Evidence of meeting #19 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was claimants.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
It's not possible for Canada to have the technology or the capability to do that. Is that what you're saying?
Professor and Chair in Human Rights Law, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, As an Individual
It's probably increasing—
Conservative
Professor and Chair in Human Rights Law, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, As an Individual
The truth is, I don't have a strong opinion about it. If Canada wants to invest in the technology to detect who leaves the country through airports and land borders, it's certainly possible to do it. Whether it's worth the investment is a question to which I haven't given enough thought to give a definitive answer, but—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Professor Macklin.
Thank you, Mr. Redekopp.
Now, to end this round, we'll go to Mr. Zuberi for five minutes.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
To the witnesses, this time I'll put my questions to The Refugee Centre.
I have a few questions for you.
Ms. Murad, I know you've written about narratives and how important it is to have accurate narratives around immigrants and refugees. You replied to my colleague MP Zahid about narratives, but I'd like to pick up on the contributions. Could you talk a bit about the contributions that refugees and asylum seekers make to Canada and our society?
Director, Federal Government Relations, The Refugee Centre
Absolutely. Thank you for the question.
When most people think of the contributions to Canada that refugee claimants can make, they think of the labour force, and that is definitely an undeniable fact. Refugee claimants do, in fact, support Canada through taxes and their labour.
Refugee claimants are actually very competitive, especially in the province of Quebec, with economic migrants. Refugee claimants are more likely to be entrepreneurs and start their own businesses in Canada, bringing new cultures and new perspectives. This is definitely a benefit to Canada.
A story that everyone may be familiar with is that of Peace by Chocolate. That is definitely a success story and a great narrative to call attention to here.
Thank you.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you.
I've seen Peace by Chocolate in different bookstores in the West Island of Montreal. I'm sure it's in many different places around the country. It's a really interesting business.
I want to rewind a bit. Could we take a moment to imagine, all of us, how it is for somebody who is seeking your resources and enters your offices? Can you share with us the energy and the situation of the people when they first come to you and then how you help them understand the system and give them confidence in our Canadian system? Can you share a bit about their energy and how you help them along the way and educate them?
Director, Federal Government Relations, The Refugee Centre
Absolutely.
Their energy changes, of course. There is a wide range, from being very excited at the opportunities that being in Canada can bring to being very nervous, maybe, and bringing past traumas with them through the door.
Certain things are very difficult for people to shake. Paranoia is definitely present.
On the ways we help people navigate the system, we have many different portal workshops that help them understand what the system is and how it functions. Of course, there are barriers with this, so we try our best to overcome them. They are barriers like digital literacy, for example; the majority of the process is online.
Having people at the centre to help them and show them how it works and what the goal is here is a definite benefit to them.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You describe people who are deeply vulnerable and coming with trauma. You see that much more than in comparison to the average Canadian.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
When it comes to services like housing....
You spoke about legal aid and other services.
How do you help clients access these various services?
Director, Quebec Government Relations, The Refugee Centre
When it comes to accommodation in particular, we have an organization in Quebec that serves as a type of reception centre. This isn't available in all the other provinces. The organization is called the Regional Program for the Settlement and Integration of Asylum Seekers, or PRAIDA. It provides accommodation for asylum seekers when they arrive. Unfortunately, certain restrictions apply and not everyone is eligible. However, the main idea is to provide this accommodation until the asylum seekers receive their first social assistance cheque.
Our centre offers asylum seekers transitional accommodation by providing shared apartments all over the island of Montreal for six months. People can use this service to obtain a credit history, because that's often an issue. Property owners don't want to rent an apartment to an immigrant who has just arrived and who has no credit history or experience with another tenant or landlord. The goal is to give them these six months of shared accommodation experience as well as a credit history.
At the same time, we support them in the job search process. When they move out of an apartment and into their own place, they can also pay for it with their employment income. At this point, they really do have all the tools necessary to become self‑sufficient and to fully participate in society.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Ms. Gracia‑Turgeon.
Thank you, Mr. Zuberi.
That ends our first panel for today. I want to thank all the witnesses for your time. I want to thank you for your important contribution to the study today.
We are now going to suspend for five to 10 minutes so that we can have the current witnesses leave and we can set up for the second panel.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Welcome back.
I call the meeting back to order.
Just to let everyone know, because a few people have mentioned this to me, we will have a hard stop at 6:30. For those who have hot dates or have to meet planes, do not fret.
I will make a few comments for the benefit of our new witnesses. For those on Zoom—hello, Mr. Oldman—kindly click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. As well, at the bottom of your screen, you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation: floor, English or French.
For those in the room, you all know that you can use your earpiece and select the desired channel. Kindly, as always, please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. All comments should be addressed through the chair.
I would now like to warmly welcome our witnesses for the second panel.
