Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 27th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 29 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members.

Those who are on Zoom, please click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

For those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation: either floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I will let you know when you have only one minute left.

As always, kindly wait to be recognized by me. I will recognize you by name. I will also remind everyone to please not speak over each other, as it will be hard for our interpreters to translate, and it will make their job difficult. Of course, please ensure that all your comments are addressed through the chair.

For members in the room, please raise your hand if you wish to speak.

Members, as you all know, please raise your hand if you wish to speak. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on September 16, 2025, the committee is resuming its study of Canada's immigration system.

I would now like to warmly welcome our witnesses for our first panel today. All of them are in the room. We do not have anybody virtually for this first panel.

From Amnesty International Canada, we have Marisa Berry Méndez, campaigner, French-speaking section. From Battista Migration Law Group, we have Joycna Kang, partner. From La Passerelle-Intégration et Développement Économique, we have Léonie Tchatat, founder and executive director.

I'd now like to welcome all the witnesses.

Up to five minutes will be given to each one of you for opening remarks, after which we will proceed with rounds of questions.

We will begin with Ms. Méndez for five minutes.

Your five minutes begin right now.

[Marisa Berry Méndez, Campaigner, French Speaking Section, Amnesty International Canada]

Thank you very much.

Good morning, everyone.

I am speaking to you today on behalf of francophone Amnesty International Canada, a human rights organization that operates worldwide.

To contribute to the discussion surrounding Canada’s immigration system, which appears to be at a crossroads, I would like to highlight some recent setbacks regarding human rights within our refugee protection system. Next, I would like to address the persistence of a systemic problem within our immigration system.

At a time when authoritarianism is on the rise worldwide, attacks on migrants and refugees are often a harbinger of broader attacks on human rights. We don’t have to look far to find examples of this. We would like Canada to stand apart from these trends, but we are concerned.

Over the past few decades, Canada has built a refugee protection and resettlement system that served as a model on the international stage. Recently, however, we have observed a troubling erosion of this system and of Canada’s commitment to those in need of protection.

Bill C‑12, newly passed and widely criticized by advocacy groups, is a direct attack on the right to asylum. In addition to being counterproductive and unfounded, recent budget cuts to the interim federal health program, or IFHP, pose another affront to refugees’ rights. The recent massive reduction in the private sponsorship of refugees program is appalling, especially since it is one of the most renowned, effective and cost-effective programs for the government. The number of refugees resettled by the government has also dropped—at a time when every country should be doing more to address global crises and conflicts.

I will now move on to my second topic: discrimination in our permanent and temporary immigration systems.

As you are no doubt aware, the points system for selecting economic immigrants, which is still in use today, was established in 1967. Among its goals was to eliminate the explicit and discretionary discrimination that characterized the immigration selection process. However, although discrimination based on race or ethnic origin is no longer explicit, Amnesty International notes that the points system itself is discriminatory.

The discrimination stems from the way temporary migration programs, such as the temporary foreign worker program, or TFWP, are used to meet certain labour needs. Most people brought in under this program—the vast majority being racialized people who come to fill so-called low-skilled positions—are excluded from permanent immigration, since work experience in low-skilled positions is not rewarded in the points system.

Yet we know that these jobs are often essential in the agri-food, manufacturing and health care sectors, among others. We need these people to meet labour demands, but rather than allowing them to immigrate, we allow them to enter the country under the TFWP, a program that fosters exploitation.

These migrant workers are not eligible for family reunification and must endure long, painful periods of separation from their families in order to work in Canada. These same migrants—who are racialized and fill low-skilled jobs—are therefore overrepresented among victims of abuse under the TFWP, while having practically no access to permanent residence or the rights associated with permanent residency status. We need these people, but we trap them in an abusive system, and their status is precarious.

To meet Canada’s human rights obligations, Amnesty International recommends eliminating the eligibility criteria for economic immigration, criteria that result in discrimination against workers in so-called low-skilled positions. In other words, economic immigration should admit workers regardless of their skills. Excluding low-skilled workers is discriminatory and runs counter to Canada’s international obligations.

Finally, Canada must decide what direction it wants to take. Does it want to remain a country known for its commitment to human rights and build on what we have already achieved? Or will it instead allow discrimination to persist and dismantle a protection system that enriches Canadian society and profoundly changes the lives of those who find refuge here?

Amnesty International is calling on us to do everything in our power to create a Canadian immigration system that truly values human rights.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you.

Ms. Kang, you have five minutes beginning now.

[Joycna Kang, Partner, Battista Migration Law Group]

Good morning, honourable chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

I'll begin with very brief remarks about myself. I am an Ontario-based lawyer and partner at Battista Migration Law Group, a Toronto-based immigration and refugee law firm. Our firm specializes in assisting the LGBTQ+ community in navigating the immigration system.

Today, I want to focus my remarks on the immediate and on-the-ground impacts that immigration lawyers like myself are seeing and have been observing since the passage of Bill C-12.

