point.

00:16:00.300 Canada's immigration system has three main lakes, okay? One is family reunification.

00:16:07.780 Now, the government of Canada, the politicians, the people of Canada are saying, we want spouses

00:16:11.980 to be with spouses, children to be with parents, a few grandparents to be with their children.

00:16:17.840 So there's family immigration. Just as a conflict of interest, I believe grandparents should be

00:16:23.680 allowed into this country without any conditions whatsoever okay because I

00:16:26.620 would agree and kids and I don't I would agree yeah so but we don't get the vote

00:16:31.360 that much anyways but but so family is about 30% of of our total target number

00:16:37.000 okay refugees humanitarian issues are about 10% so 60% is economic all right

00:16:44.620 and that economic program is dominated by the express entry system is most of

00:16:50.920 it but you have a few other systems um the provinces have the right to nominate in their

00:16:56.920 in certain categories for um certain occupations um quebec has more authority over those sorts of

00:17:04.520 things than other provinces just because we're a bilingual country you know it's in our constitution

00:17:10.200 but you know so so the express entry system is is a purely economic package um the language

00:17:17.400 issue about the French language silo is not related to what that economics is, but it's politics.

00:17:24.980 Okay. And, you know, if you were a company operating your business, you would stick to

00:17:28.880 the economic side, but the owners of this business happen to be the politicians. Okay. So they're the

00:17:34.480 ones that are saying that, but I mean, at least we have a tool with the express entry system that

00:17:39.620 can be adjusted. It's who's doing the adjusting. That is the issue. So who's doing the adjusting

00:17:45.860 And are we adjusted at the moment, do you think, to suit the needs of immigration in Canada?

00:17:54.940 Or does express entry need to be adjusted?

00:17:57.400 You mentioned some changes may need to be made.

00:18:00.600 Nir, what are your thoughts on where it stands right now and where it could go?

00:18:04.160 um i mean i think that uh you know the the the the government is is trying to

00:18:15.680 ultimately pick the best and the brightest and the ones that have the highest scores

00:18:21.680 um phil do you know who's turning the dial because um well yeah i'm not sure personally

00:18:28.960 well that's the other problem in the system you know the ministry of immigration is in charge

00:18:32.960 right which means that the party in power is in charge but immigration is a

00:18:37.700 complex issue it's an issue dominated by law okay because there's certain things

00:18:42.920 you can do and others you can't and the Department of Industry if somebody has a

00:18:45.980 good initiative you can go do it but in immigration it's a legal framework

00:18:50.060 around the entire immigration program and the whole this manufacturing

00:18:55.400 facility is set up to be in line with the legal requirements and the only

00:18:59.780 people who understand how that system really works are the department people themselves who are

00:19:05.220 running it and us lawyers and consultants who work in it every single day um everybody's interested

00:19:11.780 in immigration everybody has a stake in immigration but only a small number actually know how the

00:19:16.820 system actually works okay unfortunately minister the ministry of immigration or the minister of

00:19:22.900 immigration is a junior portfolio so every election you get a new minister of immigration he brings in

00:19:28.180 his own staff who don't know anything about immigration who don't know anything about the law

00:19:31.700 particularly maybe a little and it takes him a year or two just to get up to speed it took

00:19:36.980 jason kenny a year and a half to get up to speed to know so he could actually help the department

00:19:43.060 or or oversee the department like a board of directors would well we've had five ministers

00:19:48.340 of immigration in the last four years you know they come in they get started and then they're

00:19:53.380 gone because they get promoted there's an election and we're in that same situation again now i mean

00:19:59.860 last year we had a minister of immigration for three weeks you know from before the just before

00:20:03.860 the election and then it took another three months to get the current minister of immigration and

00:20:07.620 it's taken her you know a good part of a year and from what it looks like so the department heads

00:20:14.100 they run it and they like that because just like if you and i were running a company and knew you

00:20:19.540 know we want to be in control of our future well we'd want to run it too right um so it's really

00:20:24.980 the department that runs everything and and and if the minister you know the politicians come up

00:20:30.340 with a good idea and they go to the minister of immigration the minister of immigration goes to

00:20:33.620 the department says hey we really like this the department will figure out how to do it

00:20:38.100 in a way they want to do it okay or find a way to say it's not doable oh yeah all kinds of legal

00:20:45.060 reasons and and yeah absolutely um and and unfortunately you know that's a bit of a

00:20:50.340 disconnect in our you know i mean immigration becomes such an important issue now it remember

00:20:55.460 it was never one of the top two or three issues up until a few years ago right now it is you know

00:21:00.660 it's it's at the top of uh almost every uh publication uh it's at the top of some section

