Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said his party wants to see Canada’s population growth slow drastically, arguing that lax border controls have led to problems with drugs, human trafficking, illegal immigration, and “much worse.”
“We support a stronger border. We want severe limits on population growth to reverse the damage the Liberals did to our system. The population has been growing out of control,” Poilievre told reporters in the House of Commons on June 10.
The Conservative leader said the party wants the Canadian government to “crack down on abuses in the immigration system” and ensure fraud in the country’s refugee system is rooted out.
Poilievre gave the answer on immigration in response to a reporter’s question on the Liberal government’s Bill C-2, which aims to strengthen Canada’s borders. The Strong Borders Act would give Ottawa more control over immigration documents when public health or national security are deemed at risk, while allowing border officials to suspend or change immigration documents and pause the acceptance of new applications if in the public’s interest to do so.
Bill C-2 would also update Canada’s asylum system by simplifying the application process, while taking measures against a sudden increase in asylum claims by introducing new ineligibility rules and strengthening the ability to cancel, suspend, or stop accepting new applications.
Poilievre said the Conservatives wanted to study the legislation to ensure “long-standing Canadians who are following the law are not having their rights and freedoms violated.”
Immigration Discussions
Poilievre has criticized Canada’s immigration system many times, saying in August 2024 that the country needed to have a growth rate that was below that of housing, employment, and healthcare. Poilievre also said fraud and abuse in the temporary foreign worker program had “destroyed what was the best immigration system in the world” and that the number of international students had grown “almost three times as fast as the housing stock.”
Canada’s population grew by nearly 1.3 million people between January 2023 and January 2024, with Statistics Canada noting that 97.6 percent of that growth was due to immigration. Ottawa announced in October 2024 that Canada’s immigration targets would fall from 500,000 new permanent residents in both 2025 and 2026, instead changing to 395,000 in 2025 and 380,000 in 2026.
The Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also promised to lower the number of temporary residents admitted from 6.8 percent to 5 percent of the total population over the next three years.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has also said that too many immigrants were let into Canada over the last few years, putting strains on the country’s sectors such as health care, and said during the election campaign that he would cap immigration until it returns to its sustainable, pre-pandemic trend.
In the recent Speech from the Throne, the government said that Ottawa would cap temporary immigration levels and “attract the best talent in the world to build our economy, while sending a clear message to Canadians working abroad that there is no better time to come home.”
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