To begin with the broader context, as of December 31 of 2025, there were just under 300,000 refugee claims pending before the IRB. There's no question that this represents a significant backlog, and I recognize that one of the primary intentions behind Bill C-12 was to reduce the number of fraudulent claims entering or remaining in the queue. However, what we have seen in practice since this legislation came into force has not been an orderly reduction in backlog, but rather a climate of confusion, urgency and, in many cases, panic.

In particular, the imposition of an arbitrary timeline has resulted in hundreds of genuine refugee claims being caught in the crossfire. Individuals with legitimate protection needs are being excluded or disadvantaged, not because their claims lack merit but because they do not conform to a rigid procedural deadline.

This has had a disproportionate impact on certain vulnerable groups. For example, claimants with diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics often require time to come to terms with their identity and to feel safe in disclosing it. Many of these individuals come from places where education on this topic is so limited that they do not possess the cultural understanding or even the vocabulary to begin discussions. It is neither realistic nor humane to impose a fixed timeline on such a deeply personal and often difficult internal journey.

Bill C-12 has not actually resolved the issue of backlog. Instead, it has effectively shifted the volume of cases from one highly trained decision-maker to a much less qualified one. This shift raises serious concerns from a legal perspective. PRRA officers do not receive the same level of specialized training as IRB decision-makers do in assessing complex refugee protection claims. In my experience, there is a higher likelihood of rejection by a PRRA officer than by an IRB decision-maker due to the officers having less training and errors in applying the law. This leads to more unreasonable refusals, which in turn generate an increase in judicial review applications before the Federal Court, thereby transferring and compounding the existing backlog at another level of the system. This does not effectively target the issue of fraudulent claims.

I want to be clear, the objective of maintaining integrity in the asylum system and preventing fraud is both valid and necessary. Canada must have mechanisms in place to ensure that the refugee protection system is not abused. However, these mechanisms must be effective and proportionate. Concerningly, this new legislation unfairly punishes the masses on the basis of a few bad actors.

This is not the only example of overly broad policy aimed at curbing fraud having this type of effect. I note that in March 2025, IRCC announced the removal of points for job offers in the express entry system, citing a significant increase in fraudulent LMIAs as the issue. However, rather than introducing more stringent oversight and reporting requirements for employers seeking LMIAs, points were removed from all applications in the system, impacting thousands of highly skilled and qualified candidates who had gained those points credibly.

We are seeing these same effects with the passage of Bill C-12. The introduction of a strict one-year time limit to make a refugee claim does not meaningfully deter fraudulent claims. What it does do is capture genuine individuals who may have initially pursued other immigration pathways in good faith based on policies and promises provided by the Canadian government for a path to permanent residence.

The new refugee eligibility criteria are premised on the assumption that a genuine refugee claimant will always seek asylum at the first possible opportunity. This assumption is highly inconsistent with established jurisprudence. Canadian courts have repeatedly held that a delay in making a claim is not determinative of whether that claim is genuine.

In closing, I would urge this committee to consider whether the current legislative approach is truly addressing the challenges that it set out to solve, or whether it is instead displacing them while increasing the vulnerability of those the system is meant to protect.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Ms. Kang.

Ms. Tchatat, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Léonie Tchatat, Founder and Executive Director, La Passerelle - Intégration et Développement Économique]

Good morning, Madam Chair and committee members.

My name is Léonie Tchatat. I represent La Passerelle, an organization that has been supporting francophone immigrants from Black and racialized communities for 28 years.

One central question guides my remarks this morning. Canada knows how to attract people, but does it know how to integrate them and retain them in the long term? Progress has been made, partly thanks to the 9% target for francophone immigration outside Quebec by 2026, but success depends on what happens after people arrive.

The reality on the ground is clear. Black and racialized francophone immigrants face economic, systemic and language barriers. Racialized francophone youth are two to three times more likely to live in poverty. Some groups have unemployment rates exceeding 20%. This is not due to a lack of skills. It is due to an integration problem. That must be clearly articulated. Racism is a real barrier, particularly when it comes to employment, housing and access to services. Francophone immigration will not be fully successful if racism continues to be treated as a peripheral issue.

Canada is good at selecting talent, but once people arrive, they run into several persistent obstacles, such as credential recognition, the requirement for Canadian work experience, administrative delays, or the housing crisis. The entry system is effective, but integration remains an uneven process.

In Ontario, these challenges are amplified by the minority francophone context, where access to French-language services remains limited. When the system fails to deliver, organizations step in. We support thousands of people every day at La Passerelle, but the needs far exceed our capacity.

In 2025, we opened Agapanthe, the first francophone transition house for Black refugees of African descent. This is a significant step forward, but it also highlights gaps in the system.

Moreover, the asylum system remains complex and difficult to navigate, which makes people's situations even more precarious. Yet these communities are essential to Canada's future. Nearly half of Toronto's francophones were born abroad. Their success is a strategic issue.