00:21:07.300 in some manner uh whether it's affecting housing or the economy or unemployment i think canadians

00:21:14.020 by and large realized we had a massive influx of unmanageable uh immigration and when you hear

00:21:20.900 uh when you hear the express entry phrase you think to yourself i think we need to take more

00:21:26.820 care i don't think we need to more express doesn't sound like the right word how how effective do you

00:21:34.260 think this will be in reigning in uh immigration to a place where it's manageable and useful to

00:21:42.580 canada well the big problem is it's not the express entry system that will do that okay

00:21:48.900 because the express entry system is a way to become a permanent resident we now have what

00:21:54.020 two million temporary residents in canada not because of the express entry system we have that

00:21:59.700 because the department those same department heads that like to run everything and they know every

00:22:05.380 day how many people are coming in for what category and after covet yes they were all busy trying to

00:22:11.540 help you know keep the ship afloat and all these things but they they just took their eye off the

00:22:17.540 ball when they knew that all of a sudden that there were an extra 50 000 then 100 000 then

00:22:22.260 200 000 students coming in in 2022 2023 they they they just took too long to tell anybody

00:22:30.180 you know and and that's what's caused the biggest problem now because now our problem is not

00:22:35.300 how many permanent residents we have or how fast we're bringing them in it's what are we going to

00:22:40.740 do with all of those people in canada that don't have a job lose their status and now

00:22:47.140 eighty percent of them might go home but there's two or three hundred thousand that are just going

00:22:50.900 to stay here and work illegally and what are they going to do about that um they know and

00:22:56.420 the politicians will never put up with something that says well let's go and have our version of

00:23:01.780 ice which is cbsa let's go drag them out of church basements and put them on buses and fly them out

00:23:06.820 Well, Canadians will never stand for that, right?

00:23:11.020 So what we're-

00:23:11.860 So essentially, we've built a black market,

00:23:14.620 a cash economy, illegal workers,

00:23:19.780 and that has so many impacts on things like employment,

00:23:24.780 housing.

00:23:25.620 And tragedy is the worst one.

00:23:26.500 And so what the department's doing now

00:23:28.900 is they're scrambling like crazy

00:23:30.660 to try and find ways to absorb those people into Canada,

00:23:34.940 the ones who aren't going to leave no matter what,

00:23:36.580 to find ways to let them stay

00:23:38.860 if they're contributing to Canada.

00:23:40.880 You know, they still deported 80,000 people last year,

00:23:43.600 you know, but they're gonna try and,

00:23:45.520 because this is like a five-year problem right now, okay?

00:23:48.980 It's all of these extra temporary residents

00:23:51.180 who are here, and if they, and you can see this,

00:23:56.640 they just talked about the 33,000 people

00:23:59.040 they're gonna have, get permanent residents.

00:24:02.460 The department's really sly, right?

00:24:03.760 They said, we've dropped the number

00:24:04.880 of permanent residents.

00:24:05.800 no they didn't okay that was the impression that i was under as well no they just they said we got

00:24:12.500 we got for 385 000 down to 380 000 oh but there's another 158 000 that we're 48 000 we're going to

00:24:22.100 bring in in the next two years that are special circumstances and the special circumstances are

00:24:27.440 they're here in canada already in temporary status by the way they're already counted in our

00:24:33.300 population so if they make them permanent residents the population doesn't go up so the public says

00:24:39.780 oh immigration's gone down right but again sleight of hand the department knows what they're doing

00:24:46.540 they're they're doing this and i expect as the attitude towards more immigrants the it starts

00:24:53.800 to improve okay because we're not bringing in as many students we're not bringing in as many people

00:24:59.020 who can work as open work permit holders to compete with, you know, our students going

00:25:03.880 into grade 12 or 11, you know, in summer jobs, as that all settles down, and it already is.

00:25:10.480 I mean, the housing market's a best example, right?

00:25:13.480 Anyway, as all that happens, we're now sitting in a situation where we're going to have to

00:25:17.480 put up with this for the next three or four years, because a whole lot of those students

00:25:20.980 who came in in 2023 and 2024 are in school, and they're going to finish school, and then

00:25:26.680 they're gonna go work.

00:25:27.960 And then after that, they're gonna wanna apply

00:25:30.400 for permanent residence.

00:25:31.300 Well, by 2030, we might start having room for them.

00:25:35.040 So the department's gonna come in

00:25:36.480 with more special programs, I believe, okay?

