Bill C-12 Is Now Law: Changes to Canada’s Immigration and Asylum System

The changes fall into four areas: new eligibility rules for asylum claims, a modernized asylum process, expanded information-sharing powers, and new government authority over immigration documents and applications. 

The government says the changes are designed to reduce pressure on the strained asylum system. They are also meant to close loopholes and deter people from using the asylum system as a “shortcut” to regular immigration pathways. Critics, however, say that the provisions go further than necessary to meet those goals and will put vulnerable people at risk.  

Here’s what the passing of Bill C-12 has changed: 

Key Takeaways 

• Bill C-12 is now law, making significant changes to Canada’s immigration and asylum system.
• The government can now cancel immigration documents and applications for large groups in certain public interest situations.
• New rules bar asylum claims made more than one year after a claimant’s first entry into Canada.
• A mandatory five-year parliamentary review will assess whether the law is achieving its intended goals.

New Government Powers Over Immigration Documents and Applications

The provisions give the government new authority to cancel, suspend, or modify immigration documents and pause or cancel application processing. This can be done for large groups of people at once, through a single order.

Under the new law, the Governor in Council (Cabinet) can issue an order to:

• Cancel, suspend, or change immigration documents such as work permits, study permits, visitor visas, and permanent resident visas
• Pause or stop accepting new applications
• Cancel or suspend the processing of applications already in the system

These orders must be approved by the full Cabinet, published in the Canada Gazette, and reported to Parliament. A new order is required each time the powers are used. The government says the powers are intended for exceptional circumstances: large-scale fraud, administrative errors, public health emergencies, or national security concerns.

However, the Canadian Bar Association flagged that the term “public interest” is vague and is not defined in the legislation itself. There is also no requirement to notify individual document holders whose documents have been cancelled or suspended.

Internal government documents, cited by CBC, suggest the powers were partly designed with country-specific situations in mind. India and Bangladesh were mentioned as examples, linked to a sharp rise in asylum claims from international students. Between 2023 and 2024, asylum claims by international students nearly doubled, reaching over 20,245 in 2024 alone. Then-Immigration Minister Marc Miller said some of those claims appeared to be false, and that students had been counselled into making them by outside consultants.

The document and application cancellation powers would allow the government to act on a group of documents or applications at once, rather than case by case. This creates a real risk of broad orders targeting groups defined by nationality or document type. It could also sweep up legitimate applicants alongside fraudulent ones, with no individual notification and limited recourse.

New Eligibility Requirements for Asylum Claims: The One-Year Rule

The most contested provision involves who can make a refugee claim in Canada.

Under the new rules, if more than one year has passed since a claimant first entered Canada, their claim will not be referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) for a full hearing. This rule only applies to people whose first entry into Canada was after June 24, 2020. This applies regardless of whether they left Canada and returned in the meantime. The clock starts at the first entry, not the most recent one.

A second rule affects people who crossed into Canada from the U.S. between official ports of entry (this means irregular entry outside official border entry points, including land crossing). If someone entered that way and waited more than 14 days to file their claim, it will also not be referred to the IRB.

Both rules apply retroactively to claims made on or after June 3, 2025.

If a claim falls under either rule, the affected people can still apply for a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA). The PRRA is a process that reviews whether returning an individual to their home country would put them at risk of persecution, torture, or serious harm.

The Canadian Bar Association (CBA), Amnesty International, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the Senate’s own Social Affairs Committee had all raised concerns about these provisions before the bill passed.

The CBA called the one-year rule “arbitrary and without legal justification,” pointing out that delay in making a claim should not, on its own, disqualify someone from a hearing.

The Senate Social Affairs Committee had previously recommended extending the one-year window to five years, but their recommendation was rejected.

These changes are expected to have significant impact. For context, in Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab had told the Senate committee that approximately 37 per cent of asylum claims filed between June 3 and October 31, 2025, would be disallowed under the one-year rule. That represents roughly 19,000 applications which now stand to be cancelled without a hearing.

Although the objective of the legislative changes is to rule out fraud, based on the presumption that someone who faces a serious risk of persecution, torture, or death would claim asylum at the first possible opportunity, that may not always be the case.

For instance, it can take years before LGBTQIA+ claimants and survivors of trauma, torture, or gender-based violence feel safe enough to disclose their identity or share their experiences. The legislation also does not account for situations where someone first entered Canada with no basis for a claim at the time, but whose circumstances changed later. Under the current wording, someone who first entered Canada as a child on a family visit could be barred from making a conventional claim years later, even if they later faced genuine risk.

Critics, including the UNHCR, have raised concerns that the new eligibility rules may mean that Canada no longer complies with its international obligations. The 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Canada is a signatory, places no time limits on when someone can make a refugee claim.

A Modernized Asylum Process

Beyond the eligibility changes, the law also updates how asylum claims are received and processed. These changes will roll out over the coming months through updates to immigration regulations.

The updates include:

• Simplifying the online application process to reduce duplicate forms,
• Referring only complete and verified claims to the IRB,
• Removing inactive cases from the system, and
• Ensuring the IRB decides claims only while the claimant is physically present in Canada.

If a claimant voluntarily returns to their country of alleged persecution before a decision is made, their claim will be considered abandoned.

The government frames these as efficiency measures that will benefit genuine refugees by reducing wait times. Critics argue the real effect is to reduce the number of claims reaching the IRB at all, shifting backlogs rather than resolving them.