As an individual, we have Professor Christopher Worswick, professor, department of economics, Carleton University.
Welcome, Professor Worswick.
By video conference, on behalf of the Immigrant Services Society of British Columbia, we have Mr. Jonathan Oldman, chief executive officer.
We warmly welcome you.
Finally, last but not least, we have, for the Immigrants Working Centre, the executive director, Mr. Luc Bonaventure Amoussou.
Welcome.
Each one of you will be given five minutes for opening remarks, after which we will proceed with rounds of questions.
I will start with Professor Worswick for five minutes, please.
Christopher Worswick Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
Thank you.
I'm a professor in the department of economics at Carleton University. My research is on the economics of immigration.
I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to present on the topic of immigration processes in Canada.
This is a very broad topic. Given that I have five minutes for an opening statement, I'm just going to focus on what I think is the most pressing question related to the economic immigration process, specifically, the selection of economic principal applicants.
Since the late 1960s, Canada has mainly employed a human capital-based model of immigrant selection. Specifically, we have chosen economic principal applicants who have had education and language fluency, which makes them likely to have high earnings—perhaps not in the first year or two in Canada after arrival, but within a reasonable time frame.
I co-authored a 2025 study with Matt Doyle and Mikal Skuterud, published in the Canadian Journal of Economics, in which we make the case that if one wants to maximize economic welfare—usually measured, by economists at least, as GDP per capita—one would select economic principal applicants whose earnings, 10 years after arrival in Canada, are expected to be above the population average. As a rule of thumb, this is a sensible way to approach economic immigration.
Can it be done? I am certain that it can if we take immigrant selection seriously. If we look at the immigrant applicants and rank them based on factors such as education and language fluency, and then drill down into key details of education such as field of study, we will have much better outcomes for the strong applicants we would select. We might end up with a smaller economic intake, but it would be a much more successful one.
Many of you may be thinking that this is more or less what we do, but I would argue that we have shifted a long way from that. The category-based selection system allows governments to move away from prioritizing the highest-earning immigrants so as to pursue other policy options. Similarly, the growing provincial nominee numbers are too often focused on lower-skilled economic immigrants. This is another way in which we are seeing significant drift from our former human capital-based model.
While the potential pool of people wanting to come to Canada to live is arguably very large, many of them lack the language fluency and education needed to have higher earnings in Canada. What does this mean in practice?
Fundamental to economics is the idea of making choice under scarcity. We need to start thinking about highly skilled economic principal applicants as being scarce. Only when we do that will we see the layering on of other policy objectives, such as francophone targets for economic immigrants settling outside Quebec or prioritizing economic immigrants who will settle in small communities under provincial nominee programs. Layering these on top of the human capital model is pushing us away from our fundamental goal of raising GDP per capita, and this is costing our economy.
I thought I would try a couple of quick analogies. Prime Minister Carney often uses hockey analogies, so I thought I would try one, just to lighten things up. We are heading into the winter Olympics. Let's say that we had decided that the women's hockey team, rather than being based on the best available players, was based on the best available players while ensuring that at least one player comes from each province and territory. That might have value as a policy, as these individual women would be great role models for people in their communities, but I think everyone realizes that it would probably reduce the chances—perhaps dramatically—of winning Olympic gold.
There is no serious discussion of that, but I would argue that this is in the same spirit as our provincial nominee programs.
Similarly, what if the Government of Canada required that professional baseball players needed to be bilingual? It's pretty extreme. I was thinking English-French, not English-Spanish, so it's even more extreme. This policy would greatly limit the choices the Blue Jays organization would have and greatly reduce the chances of winning the World Series.
I would argue that this is in the same spirit as our francophone targets outside Quebec. To be clear, settling francophone immigrants inside Quebec makes perfect sense. I'm not critical of that.
For economic immigrants settling outside Quebec, restricting some fraction to being francophone is very unlikely to have any impact on those communities, yet to achieve this, we may have to divert away from outstanding unilingual anglophone or allophone applicants.
Ideally, the selection of economic principal applicants should be focused on individuals who will have above-average earnings in Canada within, say, 10 years of arrival. When other policy objectives are introduced, we should expect lower earning performance of the immigrants selected. We should also be honest and upfront about the trade-offs involved.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Professor Worswick.
Now we'll turn to Mr. Oldman, who is from the Immigrant Services Society of British Columbia.
You have five minutes.
Jonathan Oldman Chief Executive Officer, Immigrant Services Society of British Columbia
Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today.
I'm speaking to you as CEO of the Immigrant Services Society of BC, or ISSofBC, as a founding member of an initiative called “the Canada we believe in” and as a first-generation immigrant myself.