00:25:40.560 How does this, and maybe Nir, you could answer this for me

00:25:43.540 because we've watched you talk about this many times

00:25:48.540 about the way that you help clients,

00:25:50.680 but has this major influx of immigration

00:25:55.680 and the change to how we're going to deal with it

00:25:57.780 moving forward, allegedly,

00:26:00.600 a lot of it seems to be smoke and mirrors.

00:26:02.700 Does it affect the immigration consulting business

00:26:07.860 in any major way?

00:26:09.460 Has it changed the way that you have to operate

00:26:12.660 to get people into the country?

00:26:15.040 Yeah, I would say drastically.

00:26:18.280 We've had, in the last almost a year now,

00:26:22.980 We've had, you know, ESDC, which is the department that handles job offer approvals for employers that want to hire foreign workers.

00:26:31.800 They are refusing more and more and more LMI applications, which are the applications that the employer requires in order to petition for a foreign worker, for a foreign worker to apply for a work permit.

00:26:44.880 We've had a lot of those refusals.

00:26:47.120 We have refusals.

00:26:48.280 We have ESDC officers making it much, much, much tougher on employers.

00:26:53.760 So harder to bring in foreign workers to Canada today,

00:26:56.740 for sure, in all different occupations,

00:26:59.920 whether you're a specialty chef or you're an IT personnel,

00:27:05.300 it's very, very difficult.

00:27:07.000 We've had a lot of companies

00:27:08.980 that are essentially closing their doors.

00:27:11.180 We've had pharmacy clinics

00:27:14.620 that can't bring in the pharmacist,

00:27:16.440 but even more so to that,

00:27:18.540 I was saying as of January 21st, I think of this year,

00:27:22.980 or i'm not sure if it was phil was it last year or this year that they eliminated uh spouses uh to

00:27:28.660 obtain a work permit um i think it was this year uh where they changed that so now if you're a

00:27:34.260 foreign worker in canada you unless you're in a specific occupation or you're in a specific level

00:27:39.700 of um what they call the tier level uh of an occupation you cannot bring in your spouse to

00:27:46.180 canada to accompany you so now you've got a lot of foreign workers who had spouses in canada who now

00:27:51.460 had to send them home so now those individuals may have also left canada because and i've seen

00:27:57.620 uh with my clients that they said if my spouse can't be here my children can't be here why why

00:28:02.580 should i contribute you know why should i work here and so it becomes a problem you know so we're

00:28:07.300 losing individuals for that um but yes it's it's it's making our life as immigration consultants

00:28:13.380 a little bit tougher and we're scrambling to find different uh ways uh i think unique ways

00:28:19.540 whether it's the provincial nominee programs or where uh employers are changing um individuals

00:28:26.500 occupations in order to keep them in canada on higher skill levels but that means they have to

00:28:31.060 pay more money they have to spend more uh on payroll um so yes it's making i think it's making

00:28:37.620 our job a little tougher um you know and i think phil you know phil has access to a lot of other

00:28:44.340 consultants he talks to all day long and i think that they come to us also with problems right

00:28:49.700 they're trying to figure out how how do we keep clients in canada well those hundreds of thousands

00:28:54.180 of people now who are on post-grad work permits especially or they're temporary foreign workers

00:28:58.340 and they can see that their time is running out and they don't know what to do and we're getting

00:29:03.540 people now coming to us saying how can i stay in canada and you've seen an increase of students

00:29:10.420 applying for refugee status for example again immigration consultants if they come to us and

00:29:17.380 they don't have a story for for refugees we can't take their case that's against our code

00:29:23.220 lawyers on the other hand everybody deserves representation and if somebody says i want

00:29:27.060 to apply as a refugee a lawyer can take the case but there's there's no hope but because of the

00:29:32.580 backlog in the refugee system that might mean they're going to spend a long time here working

00:29:36.580 waiting for their cases to be heard that's until b bill c12 which has passed the senate now and

00:29:42.820 is just waiting to be implemented they that's putting in a new requirement that says if you

00:29:48.020 haven't been if you've been in canada for a year any over the lot since 2021 if you spend a total

00:29:53.620 of 12 months in canada you can't claim refugee status which is reasonable right why wouldn't you

00:29:58.820 have um there are some concerns about you know abused spouses or lgbt communities well there'd

00:30:05.060 be regulations to protect them but but the largest number are people who are claiming refugee status

00:30:11.140 because they're desperate and we've got other people here and they're out of status they don't

00:30:14.980 realize you know in canada if if you are on a work permit a visitor permit a study permit

00:30:21.300 as long as before your your permit expires you apply to extend it well you get to stay

00:30:28.020 in that status until they give you a decision the decision's taken six months so you can stay here

00:30:34.260 another six months right when they refuse you you are now out of status you can then have you have

