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I understand people feel frustrated when life plans don’t pan out but permanent residence was never promised to everyone. This transition from a temporary resident to a permanent resident was never a guarantee.
Maybe the government never promised it, but someone in their life probably did (for a fee, of course).
But that is their issue. If you're someone that lives in India and can't spot a scam then I'm not sure about your intelligence, especially if you're allegedly putting your family's life savings into this.
And therein lies the truth. They likely knew it was a scam but thought it would somehow work out anyway if they got here one way or another and began pleading. That's certainly one impression that Canada gives off about welcoming illegal immigrants if they can find a way in the door.
Living in Canada is a privilege, not a right. They were not invited, they applied to come. No guarantees. And the utter arrogance in the CBC article to hold a sign saying, " we built Ontario".... unbelievable.
If they want to blame someone, blame the sketchy brokers and visa services back in India. They sold false dreams and made promises that were not theirs to make. Not Canada's fault.
The first guy has a pretty good chance of getting in if he gets his PhD.
“I am done with Canada. I've done everything I could do for this economy. And then, if this is how I'm going to be treated, then I'm sorry, no thank you. I'm a human too,” Ankit Kumar Patel said.
Meanwhile, the second guy here has finally realized that he was never valued as "talent", but that he and hundreds of thousands of others in the same position were gears in a system created by the corporations and sponsored by the feds to suppress Canadian wages.
She said there were 2,600 applicants under the now-suspended trades stream. She called on the government to reopen the applications and give them "due process."
And speaking of wage suppression, here's the NDP again showcasing why they got decimated in the last election by advocating for foreign workers instead of the Canadian workers whose wages end up suppressed because of them.
I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion he’ll be accepted into a PhD program, competition is actually pretty tight right now. A lot of good domestic students didn’t get the kind of offers they were expecting and are applying for grad school.
It’s absolutely unbelievable that the NDP supports mass immigration of low wage workers into Canada. I just don’t understand why they’re fully abandoning their worker party roots
this is why the NDP lost so many votes in Southern Ontario to the CPC. they don't stand for workers or unions anymore. they're like the party of university professors and activists.
I was a card carrying member of the NDP for a long time, when I stopped my monthly payments I made sure they knew exactly why.
I'm a Windsorite, a former NDP stronghold, and they absolutely need to get back to their roots of supporting Canadian workers if they want votes back.
I don't blame immigrants for taking advantage of the current/previous systems in place. I hold no ill-will toward someone who's just trying to better their situation. That said, the status quo is bad for Canadian workers, and that needs to take priority.
This issue completely discombobulates like 90% of leftist - this is among the most pro-labour argument you can have - but it’s as if as soon as the topic of immigration is introduced, they’re bafflingly on the side of corporations seeking to undermine wages
Champagne socialist to the core. There are parts of every party that I like and that I hate and the NDP over the past however many years has leaned into the parts I hate. I usually vote for the more pragmatic party. It’s not a left vs right thing so much as pragmatic vs ideological. The liberals became more pragmatic under Carney I can finally vote for them. Look at all the NDP provincial governments they are all way more pragmatic than their federal counterparts. I wonder why they are more successful.
Because esoteric social issues made them seem virtuous and that gave them a certain gravitas they could never achieve with labour who just gave them votes.
Also to claim these people are not getting due process is a bit off. We are not talking about habeas corpus, or any other charter right. Yes our government made a big error with our immigration policy and these folks have every right to be livid about it. However, Canada does not owe them hearings or any process to grandfather their application while we switch to a new criteria.
We fucked it up and now we have to unfuck it by being dicks, it sucks but we have to do it. All we can offer is an unsatisfactory apology.
I think all immigrants, no matter who you are and where you are from, should not expect the Government of Canada to hold their hands in the immigration and integration processes. Rules changes all the time and it is responsibility of the applicant to adopt and this is explicitly outlined on the IRCC website.
Canada and our politicians are being lobbied to keep these temporary visa holders in Canada when they actually no longer qualified per IRCC rules. That is not right!
I am myself is a decedent of South Asian parents. My parents 30 some years ago obey the rules of then CIC, now IRCC. So I have ZERO sympathy!
some of the most upset people about the immigration system are immigrants who came here in the 60s/70s and 80s who didn't get any of the same advantages immigrants are getting now and being part of the community, also see how much abuse of the system there is.
