I was part of express entry back in 2018-19. When I first came to Canada and went through this program, it was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in my life. I genuinely could not believe there was a country doing immigration correctly. I remember telling all of my friends, “This is incredible. They actually understand how to prioritize and rank skilled candidates, and give them potential opportunities to integrate into the economy.”
After 2020, the immigration system became haphazard. This happened for three reasons.
First, there were a lot of one-time measures introduced as a result of COVID to make up for the labour shortages that were going on.
Second, the immigration numbers were increased very blindly. If you look at the immigration levels plans, they kept going higher and higher every year.
Third, there was a lot of ignorance of the fraud going on. We all knew it was happening. I'm very sure people on this committee heard quite a bit about it when it started. They didn't really stop it until it started to become such a big problem that they had to radically overcorrect and stop a lot of programs in their tracks.
The biggest trend I noticed is the ballooning of numbers without thinking about the consequences, and turning a blind eye to a lot of fraud.