00:30:40.740 90 days then to restore your status okay that takes six months to process but you're out of

00:30:48.980 status when you're out of status in canada you're that means you can't apply for anything else

00:30:54.260 you can't work you can't you know try to become a student you the only way to cure being out of

00:30:59.220 status is to leave okay but but students don't understand that and other people don't understand

00:31:04.580 that and you get all kinds of stories out there and we're we're now hearing as a practice thing

00:31:09.540 a lot of the people i'm talking to now are coming with problems of people they've been out of status

00:31:12.660 for three months six months nine months they're good people they just didn't understand how the

00:31:17.780 system works i know i've just told it to you and i bet you're wondering how can i come as a visitor

00:31:22.260 for six months and i can basically be here legally for two and a half years yeah that has uh that

00:31:27.540 has amazed me actually yeah and it's like now you see the application it's the timing of everything

00:31:35.300 and it seems to overlap and lean against each other so you you you know you've been notified

00:31:40.500 okay you're no longer in status make the appeal but that takes another six months it's so before

00:31:47.300 you know it yeah two years has gone by and during covid nothing was getting processed and everything

00:31:52.660 was getting put behind six months to a year um so you can see how that back that backlog and again

00:31:58.580 this is just visitors it's separate from the refugee system you know which is completely

00:32:03.060 different but this is visitors to canada you know if you wanted to come and visit your you know the

00:32:08.500 rocky mountains for four weeks and you know you come in the country they give you the guy says

00:32:13.140 yes well you don't have to leave for six months if you don't want to okay now most people do they

00:32:17.860 They just here for a holiday, but if you didn't want to stay

00:32:20.760 and at the end of, you know, five months and 29 days later,

00:32:23.800 you said you file an application saying,

00:32:25.760 oh, well, I've only seen the west side of the Rockies.

00:32:27.600 I want to see the right side.

00:32:29.900 Whether they approve you or not,

00:32:31.040 it takes them six months to make the decision.

00:32:33.740 So you might as well make some travel plans.

00:32:35.540 Yeah, so you're here, yep.

00:32:37.820 But then when they do say, no, we don't accept you.

00:32:41.280 Okay, you must leave.

00:32:43.780 You can apply to restore your status,

00:32:45.220 but you're now out of status

00:32:46.560 And being out of status is the death knell for most things, because even if you then leave, the next time you apply to come back, an immigration officer's first job is to say, is this person going to leave?

00:32:59.740 If I let him in, is he going to leave?

00:33:00.980 Well, he didn't last time.

00:33:02.720 So as far as you and I are concerned, just no big deal.

00:33:04.980 He didn't do any harm.

00:33:05.740 As far as an immigration officer is concerned, it's capital.

00:33:08.340 They're not getting back in.

00:33:09.600 Right.

00:33:09.840 Yeah.

00:33:09.940 Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of individuals that call our office and they say, you know, we spoke to someone, they told us to file an app, you know, they're workers in Canada that now can't get a new LMIA.

00:33:23.480 The employer is not going to be approved or the employer is not willing to proceed with another filing.

00:33:28.720 And so they don't need them anymore.

00:33:30.380 And so they come to us, and they were refused on an intervention that they had filed, essentially, without a real LMIA. So they file an application to stay in Canada with a work permit. So it's an extension of their work permit on the basis of an LMIA that is either in process or will be in process.

00:33:57.360 And because it takes, as Phil said, about four or six months to get a decision, those individuals continue to work for potentially that employer.

00:34:08.580 So you've got a lot of people that are working essentially without really a work permit.

00:34:14.520 Yeah, it's legal.

00:34:15.360 And now it's legal until the decision is made, but it's not ethical.

00:34:22.320 And they're coming to us after they've been refused.

00:34:24.540 And then they say, what do we do?

00:34:26.280 Because we were told that we should do this.

00:34:28.680 And now it's, you know, now they're a restoration period.

00:34:31.200 And now there's no other way to keep them in Canada except to restore as a visitor or they have to leave.

00:34:36.080 But this is detrimental to their, as Phil said, to the future of their options.

00:34:41.460 Yeah. And at the same time, just so people don't think that, hey, these are all people that are a burden on society. These are all people working. They're working. They're paying income tax. They're paying unemployment insurance. They're paying into the CPP. You know, I mean, they're paying for everything. But when they go out of status, they get nothing.