Exactly. Some people think that my family is jealous or don't want other South Asian immigrants to succeed in Canada.
But the truth and the fact is, there are a lot of people in the NEW immigrant communities cheat the system, find illegal shortcuts, etc. to get their residency here. That is driving people like mom mad because they worked hard to live in a country with law and order like Canada.
We have nothing against immigrants. We just don't have sympathy for those who seek sympathy when they very well knew that IRCC may change polices and now asking for a legal loophole to break those policies to be here. That is what pissing off my parents and honestly I too.
More than a year later, on Nov. 14, the provincial government, in an update posted an on the ONIP web page, announced the indefinite suspension of the program's skilled trades stream due to fraudulent applications in the system.
I’m honestly not thrilled with that solution, it veers into collective punishment territory. The government should be searching for ways to verify applications and provide extensions until they can do so.
No, I'd rather the government not waste their time and resources on that. It's easier to suspend the programs entirely and overhaul it later when wages and unemployment are under less pressure. It's clear that all the different pathways into the country are rife with fraud and they need to be desperately overhauled. If we lose a few legitimate applicants along the way then so be it. You cant make an omelette without breaking a couple of eggs.
It's clear that all the different pathways into the country are rife with fraud and they need to be desperately overhauled. If we lose a few legitimate applicants along the way then so be it.
If it's collective punishment to suspend programs that are rife with fraud and have contributed to wage supression, housing unaffordability and higher unemployment then collective punishment it must be. PR was never a guarantee and nothing is owed to these people.
Your alternative appears to be hoping that the incompetent Ford government spends their time and resources developing proper checks and balances to weed out all the various fraud in their immigration programs, while indefinitely providing extensions to temporary residents who the federal governemnt is relying on to leave to help restore housing affordability and ease the pressure on unemployment. Good luck to you if you think that's at all a viable solution.
I agree that the program should be suspended and immigration curtailed back to 2015 levels. But these people came here based on the older program, and a significant portion surely operated in good faith. I can’t in good conscience support the summary rejection of every application.
No they didn’t, these pathways come and go pretty often. They clearly say that being invited to apply is not a guaranteed nomination. Also, no one disclose that in their student permit application that the reason for studying is for an immigration pathway
How is it collective punishment? The program was shut down due to widespread fraud. The lack of integrity is what makes Canadians lose support for immigration. The government should retool the program than invite applications.
Suppose I’m grading an assignment, and find a lot of cheating. So I decide to give everyone a zero + a strike on their academic record. Would you feel good about that?
It’s perfectly acceptable to stop accepting new applications. But you still need to evaluate people as individuals.
That’s happens all the time. If there is suspected widespread fraud that threatens the integrity of an exam or a standardized test those get cancelled and get redone.
People aren’t being given a zero, the pathway is being suspended. They are free to apply for other pathways
You don’t need to evaluate current applications. That’s the point the level of fraud is so systemic and high with this particular pathway, that this cannot be done without investing in specialized process/resources. Why should the taxpayers do that when other pathways do not have those issues?
I've been in that exact situation and what ends up happening is the professor scraps the assignment and makes everyone start over on a new assignment, which is fair.
Collective punishment refers to a war crime, nobody is being punished because Ontario decided to overhaul its nominee system. Nobody is entitled to PR based on having a temporary visa. Punishment would be the withholding of something someone was entitled to.
So the Ontario/Federal government have finally decided to fix this problem, and here comes the NDP talking about how this is such a terrible thing. Not only are they completely offside with public opinion, there aren't even any votes to win here, as these people cannot vote.
The employers and the communities that depend on those workers need them, she said. In northern Ontario, Gilmour said, whole communities are counting on these trades workers.
As with anything in life the devil is in the details. A master / phd student in AI (or any relevant domain) is the type we should be highly encouraging. Did this government aim to capture those H1B professional from US? We have a freaking minister of AI under this government. Immigration should be put under control yes, but we should aim at capturing/retaining the best talent in the process.
We’re not actually hurting for tech workers in Canada. The Amazon/EA offices in Vancouver are full of people doing the exact same work as the Seattle offices for 70% of the salary.