Today, we have an immigration strategy, but we still lack a fair integration strategy. I therefore propose four courses of action: accelerate the recognition of diplomas; invest in tailored integration models; explicitly incorporate the fight against racism as an integration and retention lever in Canada's francophone communities; and measure success through concrete results in terms of employment, housing and retention.

In closing, I would say that an immigration policy is successful when people can live with dignity and fully contribute to society. Immigration has to work for everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you for your remarks.

We will now begin the first round of questions.

Mr. Davies, you have six minutes.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for making the trip to Ottawa today.

Ms. Kang, you've argued that Canada's immigration system suffers from policy volatility. What specific structural reforms would prevent the recurring cycle of expansion, abuse and sudden restriction?

[Joycna Kang]

Thank you for the question.

I would propose more training for existing decision-makers at the IRB. The IRB already has a system to assess the genuineness of claims that are before them for determination. Hiring more highly qualified and skilled decision-makers will help make an impact on the backlog that exists and is very real. What doesn't work, in the opinion of myself and my colleagues who are seeing the impacts of this bill on the ground, is shifting that burden of decision-making to a much less qualified body or avenue. We're seeing the impacts in backlogs at the Federal Court. The court is already backlogged. I believe the court is on track to see several more immigration-related proceedings in 2026 than they did in 2025. This is a direct result of more unreasonable refusals across the scope of immigration applications.

While I understand the need for streamlined procedures and the effective use of our resources, we cannot let that overshadow Canada's international obligations to avoid sending people back to situations of violence.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I have limited time here.

Would you agree that the system is failing because of policy design, or is it because departments like IRCC are failing to execute the existing policy effectively?

[Joycna Kang]

I would say it's both. I would say policy design needs to change on some level, with more discussions with key stakeholders, such as immigration lawyers and migrant rights groups. At the same time, IRCC's implementation of those policies is oftentimes not transparent and leaves a lot to the imagination in terms of why something went wrong or how somebody could resolve it.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

That leads me to a connected question. You pointed out that poor decision-making is a driver of litigation. What specific failures at IRCC or the IRB are generating these judicial reviews?

[Joycna Kang]

What we commonly see is a misapplication of the legal test for what makes a refugee claim genuine and what deserves protection, in Canada's eyes. Oftentimes, PRRA officers don't properly handle the evidence that is being provided to them. There are sweeping generalizations made. There's a failure to engage with evidence that contradicts their conclusions.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Can I interrupt you? Do you have concrete examples of this happening? Is this systemic, or is it anecdotal?

[Joycna Kang]

I would say it's systemic. I deal with a lot of cases at the Federal Court that have these factors present in them. PRRA officers, and even some IRB officers, will prefer their own evidence, which leads to certain conclusions that support their findings that a claim is not warranted refugee relief, while also ignoring evidence that is tendered in the claim that directly contradicts those findings. That's a very common error that we see.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

That's interesting.

Where do you think Parliament should draw the line between evolving human rights protections and maintaining a manageable asylum system? Can you have both?

[Joycna Kang]

I think you can have both. I think it's something that isn't going to be solved very quickly or overnight. It's something that will take a lot of discussions among various stakeholders throughout the system.

I want to reiterate that I think it's important to strike that balance. Canada has limited resources, of course, and we need to make sure we're using them effectively while still balancing our obligation against non-refoulement.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I think I have time for one more question.

You suggested that international students are being used as collateral damage in reforms. How do you respond to evidence that asylum claims from students have surged into the tens of thousands?

[Joycna Kang]

Thank you for asking that question. I wanted to talk about this in my remarks.

I think there's a bit more confusion about why that has happened. We're seeing a very big increase in claims from international students recently because of the changes to postgraduate work permit eligibility rules. A lot of these students came here on the premise, and the promise of the Canadian government, that they would receive work permits after they finished their programs.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I'm sorry, but can I just follow up on that? The cohort of students who are graduating still have access to work permits. It's the newer ones coming into the country now who have limited access to postgraduate work. Do you agree with that?

[Joycna Kang]

No, not necessarily. If your work permit application was filed before a certain date, and I believe it was November 2024—

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Yes, it was 2024.

[Joycna Kang]

—then you continue to access the rules that were in place prior. However, for many students who have had to extend their programs or who changed programs before these new eligibility rules came into play, they did so with the understanding that their new programs or their extended programs would still qualify them for postgraduate work permit status. A lot—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Ms. Kang.

Thank you, Mr. Davies. You'll have to continue in the next round.

Now, we have six minutes for Ms. Zahid, please.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses. My questions are directed towards Madame Tchatat.

Madame Tchatat, from your work at La Passerelle supporting Black and racialized francophone newcomers, how important are strong francophone immigration targets to addressing the labour shortages and also supporting the vitality of francophone minority communities outside of Quebec?