OTTAWA — Opposition Shadow Minister for Immigration and Conservative MP for Calgary Nose Hill, Michelle Rempel Garner, issued a sharp critique of the Liberal government following comments made by Prime Minister Mark Carney to the New York Times, in which he indicated that increased immigration levels are on the horizon for Canada.
Rempel Garner pushed back strongly against the suggestion, outlining the Conservative Party’s intent to challenge any policies aimed at expanding target figures.
“The Conservative Party of Canada will vigorously oppose any efforts by Prime Minister Carney and his Liberal government to increase immigration and continue their reckless max migration policies,” Rempel Garner stated. “We will also continue to press for major decreases of immigration levels. Conservatives expect immigration levels to be set much much lower in the upcoming immigration levels report.”
She added that current federal policy has allowed population intake to outpace public infrastructure, putting pressure on housing markets, healthcare systems, and employment opportunities across the country.
The Conservative Party highlighted specific concerns regarding border management and status tracking, alleging that the government lacks a plan to process hundreds of thousands of asylum claims, many of which they characterize as bogus, or to enforce the removal of non-citizens remaining in Canada without legal status, including individuals with expired foreign student visas. Rempel Garner added that federal agencies appear unable to accurately track non-citizens currently residing in or departing from the country.
“Liberal mass immigration policies have created a youth jobs crisis. They’ve caused emergency rooms to overflow. Healthcare wait lists 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 and that’s not fair to anyone,” she said.
Her statement noted that between January and July of 2026, the federal government issued 112,000 new temporary foreign work permits alongside 174,000 new foreign student permits.
“So, to put that in perspective, that’s a city roughly the size of Saskatoon that has been added to the Canadian population this year alone, that’s crazy,” Rempel Garner remarked, emphasizing the scale of the temporary admissions.
Calling for an immediate halt to policies influenced by corporate lobby groups seeking to depress wages and drive-up housing costs, the Conservative Party emphasized that immigration figures must be adjusted downward.
The latest friction comes after years of recalibration in Canada's immigration system. Following record population expansion in 2022 and 2023, public debate intensified over the relationship between immigration rates and the availability of affordable housing and healthcare services.
In response, the Liberal government introduced policy shifts to curb intake such as cuts to permanent resident targets in the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan, reduction of temporary residents to 5% of Canada's total population, imposing a national cap on new study permit applications, stricter eligibility rules for post-graduation work permits, and lowering percentage caps on temporary workers in low-wage sectors and restrictions in areas with elevated unemployment.
Despite these measures, the opposition maintain that temporary resident numbers remain too high and that the government's management of asylum claims and visa overstays continues to strain public resources.
“Conservatives will continue to press the Liberal government to remove non-citizens with no legal reason to be here, massively reduced immigration levels, end the abuse of Canada’s social welfare programs by bogus asylum claimants and vigorously oppose the Liberals mass immigration policies,” Rempel Garner concluded.