The comment isn’t in relation to highly skilled / special talent stream candidates. The comment was in relation to the trades stream which was subjected to the rampant fraud described in the article:
She said there were 2,600 applicants under the now-suspended trades stream. She called on the government to reopen the applications and give them "due process.”
The program has been terminated with these comment:
In an emailed statement, the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development said the move is in line to better meet current and future labour market needs in Ontario.
“This decision was made following a comprehensive review that found evidence of systemic misrepresentation or fraud in applications to the skilled trades stream,” the statement said.
“Examples of these systemic compliance and enforcement concerns include falsified information relating to work experience claims, including manufactured payroll records, inaccurate or falsified income documentation, and forged employer reference letters.”
NDP is supposed to be pro-worker, pro-environment, pro- reconciliation but adding low skilled workers just suppresses wages, adds colonizers and strains the environment. makes zero sense why they would be supporting business on this esp when public opinion is so against them.
“So, 2026 is going to be tough for a lot of people… 2026 is going to be a year of enforcement… IRCC’s going to scrutinize every single application with more diligence than they ever did before.”
It is remarkable that IRCC was not scrutinizing every single application with diligence. Do this, and enforce removal orders, and Canadians would likely be happy even with reasonably high levels. The rubber stamping mandate given under the Trudeau era is the true scandal of the immigration file.
They have been scrutinizing every application, in fact they are notorious for rejecting applications that even contain a minor error. However in many cases it's just not easy for them to know whether documents presented in support of an application are genuine or are forged.
It’s well known that fraud and abuse were rampant in various programs under the previous Liberal government - there are countless examples of the issues and supposed steps the last government announced to start addressing the issues:
There are many more examples but really the fact Carney and co. are implementing tough measures now should be sufficient to demonstrate the previous government was soft.
Exactly! That statement above means that IRCC was not doing their job at the first place and now they will in the future. It should be IRCC's primary job to scrutinize applications.
Based on the statement above, IRCC has not been doing that and now they will. What a joke!
None of the streams these students took inherently guaranteed PR though. Yes it sucks for them that Canada and its provinces have exercised their discretionary powers over immigration levels which affects their PR outcomes, but that was part of the deal. If these are indeed 'exceptional' talents, you'd think having the critical capability to understand your immigration situation is within cognitive reach. If someone promised them something and they got grifted, go after the grifter rather than bemoaning a country exercising its sovereignty.
Bingo. I know people who went abroad as expats in my industry and were summarily told a few years later "we've now developed our industry domestically to the point where we no longer need expats to work in this field, so you are going to have to leave now". They didn't whine and stamp their feet to the media -- they knew that it was not a lifetime assignment in those countries and that their time there was always going to be temporary, even if they wanted to stay longer. It was explicitly part of the arrangement that they were there temporarily and it was never a promise of permanent settlement.
The sense of entitlement from some of these people in these recent articles is insane. The one from the other day where somebody here on a temporary work permit to wash dishes at some restaurant complaining that they aren't going to be able to get citizenship from that really sticks in my mind as a big example of this -- you are unskilled help doing a job that anybody who can walk and talk can do, you aren't owed what amounts to a lottery win (citizenship in a G7 nation) just because you can do what most other people on this planet can.
Tbf the person featured in the article is a Master's student, who wants to pursue a PhD from UofT or Waterloo. He is a legitimate student and one ideally that Canada should be aiming to keep.
I'm positive he is able to understand his situation (he's making plans to get his PhD in New Zealand), but he is still allowed to feel discouraged
Why? Having a masters degree doesn’t make you an economic contributor alone. You also don’t need PR to get admitted to a PhD program with funding if you have enough merit
Has he actually been accepted, or was he in the process of applying? Companies aren’t hiring juniors right now, so this is the first time in a while that we’re having a lot of good domestic students apply for grad school. I think competition has actually been a much tighter than usual, especially in CS.
You have to keep in mind that part of the reason Canada has so many international students at the graduate level is we have the lowest graduate/postdoc pay in the developed world. Graduate school for good students is only worth the opportunity cost if you get a work permit at the end, or if you’re obsessed with the subject matter (which is why I turned down a job as an actuary to do a PhD in CS/logic).
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I understand people feel frustrated when life plans don’t pan out but permanent residence was never promised to everyone. This transition from a temporary resident to a permanent resident was never a guarantee.
