Plugging Annoying Immigration Leaks
The government is finally addressing the problems, but some things aren't going away
It’s been around 18 months since the Liberal government admitted that their decade-long signature policies on immigration had all been a big, unfortunate (and destructive) mistake. Oopsie. Oh well. Oh hey, did you see those cool F-35 videos from Iran?
Getting back to immigration if you don’t mind, have the facts on the ground actually changed since late 2024? The short answer is “yes.” And that’ll be your long answer, too. According to official figures, Canada’s population increased by just two-tenths of one percent between Q4 2024 and Q4 2025 (compared with 2.5 percent over the previous 12 months).
By the fourth quarter of 2025, the number of foreign work permit holders had dropped by more than five percent since the Q4 2024, and there were 28 percent fewer study permit holders here.
What about refugee claimant numbers? Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada reports that “34 percent fewer people submitted an asylum claim in 2025 compared to 2024” and that they “saw a 56 percent drop in asylum claims from TRV (temporary resident visa) holders in December 2025 compared to December 2024.” So not only are fewer people filing refugee claims at the border, but the TRV-to-asylum flow also seems to be drying up.1
Who says opinion polls don’t matter? It looks like even creaky old governments can get stuff done if they’re sufficiently motivated.
Assuming those reports are accurate, I guess that’s all good news for the country’s long-term economic stability.
However, that’s not quite the whole story. It’s no secret that a big part of the problem with immigration in Canada is how the refugee processing system is, to put it gently, chronically backed-up. Hundreds of thousands of individuals were applying for asylum or stranded somewhere along the process.
How many hundreds of thousands? According to Statistics Canada, the total number of asylum claimants, protected persons and related groups2 in Canada in Q4 2025 was 504,767. That’s an increase of 17 percent over a year earlier.
How can that number grow at the same time as new asylum claims are, as we just saw, dropping?
Well that’s because previous waves of claimants have still not been processed through the system. And that, it would seem, is largely because there are at most 700 or so members of the Immigration Refugee Board (IRB) to screen applicants and around 100 federal judges available to hear judicial reviews.
Why the government originally thought it was a good idea to encourage refugee applications at a scale far beyond any realistic ability to manage them is a mystery for the ages. But the fact that the IRB faces an impossible task introduces serious real-world consequences.
Besides the incredibly costly build up of claimants - often receiving public support - waiting for their cases to be completed, there’s intense pressure on IRB members to process as many applicants as possible in as short a time as possible.
As the whistleblower report presented by this thread on X reveals, it takes far less time and effort for an IRB member to say “yes” to an applicant that to say “no”. Apparently - as is documented by the data provided here - some officials are much better at resisting the pressure than others.
Specifically, there are members whose “recognition rate” (i.e., the percentage of “yes” decisions issued by a given member) is below 20 percent, and others whose rate is 100 percent. To be sure, some of that disparity is due to members who specialize in particularly high- or low-risk countries of origin. But that’s certainly not the whole story.
The whistleblower’s analysis of the Refugee Law Data site data apparently found a strong correlation between low recognition rates and briefer employment at the IRB. In other words, members who say “yes” more often last longer in their jobs.
This clearly isn’t good. Besides the real risk of admitting dangerous criminals into the country under the guise of refugees, the whole mess is costing us a fortune.
Related:
What Drives Canada's Immigration Policies?
Popular opposition to indiscriminate immigration has been significant and growing in many Western countries. Few in Canada deny our need for more skilled workers, and I think most of us are happy we’re providing a sanctuary for refugees escaping verifiable violence and oppression. We’re also likely united in our support for decent, hard working economic immigrants looking for better lives. But a half million new Canadians a year is widely seen as irresponsible.
Does Immigration Drive Up Canadian Housing Prices?
The Free Press recently published a fascinating article claiming that immigration is not a significant cause of housing cost increases in the U.S. I’m not sure I’m completely convinced by their arguments, but the piece immediately got me wondering about Canada. Is there a meaningful relationship between the massive waves of immigration we’ve experienced…
Is the Temporary Foreign Worker Program Being Abused?
Are there jobs that Canadians just won’t do? There appears to be credible evidence that there are. But is the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) in its current form the most effective tool to address labour shortfalls? In the context of some systemic opportunities for the exploitation of some foreign workers and of serious unemployment here at home…
These data points seem to disprove rumors I’ve been seeing about large numbers of holders of expiring foreign permits submitting refugee claims.
Here’s how Statistics Canada defines those categories: “an asylum claimant refers to a foreign national who has made a refugee claim while in Canada on a temporary basis and whose claim is pending decision. Protected person refers to a person who has made a claim in Canada and received a positive decision. For population estimates, protected persons leave this population if they obtain permanent residence. Related groups include those who received a negative decision, or withdrew or abandoned their claim and have not yet regularized their status or departed Canada.”
When your basement is flooded, shutting off the water is only the first step - and the government hasn't even fully done that.
How many of these claimants are a part of the new nastiness which is making itself manifest in numerous protests revolving around tribal differences which have been imported into Canada from their former homelands.