For 50 years, ISSofBC has helped newcomers build lives in Canada. Each year, thousands turn to us to find work, settle into local communities and improve their language skills. We're part of a vibrant settlement sector rooted in communities right across the country.
Today, however, we collectively face uncertainty and skepticism. Public discourse has shifted from healthy debate based on underlying consensus to being increasingly divisive. The narrative is highly focused on themes of control and security, and our system is too often framed as literally broken. Pressures on social infrastructure are frequently presented in an oversimplified way that inaccurately attributes them wholly to immigration. We're even seeing anti-immigration rhetoric imported from outside Canada that undermines our values and targets newcomer communities.
Public opinion data paints a picture of reducing confidence in economic and social capacity, as well as in support for refugees and newcomer integration. However, research also shows that the more people know about the facts behind immigration, the less concerned they are. Fundamentally, Canadians believe in the positive impact of immigration.
What's missing to help Canadians regain confidence? For many of us, it's a renewed positive vision for immigration—one that reaffirms how a successful immigration strategy is central to Canada's future prosperity, diversity and sustainability.
Nearly 200 diverse civil society, business and community organizations from across the country endorsed the call from “the Canada we believe in” for just such a renewed vision. It's grounded in five key principles.
The first is clearer, more streamlined immigration programs that drive economic growth. Today, our system is still confusing and too fragmented. Meanwhile, in British Columbia, for example, with slow immigration and population growth, labour demand is now projected to exceed supply by nearly 170,000 people over the coming decade.
The second is whole‑of‑government coordination to align immigration with demographic trends and labour force demand, as well as ensuring the necessary community investment. Today, we are still treating these things as separate conversations when they are deeply intertwined.
The third is the repudiation of divisive and counterfactual anti‑immigration rhetoric. In Canada, we may speak many languages and come from many places, but across our differences, we look out for each other.
The fourth is a recommitment to strong humanitarian programs that continue to transform lives and uphold our international standing. Today, too many Canadians are unclear about how different refugee streams work, how we meet our goals and obligations, and how supporting refugees brings communities together.
Lastly and importantly are transparent measures of success that establish clear economic, social and global impacts, with outcomes reported to Canadians. Success defined predominantly in terms of total arrivals and population rates isn't sufficient anymore.
Launched last April, our call is even more urgent today.
Over the course of these hearings, you've heard different specific policy suggestions. However, you've also heard from others, as well as from an increasing number of voices in media, policy and business circles, that now is the moment for a bigger conversation on immigration. We also hear this in day-to-day conversations with ordinary Canadians.
We urge the committee to make two baseline recommendations. First, transform the current levels plan process to a whole‑of‑government, whole‑of‑society approach that coordinates and aligns all the strategic elements and stakeholders. Second, endorse the five principles of “the Canada we believe in” as the baseline for a renewed vision. The time for a reset is now. Canada's future depends on it.
To end, let me tell you about Ebrahim, who is a young refugee from Yemen and a protected person here in Canada. Presented in a certain light, these few words about him may create very particular images and judgments.
What we also need to know about Ebrahim is that he's a software developer, a budding entrepreneur and a community volunteer. “I left everything behind”, he told me when we spoke recently, but he believed that Canada “could be a place where [he] could build a life again.” We owe Ebrahim a similarly positive vision.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you so much, Mr. Oldman.
Last but not least, we have Monsieur Amoussou.
You have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Mr. Amoussou.
Thank you to everyone for their opening comments.
We are now going to go to rounds of questions.
We'll begin with Mr. Redekopp for six minutes.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for appearing today.
I'm going to start with Professor Worswick.
You talked about the way the government has gone towards category-based selection. You then talked further about how it has added other factors, such as language.
Is it fair to summarize your initial comments by saying we're doing it wrong?
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
We are moving in the wrong direction on immigrant selection. I think that's fair to say.
I've focused on category-based selection and provincial nominee programs. We had a model that was working quite well, and it was in place through 2015, let's say. The changes since then, in general, have been problematic in terms of selecting economic immigrants.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
I'm curious about language. I understand what you're saying, that we have a lower score based on which language we speak.
How do you integrate, for example, the French language into the selection of people, based on using what you talked about, which was greater than average earnings, or whatever category? How do you integrate language into something like that?
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
We have a comprehensive ranking system that applies to many, but not all economic programs. That needs to be updated. There was meant to be a rolling update process, but when it was originally created, economists at StatsCan, I believe, looked at earnings of immigrants up to that point and asked, “What factors seem to affect earnings performance?”
You could go back and do that again. If you find that French language fluency raises earnings appreciably in Vancouver, that should be part of the process, but it should be a data-driven exercise.
What a skill is has become controversial. What economists think about human capital is usually measured in terms of earnings. I would suggest that we could take a lot of the politics out of it by agreeing on what the policy goals are—and then let the data drive it.