Maybe the government never promised it, but someone in their life probably did (for a fee, of course).
But that is their issue. If you're someone that lives in India and can't spot a scam then I'm not sure about your intelligence, especially if you're allegedly putting your family's life savings into this.
And therein lies the truth. They likely knew it was a scam but thought it would somehow work out anyway if they got here one way or another and began pleading. That's certainly one impression that Canada gives off about welcoming illegal immigrants if they can find a way in the door.
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Living in Canada is a privilege, not a right. They were not invited, they applied to come. No guarantees. And the utter arrogance in the CBC article to hold a sign saying, " we built Ontario".... unbelievable.
If they want to blame someone, blame the sketchy brokers and visa services back in India. They sold false dreams and made promises that were not theirs to make. Not Canada's fault.
The first guy has a pretty good chance of getting in if he gets his PhD.
Meanwhile, the second guy here has finally realized that he was never valued as "talent", but that he and hundreds of thousands of others in the same position were gears in a system created by the corporations and sponsored by the feds to suppress Canadian wages.
And speaking of wage suppression, here's the NDP again showcasing why they got decimated in the last election by advocating for foreign workers instead of the Canadian workers whose wages end up suppressed because of them.
I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion he’ll be accepted into a PhD program, competition is actually pretty tight right now. A lot of good domestic students didn’t get the kind of offers they were expecting and are applying for grad school.
It’s absolutely unbelievable that the NDP supports mass immigration of low wage workers into Canada. I just don’t understand why they’re fully abandoning their worker party roots
this is why the NDP lost so many votes in Southern Ontario to the CPC. they don't stand for workers or unions anymore. they're like the party of university professors and activists.
The NDP virtue signals just as much as the CPC does, but the CPC is better at it.
I was a card carrying member of the NDP for a long time, when I stopped my monthly payments I made sure they knew exactly why.
I'm a Windsorite, a former NDP stronghold, and they absolutely need to get back to their roots of supporting Canadian workers if they want votes back.
I don't blame immigrants for taking advantage of the current/previous systems in place. I hold no ill-will toward someone who's just trying to better their situation. That said, the status quo is bad for Canadian workers, and that needs to take priority.
This issue completely discombobulates like 90% of leftist - this is among the most pro-labour argument you can have - but it’s as if as soon as the topic of immigration is introduced, they’re bafflingly on the side of corporations seeking to undermine wages
Champagne socialist to the core. There are parts of every party that I like and that I hate and the NDP over the past however many years has leaned into the parts I hate. I usually vote for the more pragmatic party. It’s not a left vs right thing so much as pragmatic vs ideological. The liberals became more pragmatic under Carney I can finally vote for them. Look at all the NDP provincial governments they are all way more pragmatic than their federal counterparts. I wonder why they are more successful.
Precisely why I’m an independent
Because esoteric social issues made them seem virtuous and that gave them a certain gravitas they could never achieve with labour who just gave them votes.
Their solution to fix tfw by handing out mass PRs is a wonderful example of missing the forest for the trees.
I think that was the dumbest policy I read about last election lol
Also to claim these people are not getting due process is a bit off. We are not talking about habeas corpus, or any other charter right. Yes our government made a big error with our immigration policy and these folks have every right to be livid about it. However, Canada does not owe them hearings or any process to grandfather their application while we switch to a new criteria.
We fucked it up and now we have to unfuck it by being dicks, it sucks but we have to do it. All we can offer is an unsatisfactory apology.
I agree with you.
I think all immigrants, no matter who you are and where you are from, should not expect the Government of Canada to hold their hands in the immigration and integration processes. Rules changes all the time and it is responsibility of the applicant to adopt and this is explicitly outlined on the IRCC website.
Canada and our politicians are being lobbied to keep these temporary visa holders in Canada when they actually no longer qualified per IRCC rules. That is not right!
I am myself is a decedent of South Asian parents. My parents 30 some years ago obey the rules of then CIC, now IRCC. So I have ZERO sympathy!
some of the most upset people about the immigration system are immigrants who came here in the 60s/70s and 80s who didn't get any of the same advantages immigrants are getting now and being part of the community, also see how much abuse of the system there is.
Exactly. Some people think that my family is jealous or don't want other South Asian immigrants to succeed in Canada.
