One Step Forward, One Step Back: Why IRCC Needs to Think Before It Acts

Canada needs immigrants. Immigrants make up for the country’s ageing, shrinking population and contribute to the labour market. 

Yet, in 2023, rising housing costs, shortage of public services, and increasing cost-of-living, changed the political opinion and public sentiment around immigration. The government responded to this pressure by doing a hard U-turn. The “Canada’s doors are open” messaging gave way to “taking back control” and “returning immigration to sustainable levels.” 

Some of the changes that followed were warranted. For instance, the international student program had grown to prioritize quantity over quality. It needed fixing, but perhaps notthe way IRCC did. 

Over the past year and a half, IRCC has repeatedly introduced policy changes that appear to solve one problem while creating others. This raises an important question: when assessing proposed changes, are policymakers considering the broader knock-on effects, or just focusing on fixing a very specific issue at hand? 

Immigration policies and programs don’t exist in silos. Move one piece and there will be ripple effects throughout the system. The key question is whether those ripples are fully explored before new measures are introduced. 

Because in its attempt to ‘take back control,’ the government is making decisions that are directly at odds with the outcomes the immigration system is supposed to produce and require course corrections later. Here are a few recent examples that come to mind. 

Cutting Back on Settlement Services for Economic Immigrants 

If you came to Canada as an economic immigrant, you could previously access federally funded settlement services until the day you become a citizen. This can be as little as three years to indefinitely if permanent residents choose not to get citizenship. IRCC recently announced that this will no longer be the case. 

Starting April 1, 2026, economic class permanent residents will only be able to access settlement services up to six years from when they got their PR. From April 1, 2027, that window shrinks to five years. 

On top of that, stage 2 language training classes will be phased out by September 2026. These are the more advanced English or French programs that help people move beyond basic language skills toward full workplace communication. 

IRCC says the change is about encouraging earlier use and making sure services stay available for those who need them most. It’s a reasonable-sounding argument. But it’s worth asking – Who is actually using these services at the five- or six-year mark? 

According to IRCC’s 2023 Settlement Outcomes Report, 25% of clients using settlement services in 2020-22, across all immigration categories, had been in Canada for six or more years.  

So, who is still showing up at year five or six from the economic class? Often, it’s people navigating credential recognition delays, licensing hurdles in regulated professions, or those re-entering the workforce after a gap. IRCC’s own data shows that when economic class principal applicants do use settlement services, they’re most likely there for employment support — job search skills, workplace language training, credential guidance. Those are the services most directly tied to labour market outcomes.  

Has IRCC considered the ripple effect that will be caused by restricting services that are being used? Those who will no longer have access to settlement services will need to look elsewhere for support. Eliminating free services means they may not be able to afford or get crucial services that impact their ability to economically contribute to the economy. 

This move will also disproportionately impact women with young children or other caregiving responsibilities, who sometimes have to delay entering the job market or improving their language skills. 

This goes against the basic premise on which Canada’s economic immigration system is built: selecting people with the right skills and empowering them to contribute to the economy. 

IRCC had originally planned to invest $1.2 billion on settlement services in 2025-2026. This included a dedicated $95 million for services in French to newcomers settling in Francophone Minority Communities. However, the 2025 federal budget required IRCC to cut costs by 15% over three years, which reduced the department’s funding to $1.12 billion for this year. 

Settlement services are delivered through 570 service provider organizations (not including Quebec), including 80 Francophone service providers in French-minority communities. That raises the question: why not condense certain services to select agencies rather than cut access to services altogether? 

Moreover, how will these cuts impact the ability of French speakers to integrate in Francophone-minority communities? Has IRCC even considered the fact that restricting access to settlement services could make or break their initiative to rebuild French-speaking communities across the country?

Eliminating Job Offer Points & Losing Senior Professionals 

In December 2024, IRCC announced that, starting March 2025, Express Entry candidates would no longer receive additional CRS points for having a job offer. The move was described as a temporary measure to reduce fraud by removing the incentive to illegally buy or sell LMIAs. 

