Ottawa has soft-launched a promised program to transition current work permit holders to permanent residence, as soaring numbers of migrants are running out of status in Canada, says Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab.
The highly anticipated program is set to offer permanent status to 33,000 skilled temporary foreign workers in in-demand sectors over two years. It was announced in November, but officials have been mum about it since.
“We have launched it already,” Diab said during an interview with the Star this week, where she also touched on questions about her competence. “I am not in a position to tell you specifically how many so far, but we will in the month of April be able to provide more clarity and more detail on them.”
Government data showed that 2,125,035 temporary residents had their permits expire in 2025 and another 1,938,805 are expected to run out of status in 2026. The questions of where they have gone and will end up have prompted concerns over a potential surge of undocumented population.
Prime Minister Mark Carney made a campaign promise last year to reduce the non-permanent resident population to under five per cent of Canada’s overall population by 2027, down from the 6.8 per cent as of December.
Transitioning temporary migrants to become permanent is one way to shrink the temporary resident population. Last year, said Diab, more than half of the 395,000 people who were brought into permanent residency were in Canada on temporary permits.
“If you’re in Canada on temporary status, be it visitor, be it student, be it worker, for whatever reason you wish to stay longer than the time limit, we are saying please apply for an extension,” said Diab, who spoke virtually to the Star in a rare media interview amid a string of meetings in Saskatchewan.
“If you do not apply for an extension, we expect you to honour that commitment and leave. What we are also saying is even if you did apply for extension, it may be granted or it may be rejected for various reasons. If it is then rejected, we expect you to also leave.”
The federal government is currently trying to ram the controversial Bill C-12 through Parliament, which would give immigration officials the power to cancel, pause and suspend documents and applications if it’s in the “public interest” to do so. Diab maintained that officials won’t use this authority as a tool to clear staggering immigration backlogs.
“It’s exceptional powers,” she said. “There are many eyes that will have to go on a decision like this.”
The immigration minister’s priorities
Diab said she is focused on the immigration priorities set in Carney’s mandate letter: reducing temporary resident numbers; stabilizing permanent resident admission levels at under one per cent of Canada’s total population beyond 2027; ensuring 12 per cent of new permanent residents will be francophones settling outside Quebec by 2029; and implementing an international talent attraction strategy.
A former immigration minister in Nova Scotia, Diab said she is working closely with her provincial counterparts as well as local communities and employers to address their needs. But their interests don’t always align and it requires constant balancing act.
