TORONTO — For months, Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab said a program to transition 33,000 temporary residents to permanent residents had been “soft launched” and that details were coming. On April 18, in a video interview on social media, she said criteria would come “very very very soon” and that larger cities would be excluded. Today, IRCC finally released the details – that these 33,000 transitions to PR are not a new program, but simply accelerated processing of applications already in the system. The Minister’s misleading and irresponsible statements created false hope for tens of thousands of migrants who hoped this program would be their chance at a future in Canada.
What the government published today under the name “In-Canada Workers Initiative” is a list of existing pathways to PR, including some that are already closed: the Agri-Food Pilot closed to new applicants in May 2025; the caregiver pilots are paused until 2030.
The Minister lied, plain and simple. And these lies have had real impacts: consultants across the country advertised their services, charging migrants exorbitant fees to prepare their applications. Migrants were told to book language tests and gather tax records. Migrants desperate for a chance at PR did everything they could, paying hundreds and thousands of dollars, trying to maintain status, hoping against hope.
More than 2.3 million temporary residents will have had their permits expire in 2025 and 2026. At least 2.69 million migrants are in Canada today on temporary permits. Another half a million are undocumented. The majority of these people came to Canada with promises of pathways to permanent residency only to have the rules changed on them or watch these pathways evaporate. Today’s announcement is another slap in the faces of migrants who are sustaining communities across this country.
“Prime Minister Carney’s government prefers to win good press through fake promises and selling old policies as new ones. They toyed with the lives of millions of people who were already living with uncertainty, exploitation, and fear, while never intending to deliver. Migrants didn’t just spend money chasing this promise, they have spent years waiting in abusive jobs, separated from their families, waiting for Canada to keep its word. And yet again, Canada deceived them. Migrants have had enough of these games – we demand permanent resident status for all now.”
The Migrant Rights Network calls on the government to stop the deception and to commit to genuine permanent resident status for all migrants without exclusions.
The Migrant Rights Network’s minimum requirements letter is available at: https://migrantrights.ca/wp-
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Media contact: Syed Hussan, 416-453-3632, hussan@migrantworkersalliance.