Immigration Levels and Impacts on the Administration of Justice

Via email: alexis.brunelle-duceppe@parl.gc.ca; julie.dzerowicz@parl.gc.ca; michelle.rempel@parl.gc.ca; peter.fragiskatos@parl.gc.ca

Dear Ms. Dzerowicz, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, Ms. Rempel Garner and Mr. Fragiskatos:

Re: Immigration Levels and Impacts on the Administration of Justice

The Canadian Bar Association’s Immigration Law Section appreciates the opportunity to comment on IRCC’s 2025 consultation on immigration levels. The Canadian Bar Association (CBA) is a national association representing 40,000 lawyers, notaries, academics, and law students across Canada. The Immigration Law Section has approximately 1,200 members who practise in all areas of immigration and refugee law. Our mandate includes improving the law and the administration of justice.

While the Section does not wish to pronounce on specific numerical targets, it is concerned that significant reductions in immigration levels will have adverse downstream effects on administration and access to justice, as is already being experienced. Access to justice also encompasses clarity of program rules, transparency in decision-making and processing times, and timely, fair administrative processes. Lower levels without careful attention to unwanted impacts will lead to more judicial and administrative reviews, more contested proceedings before the Federal Court and Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), and more enforcement-related litigation. These effects will exacerbate backlogs, overburden adjudicative and enforcement bodies, and reduce access to timely justice.

Processing Delays and Quota Pressures

Lower targets already prompt offices to hold files until quota space becomes available, creating delays and uncertainty. A clear illustration of such an issue can be seen in the projected wait times for new applications in 2025 in specific categories with lower planned admissions, such as the start-up visa (420 months), Agrifood (228 months), or caregivers (108 months)¹.

With lower planned admissions and without clear guidance on whether in-system files will be carried over, returned, or refused once targets are met, applicants lack clarity on the “case to be met.” Retroactive returns of provincial nominee applications have further eroded predictability and trust in the Canadian immigration system. We have addressed this issue and offered recommendations in our recently published document, entitled "Law, Technology, and Accountability: Reimagining Canadian Immigration for the 21^st Century," more specifically in Chapter III.² Such a lack of predictability can further fuel litigation and contribute to Federal Court backlogs, which are now overwhelmingly comprised of immigration cases.

Loss of Status and Resulting Claims

Reduced levels increase the number of temporary residents who are unable to transition to permanent status or renew their permits. Over one million temporary resident statuses are set to expire in the coming year. Without realistic avenues to extend or secure permanent status, many temporary residents will remain without authorization. Prior government policies, such as the 2021 initiative encouraging international students to stay after their studies, created a reasonable reliance on viable pathways. Reducing levels undermines those expectations, forcing many who are unwilling to remain without authorization to pursue judicial reviews, humanitarian applications, refugee claims, or other legal processes to maintain their status, thereby creating further inventory backlogs.

Enforcement Pressures

Lower immigration levels will inevitably leave more temporary residents without status, creating a larger undocumented population. This will require greater CBSA enforcement activity. Increasing removals will generate more stay motions and judicial reviews, all of which must be processed by the Federal Court, which is already overwhelmed by the more than quadrupling of its workload since 2022, with no additional resources. High-profile enforcement operations, especially those tied to level-driven status loss, are also likely to prompt public-interest litigation.

Labour Market Disruption

Restricting permanent residence pathways for workers in critical sectors forces more reliance on the LMIA process, which has high refusal rates. Each refusal or contested LMIA decision can lead to review or appeal, adding to caseloads. Short 12-month permits, often used when permanent options are unavailable, create repeated renewal points, which raises refusal risks and litigation. These constraints can deprive employers of specialized workers, prompting contractual disputes and business losses, which significantly impact the Canadian economy, leading to costly and resource-consuming legal challenges. For example, in June 2025, 23 Quebec businesses launched a $300 million lawsuit over temporary foreign worker permit restrictions, showing how level decisions can rapidly escalate into significant litigation.³

International Students and Work Permit Holders

Capping work permits or permanent residence pathways will also directly affect the roughly three million international students and work permit holders currently in Canada. Many of them, along with their families, have made life choices based on the expectation of transitioning to permanent status. When reduced levels of support intersect with post-graduation work permit eligibility or other transition points, more individuals will fall out of status and turn to judicial reviews, appeals, or humanitarian applications. These systemic effects are not abstract. These are reflected in the lived experiences of international students and temporary foreign workers who are presently facing uncertainty, disruption, and legal disputes.⁴

As per a CBA resolution dated February 8, 2024, we urge IRCC to increase transparency and synchronize the number of temporary residents with permanent residence targets to address the potential for abuse by foreign students and workers who have made such choices based on representations regarding a pathway to permanent residence.⁵

Conclusion

For the reasons discussed above, reducing immigration levels without careful consideration of their impact on the administration of justice and access to justice issues will not simply change intake numbers; it will create or exacerbate negative consequences and, in turn, trigger more applications to courts, tribunals, and enforcement bodies. These filings will lengthen backlogs, overextend resources, and further delay resolutions of matters. The downstream effect is apparent: a diminished capacity to deliver timely and fair outcomes, and a measurable weakening of access to justice.

The Immigration Law Section stands ready to work collaboratively with the Government to help ensure that any immigration levels plan safeguards the administration of justice and preserves fair, timely access to legal processes.

Yours truly,

(original letter signed by Noel Corriveau for Jatin Shory)

Jatin Shory
Chair, CBA Immigration Law Section

End Notes