But the truth and the fact is, there are a lot of people in the NEW immigrant communities cheat the system, find illegal shortcuts, etc. to get their residency here. That is driving people like mom mad because they worked hard to live in a country with law and order like Canada.
We have nothing against immigrants. We just don't have sympathy for those who seek sympathy when they very well knew that IRCC may change polices and now asking for a legal loophole to break those policies to be here. That is what pissing off my parents and honestly I too.
I’m honestly not thrilled with that solution, it veers into collective punishment territory. The government should be searching for ways to verify applications and provide extensions until they can do so.
No, I'd rather the government not waste their time and resources on that. It's easier to suspend the programs entirely and overhaul it later when wages and unemployment are under less pressure. It's clear that all the different pathways into the country are rife with fraud and they need to be desperately overhauled. If we lose a few legitimate applicants along the way then so be it. You cant make an omelette without breaking a couple of eggs.
Right, collective punishment.
If it's collective punishment to suspend programs that are rife with fraud and have contributed to wage supression, housing unaffordability and higher unemployment then collective punishment it must be. PR was never a guarantee and nothing is owed to these people.
Your alternative appears to be hoping that the incompetent Ford government spends their time and resources developing proper checks and balances to weed out all the various fraud in their immigration programs, while indefinitely providing extensions to temporary residents who the federal governemnt is relying on to leave to help restore housing affordability and ease the pressure on unemployment. Good luck to you if you think that's at all a viable solution.
I agree that the program should be suspended and immigration curtailed back to 2015 levels. But these people came here based on the older program, and a significant portion surely operated in good faith. I can’t in good conscience support the summary rejection of every application.
No they didn’t, these pathways come and go pretty often. They clearly say that being invited to apply is not a guaranteed nomination. Also, no one disclose that in their student permit application that the reason for studying is for an immigration pathway
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How is it collective punishment? The program was shut down due to widespread fraud. The lack of integrity is what makes Canadians lose support for immigration. The government should retool the program than invite applications.
Suppose I’m grading an assignment, and find a lot of cheating. So I decide to give everyone a zero + a strike on their academic record. Would you feel good about that?
It’s perfectly acceptable to stop accepting new applications. But you still need to evaluate people as individuals.
That’s happens all the time. If there is suspected widespread fraud that threatens the integrity of an exam or a standardized test those get cancelled and get redone.
People aren’t being given a zero, the pathway is being suspended. They are free to apply for other pathways
You don’t need to evaluate current applications. That’s the point the level of fraud is so systemic and high with this particular pathway, that this cannot be done without investing in specialized process/resources. Why should the taxpayers do that when other pathways do not have those issues?
I've been in that exact situation and what ends up happening is the professor scraps the assignment and makes everyone start over on a new assignment, which is fair.
Collective punishment for collective fraud. That is it.
Collective punishment refers to a war crime, nobody is being punished because Ontario decided to overhaul its nominee system. Nobody is entitled to PR based on having a temporary visa. Punishment would be the withholding of something someone was entitled to.
What in this governments track record offers any evidence that they are capable of fixing a process?
So the Ontario/Federal government have finally decided to fix this problem, and here comes the NDP talking about how this is such a terrible thing. Not only are they completely offside with public opinion, there aren't even any votes to win here, as these people cannot vote.
Sure they are
This is why the NDP is going nowhere. They can never read the room
They needed to hire a consultant from the US to tell them they need to focus on "lived experiences" of the average Canadian.
This is why Kinew and Eby have no place in the federal party. They are too results oriented and fail too many purity tests.
Avi Lewis is an activist-journalist who parachuted into a strike with a megaphone in South America. He is the personification of the modern party.
It's as if anyone but their supporters know they are just a party of virtue signalers.
As with anything in life the devil is in the details. A master / phd student in AI (or any relevant domain) is the type we should be highly encouraging. Did this government aim to capture those H1B professional from US? We have a freaking minister of AI under this government. Immigration should be put under control yes, but we should aim at capturing/retaining the best talent in the process.
We’re not actually hurting for tech workers in Canada. The Amazon/EA offices in Vancouver are full of people doing the exact same work as the Seattle offices for 70% of the salary.
