Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 4th, 2025

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

—immigration numbers. We are controlling the non-permanent resident numbers, but we are still working with employers, municipalities—

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Have you seen your backlogs go down?

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

—and provinces.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Minister, I want to tell you something. If you had been in that room last Saturday—

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

It's not a question—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Hold on. Order.

Mr. Menegakis and Minister—

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Some of it is not a question of backlogs. It's a question of—

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

If you had been in that room, you would have seen something—

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

—being unable to take in—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Minister and Mr. Menegakis, please do not talk over each other. Our interpreters are not able to translate.

You have 15 seconds left, Mr. Menegakis. Do you have a quick comment, or would you like the minister to finish?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes, I do.

Minister, if you had been in that room last Saturday with the hundreds of people.... I can tell you that 98% of them are frustrated because they did everything right and they're not getting service at the other end. They're not seeing a pathway to go on with their lives here in Canada. You're still letting in a lot more people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Menegakis.

Thank you, Minister Diab.

We're going to Ms. Sodhi for five minutes.

[Amandeep Sodhi, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Through you, Madam Chair, I'd like to ask the minister about the non-permanent resident population.

We know the minister set a goal for the non-permanent resident population to be less than 5% by 2027.

Minister, are you able to update the committee on what progress IRCC has made so far in that goal, and how the levels plan will work towards further lowering that number over the next few years?

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much for that question.

We've been working extremely hard since the election on our levels planning. To advance that commitment, the overall target for new temporary residents has been reduced from 673,650 to 385,000 in 2026, and to 370,000 in 2027 and 2028. Our 2026 target for workers in the international mobility program is 170,000, and 60,000 in the temporary foreign worker program, which colleagues across the way keep talking about. That's 60,000 people coming from the temporary foreign worker program in 2026. We will also decrease student arrivals from 305,000 to 155,000 in 2026, and to 150,000 in the next two-year period for that three-year....

The balance between workers and students reflects the need to support the labour market while attracting top talent. I spoke before about the Ph.D. graduates we need to come to Canada from across the world in order to help build our economy. With the levels plan we have, our asylum numbers have gone down by a third in 2025, the student population has gone down and the temporary worker population has gone down. We are working on attracting global talent. We are working to ensure foreign credentialing so that people in health care and other industries who are already here in Canada can work here.

We are also, importantly, working on attracting francophone immigrants through francophone immigration. It's funny. I never hear that question at all from the opposition, but it is a key pillar of this government, and of mine in particular. It's one I've been working on for over 10 years in the immigration sphere. We talk about attracting people who can speak French in order to ensure we keep the French language going strong in Canada. I am very proud of Canada's dualistic, two-language....

I will give it back to you. I'm sure you have another question.

[Amandeep Sodhi, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Of course. Thank you.

You recently announced funding to support the attraction and settlement of francophone immigrants outside of Quebec. Can you speak to these funding agreements and explain further what impact IRCC is planning for?

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Actually, this is something that Canada—this government—has been working on for a number of years. When I first entered the political world, Canada was having difficulties attracting 2% of the population in francophone.... In 2016, I attended meetings as the provincial minister of immigration and on behalf of the provincial Francophonie minister at the time. We were talking about how we could get out of that and come to 4%.

I'm very proud to say that we surpassed the number of 6% last year. This year we will meet our target. We have a target of 9% in 2026. We have the action plan for official languages, with historic dollar amounts for that. I'm very proud of the work that parliamentarians did to get that to the other side. We're also leveraging the expertise of the centre for innovation in francophone immigration. That is something I made an announcement about last week. That began in 2025.

We want to ensure that we always have a francophone lens so we can integrate into our economic programs—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you so much, Minister.

Thank you, Ms. Sodhi.

We have a limited amount of time left, so I'm going to split the time—three minutes for Mr. Davies and three minutes for Mr. Connors.

Go ahead, Mr. Davies, for three minutes.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just as a housekeeping request, on behalf of my colleague Mr. Redekopp, I wonder whether the minister might provide us with a report on the status of all pending Yazidi PSR claims cases in Canada, if that's possible. We're just looking for a report. I don't need a verbal answer now, but I'm just looking for some additional information. Is that fair enough?

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I don't know if it's possible, but I will look into that.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I appreciate it.

IRCC is seeking additional funds for the resettlement assistance program. It's not a great deal of additional funds, but it is in addition to what's in the budget. It's support for eligible refugees, including a one-time start-up payment and monthly income support.

How much is the one-time payment, and is that excluded from any monthly amount thereafter?

[Jean-Marc Gionet]

We can return to you with the actual dollar figure, but the start-up payment for resettled refugees, I believe, is usually a first- and last-month's rent advance—things like that. Resettled refugees get 12 months of income support for the first year they're in Canada to help them start their life.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

In exceptional circumstances, that can be extended to 24 months. What would “exceptional” mean?

[Jean-Marc Gionet]

Those would be refugees with high settlement needs who need additional support.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

The average Canadian with a full pension on CPP gets about $1,433 a month. Would refugees in these categories get a greater value than what the average Canadian gets after paying into CPP their entire lives?

[Jean-Marc Gionet]

The resettlement assistance program income support that's provided is pegged to the social assistance levels in the province or territory in question.