00:34:59.900 okay um we've set that we've set the system up badly in that regard for people who want to come

00:35:09.540 and be uh citizens in this country you know what i noticed guys can i just say this what a convoluted

00:35:15.960 mess immigration is the way that you've described it to me the uh various tiers and layers and

00:35:23.200 processing and appeals. And it's so convoluted. I feel sorry for anybody coming here with English

00:35:31.020 as a second language, trying to navigate that. Thank goodness, you know, there's immigration

00:35:38.000 consultants and lawyers out there that can manage it. And I've been through the process myself with

00:35:42.600 family. There's no way we could have understood it. And right until this very moment, I didn't

00:35:48.580 understand express entry i didn't fully understand how we are uh weighting the systems in the silos

00:35:56.580 it seems like our immigration system is a convoluted mess well that you're right but

00:36:05.380 this is just like churchill talking about democracy you know democracy is the worst

00:36:10.500 form of government in the world except for all the others and canada's system is actually the best i

00:36:16.180 mean the worst it's got its real problems but it's better than virtually every other system

00:36:20.820 for the numbers we process you know um part of that is just it's complex you know and we haven't

00:36:29.300 talked about all of the immigration system there's the whole refugee system and there is you know

00:36:33.620 humanitarian and compassionate complaints and there are the provincial programs i mean all of

00:36:38.020 this is really complex and yeah i mean thank you for saying without us here it would be hard you

00:36:44.740 You know, I hope, Nir, you paid, you know, for this.

00:36:48.080 Anyway.

00:36:48.920 You know what, Nir, I'll just take an IOU

00:36:50.700 because I'll probably end up stepping in it in the future.

00:36:53.940 Well, it is complex.

00:36:55.620 But I will say this, guys, sorry.

00:36:58.400 Just on the complexity thing, I do understand

00:37:01.820 because, yes, immigration in Canada is a popular thing

00:37:05.340 and it has been.

00:37:06.340 We've done a good job of selecting immigration historically.

00:37:09.980 I think we're rebounding right now

00:37:11.540 from some critical errors that occurred

00:37:14.540 during one government.

00:37:16.620 That's my opinion, and I think the opinion of many.

00:37:19.880 But it does feel to me like we're in an adjustment period

00:37:25.300 here that might be better for the country in the long run.

00:37:29.100 Yeah, I would mostly agree with that,

00:37:31.520 but we have to keep in mind the overarching goals.

00:37:34.940 We want spouses to be together.

00:37:37.160 We want children to be with their parents.

00:37:39.420 These are Canadian values.

00:37:41.160 We need economic immigration to keep our country moving forward.

00:37:45.740 The goal of economic immigration says we want Canada to continue to grow our economy at as close to full employment as possible.

00:37:55.020 Okay, that's the goal of economic immigration.

00:37:56.720 Now, what that says is if unemployment keeps going up because of everything else going on, well, we should be cutting down on our economic immigration.

00:38:05.380 And it's flexible.

00:38:06.840 We can do that every year when they put out the levels plan.

00:38:09.280 It's been done in the last years where they've dropped the numbers everywhere, okay, because

00:38:14.680 the economy is not doing as well as it was right after COVID.

00:38:18.060 So the system has got its checks and balances built in.

00:38:22.680 But every once in a while you get this aberration that comes along, and the real problem is

00:38:27.340 the students now, especially, or the foreign workers coming in especially, they're the

00:38:32.480 ones that don't, you know, they did their files like, they do a lot of files themselves.

00:38:38.640 know they don't have counsel they didn't come in with the with the benefit of people giving them

00:38:43.520 the proper advice as to how to get to become a permanent resident they just came in they filled

00:38:47.880 in i mean they fill in line for forms online all the time right and they're good at it you know

00:38:52.880 they pass language tests because they know how to take a test they probably can't you know a year

00:38:57.760 later they probably don't speak french as well as they thought you know and and now we're getting

00:39:01.520 all kinds of things like that and so we we really have to be listening more okay the department of

00:39:09.280 immigration has never been accused of being great listeners okay it's a problem on that yeah on that

00:39:18.000 note i will say uh thank you to you both for this and uh i'll ask you to stand by for the next time

00:39:24.000 that we need to figure something out uh in your area of expertise uh near as always greatly

00:39:29.760 appreciated. And of course, Phil Mooney. Guys, I will make sure that your information is included

00:39:36.720 in the description for the show in case people have questions, because it is complex and

00:39:41.180 multivariate and super layered, in my opinion. But I'm a layman. Thank goodness you guys are

00:39:48.380 doing this. And thank goodness you cleared up some stuff for us today. I really appreciate it.

00:39:52.960 Don't forget to subscribe. Tell a friend about what we're up to here. And we'll see you next

00:39:57.980 time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

True Patriot Love - March 16, 2026

Express Entry - Canada's Immigration Lottery ｜ With Nir Rozenberg & Phil Mooney

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