Immigration has become one of Canada’s defining national debates yet the country’s own government admits it doesn’t actually know how many people are living here without legal status. That’s not a small oversight; it’s a striking sign of how unprepared Ottawa is to manage the consequences of its own policies.
During a recent House of Commons Immigration Committee hearing, Deputy Immigration Minister Harpreet Kochhar made a quiet but extraordinary admission: Canada doesn’t collect data on undocumented migrants. “We would not have any estimation of those who do not have a particular status in Canada,” he said. In other words, the federal government is steering the immigration system without a clear picture of who’s actually in the country.
This isn’t merely a bureaucratic technicality. Immigration policy from temporary work permits to international student visas is one of the main engines driving Canada’s record population growth. Since 2020, the population has surged from 38 million to over 41.7 million. But with that growth has come mounting strain: on housing, healthcare, and employment.
An April 24 briefing note from the immigration department acknowledged that there are no accurate figures for the number of undocumented migrants in Canada. Estimates suggest the figure could be as high as 500,000. Half a million people living in the country with no clear legal status that’s equivalent to the population of Halifax and London, Ontario combined and the government doesn’t have reliable data on them.
It’s not just about who’s undocumented. Kochhar also admitted that Ottawa doesn’t track whether temporary foreign workers are actually employed in the jobs their permits were issued for. That raises serious questions about oversight and exploitation both of migrant workers and of the system itself.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) painted an equally concerning picture. Its vice-president of enforcement, Aaron McCrorie, told the same committee there are about 30,000 people currently awaiting deportation and that number never truly goes down. “As we remove people, new people are added to our inventory,” he said, comparing it to a revolving door.
If the government doesn’t know where these individuals are or how many have criminal records as McCrorie admitted how can it credibly claim to have “secure borders”?
Meanwhile, Ottawa is trying to project control by trimming immigration targets. The government has capped international student permits and announced plans to reduce temporary residents from 6.5% to 5% of the population over three years. Immigration Minister Lena Diab insists this is about making the system “sustainable.” But sustainability starts with knowing the facts and right now, the facts are foggy at best.
Canada’s immigration success has always relied on balance: openness paired with order, generosity backed by accountability. When that balance slips, so does public trust. The federal government may be eager to show compassion and ambition in immigration policy, but if it can’t even count who’s here and who isn’t, it risks losing the confidence of Canadians and undermining the very system it says it wants to protect.
