Ottawa, ON – The Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner, Conservative Shadow Minister for Immigration, released the following statement in response to Prime Minister Mark Carney telling the New York Times he wants to increase immigration levels:
“Prime Minister Mark Carney recently suggested to the New York Times that an increase in immigration levels is on the horizon.
“Let me be perfectly clear – the Conservative Party of Canada will vigorously oppose any efforts by Prime Minister Carney and his Liberal government to increase immigration. We will also continue to press for major decreases of immigration levels. We expect immigration levels to be set much, much lower in the upcoming immigration levels report.
“That’s because the Liberals keep allowing too many people in too fast for housing, health care and jobs to keep up. While Mark Carney has claimed he has taken back control of immigration, he has no plan to clear hundreds of thousands of asylum claims – many of which are bogus. He has no plan to remove millions of non-citizens who have no legal reason to be in Canada, including illegal migrants and foreign students whose visas have expired. Worse, it’s becoming evident with inconsistencies in Statistics Canada data that Mr. Carney’s government can’t even accurately track how many non-citizens are in the country or if they’ve left.
“Liberal mass immigration policies have created a youth jobs crisis, have caused emergency rooms to overflow, health care waitlists across the country to spiral out of control, have placed massive strain on social welfare programs and provincial education systems, have made rent skyrocket, and have broken Canada’s consensus on immigration.
“On top of all these issues, Prime Minister Carney’s government has issued 112,000 new Temporary Foreign Work permits and 174,000 foreign student work permits between January and July of 2026. That’s a city roughly the size of Saskatoon added to the Canadian population in the first six months of this year alone.
“Immigration levels must go way down, not up. Mark Carney’s government must stop catering to lobby groups who press for mass immigration that depresses wages and increases housing costs.
“Conservatives will continue to press the government to remove non-citizens with no legal reason to be here, massively reduce immigration levels, end the abuse of Canada’s social welfare programs by bogus asylum claimants, and vigorously oppose the Liberal’s mass immigration policies.”