The fraud concern was legitimate. But IRCC had many options available to them to address this. Instead, they chose the most extreme response, and removed the points for everyone, including candidates with genuine, legitimate job offers. 

One unintended consequence of the ripple effect was the impact on senior managers. Under the old system, a job offer in a senior management role — NOC major group 00 — was worth 200 CRS points. That’s a significant number in any context, but especially for this group.  

Senior managers tend to be older and lose CRS points for age. The job offer points kept them competitive in the pool. Removing those points effectively removed their path to permanent residence through Express Entry. 

Less than a year after removing job offer points, IRCC introduced a new Express Entry category specifically for senior managers with Canadian work experience. The first draw saw a CRS cutoff of 429, a more accessible score for experienced executives.  

This raises a straightforward question: in opting for the most extreme option, did they fully assess the impact of removing job offer points for all? If removing the job offer points created a gap in the system significant enough to require a new category, why remove them in the first place? 

There were other ways to address the fraud problem. Stronger LMIA verification, more rigorous employer audits, and targeted scrutiny of high-value job offers would all have gone after the actual source of the issue. IRCC could also have maintained points for LMIA-exempt job offers and applicants already working for the Canadian employer. These could have addressed the underlying issue and not unfairly impacted candidates with legitimate job offers. 

The International Student Cap 

When IRCC announced a cap on study permits in January 2024, some concerns behind it were genuine. International student numbers had grown faster than housing, services, and in some cases, educational standards could keep up.  

Some colleges had dramatically increased their intakes to chase international tuition fees, with little regard for whether students were set up to succeed. IRCC’s international campaigns that promoted studying in Canada as an almost-certain route to PR hadn’t helped. There was also a broader mismatch: the students coming into Canada and eventually staying through Post-Graduation Work Permits and easier PR pathways, weren’t necessarily the ones Canada’s economy needed.  

To IRCC’s credit, the initial measures showed some awareness of that distinction. Master’s and doctoral students were initially exempt from the study permit cap, recognizing that graduate students contribute differently to Canada than college diploma seekers. 

However, the impact of the study permit cap was far-reaching. Post-secondary institutions across the country had built their budgets around international intake staying stable. The sudden caps led to hiring freezes, program reviews, and in some cases, program closures. 

Provinces were also left scrambling. The original January 2024 cap had given provinces just over two months to have a PAL system in place. Somehow, they did. 

Then, in September 2024, IRCC extended the cap into 2026 and brought graduate students under it for the first time. Master’s and doctoral students would now need a provincial attestation letter like everyone else. The rationale was reducing overall temporary resident volumes, without any consideration for the skills and expertise these students bring and their potential to contribute to the economy in the long run. 

The announcement and subsequent measures had serious consequences for the sector and damaged Canada’s reputation as a study destination. 

In January 2026, IRCC reversed course yet again. It re-exempted master’s and doctoral students at public institutions from the cap and PAL/TAL requirement. This reversal was the right decision. But it came after months of uncertainty that led prospective graduate students to choose other countries. 

To repair this damage, Canada is now spending money on a “Learn Canadian” campaign to counter the perception that its doors are closed to international students. The goal is understandable. But it seems like a lot of effort to solve a self-created problem. 

Reacting Isn’t a Strategy 

Each of these examples touches upon a legitimate policy problem. LMIA fraud, budget constraints, and the pressures created by unsustainable temporary resident volumes are all real challenges. Yet in each case, IRCC appears to have prioritised speed and statements over foresight, introducing measures without fully considering the broader impacts. The result has often been a need to manage the unintended consequences after the fact, rather than anticipating how these changes would ripple through the system. 

Canada’s immigration system is not a static machine. It will always need adjusting, so it can work in a manner consistent with the country’s needs. But there is a difference between thoughtful adjustments and reacting to pressure. The past two years have looked more like the latter.  

It is time to take a more deliberate approach to immigration policy change, carefully considering the potential ripple effects and ensuring that any changes produce the intended outcomes, with all things considered. This starts with IRCC treating its own objectives — maximizing the economic benefits of immigration, promoting the successful integration of permanent residents, and facilitating temporary residence — as tests against which every policy change should be measured before it is made.