The comment isn’t in relation to highly skilled / special talent stream candidates. The comment was in relation to the trades stream which was subjected to the rampant fraud described in the article:
The program has been terminated with these comment:
NDP is supposed to be pro-worker, pro-environment, pro- reconciliation but adding low skilled workers just suppresses wages, adds colonizers and strains the environment. makes zero sense why they would be supporting business on this esp when public opinion is so against them.
It is remarkable that IRCC was not scrutinizing every single application with diligence. Do this, and enforce removal orders, and Canadians would likely be happy even with reasonably high levels. The rubber stamping mandate given under the Trudeau era is the true scandal of the immigration file.
They have been scrutinizing every application, in fact they are notorious for rejecting applications that even contain a minor error. However in many cases it's just not easy for them to know whether documents presented in support of an application are genuine or are forged.
My application was returned because I didn’t provide enough information about my parents.
Who have been dead for decades.
It’s well known that fraud and abuse were rampant in various programs under the previous Liberal government - there are countless examples of the issues and supposed steps the last government announced to start addressing the issues:
TFW program - staff literally being told to prioritize processing times and skip fraud prevention: https://www.thestar.com/business/government-officers-told-to-skip-fraud-prevention-steps-when-vetting-temporary-foreign-worker-applications-star/article_a506b556-5a75-11ef-80c0-0f9e5d2241d2.html
Express Entry program - jobs for sale has been the worst kept secret since 2020: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2024/12/canada-takes-action-to-reduce-fraud-in-express-entry-system.html
There are many more examples but really the fact Carney and co. are implementing tough measures now should be sufficient to demonstrate the previous government was soft.
Exactly! That statement above means that IRCC was not doing their job at the first place and now they will in the future. It should be IRCC's primary job to scrutinize applications.
Based on the statement above, IRCC has not been doing that and now they will. What a joke!
None of the streams these students took inherently guaranteed PR though. Yes it sucks for them that Canada and its provinces have exercised their discretionary powers over immigration levels which affects their PR outcomes, but that was part of the deal. If these are indeed 'exceptional' talents, you'd think having the critical capability to understand your immigration situation is within cognitive reach. If someone promised them something and they got grifted, go after the grifter rather than bemoaning a country exercising its sovereignty.
They know bemoaning the grifter will get them nowhere. But bemoaning the government might get them change.
Bingo. I know people who went abroad as expats in my industry and were summarily told a few years later "we've now developed our industry domestically to the point where we no longer need expats to work in this field, so you are going to have to leave now". They didn't whine and stamp their feet to the media -- they knew that it was not a lifetime assignment in those countries and that their time there was always going to be temporary, even if they wanted to stay longer. It was explicitly part of the arrangement that they were there temporarily and it was never a promise of permanent settlement.
The sense of entitlement from some of these people in these recent articles is insane. The one from the other day where somebody here on a temporary work permit to wash dishes at some restaurant complaining that they aren't going to be able to get citizenship from that really sticks in my mind as a big example of this -- you are unskilled help doing a job that anybody who can walk and talk can do, you aren't owed what amounts to a lottery win (citizenship in a G7 nation) just because you can do what most other people on this planet can.
Tbf the person featured in the article is a Master's student, who wants to pursue a PhD from UofT or Waterloo. He is a legitimate student and one ideally that Canada should be aiming to keep.
I'm positive he is able to understand his situation (he's making plans to get his PhD in New Zealand), but he is still allowed to feel discouraged
Why? Having a masters degree doesn’t make you an economic contributor alone. You also don’t need PR to get admitted to a PhD program with funding if you have enough merit
it's not like canada has cut student visas to zero. if he gets selected, he'll be able to stay but it is a privilege, not a right
Has he actually been accepted, or was he in the process of applying? Companies aren’t hiring juniors right now, so this is the first time in a while that we’re having a lot of good domestic students apply for grad school. I think competition has actually been a much tighter than usual, especially in CS.
You have to keep in mind that part of the reason Canada has so many international students at the graduate level is we have the lowest graduate/postdoc pay in the developed world. Graduate school for good students is only worth the opportunity cost if you get a work permit at the end, or if you’re obsessed with the subject matter (which is why I turned down a job as an actuary to do a PhD in CS/logic).
Are they ever? I feel like companies haven't been hiring my entire life.
They were hiring like crazy 4/5 years ago.