Marcus Halberstram

🚨MAJOR BREAKING: The Carney Government is investing another $781 million—over 5 years—in failing immigration programs—and wants to add 750,000 immigrants a year. Budget 2026 sets out the 2027–2029 Immigration Levels Plan in Chapter 3.4, targeting 370,000 new temporary resident arrivals and 380,000 permanent resident admissions in each of the three years. Set against the recent past, the document itself cites — 971,815 temporary arrivals in 2023 and 673,650 permanent residents in 2024 — that is a reduction of roughly 62% in temporary arrivals and 21% in permanent admissions. The plan is framed throughout as a return to "sustainable levels," with the cover letter claiming the government has "taken back control of immigration" and an operating goal of pushing temporary residents down to 5% of the population, from around three million today toward roughly 2.08 million. The central mechanism is a pathway allowing up to 200,000 temporary residents already in the country to transition to permanent residency by the end of 2027, with 100,000 workers routed through Express Entry or the Provincial Nominee Program. Because those people are already residents, a substantial share of the 380,000 annual permanent admissions will be internal conversions rather than new arrivals — meaning actual new inflow runs closer to 370,000 temporary plus perhaps 180,000 genuinely new permanent residents. Combined with the departures the plan depends on, net population growth lands somewhere around 100,000 to 250,000 a year, well below pre-2022 levels. The chapter is supported by $151.5 million over five years to reform the Temporary Foreign Worker Program across regional labour market alignment, processing times and employer compliance, plus an International Talent Attraction Strategy and Action Plan worth $1.7 billion over 13 years carried over from Budget 2025. The system itself is funded at $511 million gross over five years, the transition pathway at $302.3 million, asylum processing at $98 million and biometrics at $90 million. The study permit cap is cut by more than half.