Has the Canadian dream become “torment” for immigrants?

Immigration policies entered the political agenda of Canada, which went from a country more open to foreigners to a more restrictive conduct with immigrants

For decades, a combination of safety, employment, quality of life and immigration incentives has attracted millions of immigrants to Canada, including Brazilians, and the country has been seen as a sort of migratory paradise.

While, in recent years, some European countries, such as France and Italy, in addition to the neighbor, the United States are involved in immigration discussions, Canada seemed immune to this problem.

But recently, this favorable climate has changed: the population has complained of the increase in housing costs and the worsening of public services, in many cases the cause of the problems with the increase in the number of immigrants.

Under the pressure, the Canadian government has announced a reduction in the number of immigrants that the country would have received in the coming years and has changed the rules for the granting of work visa and temporary residence.

Today, hundreds of thousands of damned visa requests make immigrants tense and frightened by the future.

This is the case of Caroline Mansur, 27 years old, by Minas Gerais, who lived in Canada for just over three years. It has entered and continues legally within the country.

Mansur says that going to Canada was a childhood dream, held through a visa for young professionals.

Graduated in law, he works in the areas of photography and marketing and his goal was to get a permanent visa, something that seemed relatively simple a few years ago.

“The Canadian dream has also become a torment because of all this immigration situation,” says Mansur.

Identity of Canada

Over the centuries, immigration is a theme that is part of the identity of Canada, an ancient British colony initially inhabited by hundreds of thousands of original peoples.

Country with the second largest territory in the world, Canada already needs people to occupy all this extension of the earth, to work in sectors such as agriculture, mining and more recently in oil.

Therefore, it was centuries that immigration is an integral part of Canada. The immigration law of 1800 defined the country as an immigration company, making the theme part of the Canadian identity.

Therefore, he received immigrants and colonizers from the United Kingdom and France. From the 18th and 19th centuries, the refugees of the war of American independence and immigrants from various European countries began to arrive.

But this identity was also made up of controversial chapters.

Before 1967, the migratory system was practically based on the origins of immigrants: white and European people were encouraged to go to the country on people with different ethnic origins such as Africans and Asians.

In the same way, the Chinese who worked in the country in that century were discouraged to obtain a visa of stay.

Since the late 1960s, the country exchanged this immigration system based on the origins of immigrants for a points system, in which the potential of immigrants was assessed by criteria such as professional qualification, the prospect of obtaining employment and mastery of other languages.

The greater the score, the greater the chances of obtaining the right to immigrate.

At the same time, Canada also attracted foreign students with the promise of a possible stay.

On this wake, more recently, the then Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has adopted a series of measures to open the country to immigrants. In 2017, he went to social networks to say that the country would receive people who are politically persecuted or threatened by wars and terrorism.

This opening reached the peak after the Covid-19 pandemic, when the government has increased the quotas to receive immigrants. The goal was to try to heat the savings of the areas that had been significantly affected by the pandemic, such as health.

Trudeau’s position was repeated after Russia invaded Ukraine and the country was available to receive Ukrainian refugees, thanks to the history of the country to receive Ukrainian immigrants at the end of the 19th century.

The past made the Ukrainian colony very strong in the country even before the war. In a speech of 2022, Trudeau emphasized these ties of the country with Ukraine and its position against the Russian invasion.

The policies inaugurated by Trudeau were also motivated for economic reasons, since Canada showed low birth rates and an accelerated level of aging of its population.

This reduces the economically active population so called, the one that composes mainly the workforce of a country. Therefore, immigration was also a way to attract work, this time in sectors such as services, health and agriculture.

Immigrants and inflation

The result of all this opening is reflected in numbers. Between 2015 and 2024, the Canadian population went from 35 million to 41 million people. Studies show that 90% of this growth was carried out by immigration.

In 2022, almost one in four inhabitants had arrived in Canada as an immigrant.

The three countries that sent most of the emigrants to Canada in the period were India, Philippines and China. According to Itamaraty, 143,000 Brazilians live in the country today.

At the same time, immigration was associated with problems that the country has to face.

A survey conducted by the government on the country’s housing conditions stressed that today there are 2.4 million families who live in small houses with urgent need for important repairs.

This scenario is attributed by some sectors of the country to the increase in the search for ownership generated by the growth of the number of immigrants. But this is not a consent. Some experts attribute this crisis to the absence of a national housing plan.

The association that many Canadians started making immigrants with high inflation rates led to protests in different cities, such as Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary, against immigration.

This is because even inflation rates have increased in recent years, leaving 1.9% in 2019 at a peak of 6.8% in 2022. In 2024, the country ended with the inflation of 2.4%, according to the data of the World Bank.

A company that makes public opinion polls in Canada, the environment, stressed that the number of people who thought that the country was receiving too many immigrants doubled between 2022 and 2024, from 27% to 58%.

The political tension came to this point that he changed his way to Trudeau, admitting that the country had not reached a balance in the issue of immigration.

By the end of 2024, the government has announced a series of measures to reduce immigration. One of them was limited to 437,000 the number of foreign students who must be admitted by 2025, 10% less than 2024.

Another reduced measure from 500,000 to 395,000 the permanent number of residence views to be granted in 2025. And the plan is to reduce even more to 365,000 by 2027.

On the other hand, the country has announced measures to increase the admission of French dispersion immigrants.

The goal was to increase the French -speaking population, given that the country was initially colonized by English and French and the French is also the official language of the country, being particularly spoken in the province of Quebec.

Trudeau’s approval rate before the announcement had reached 22% – well below the first year of its mandate, when 65% of the voters approved their management.

Still under pressure and with low popularity, Trudeau has resigned and announced new elections.

‘Torment’

Trudeau’s successor, Mark Carryy, has promised to curb what they call “unsustainable” immigration levels, proposing, for example, a bill with greater restrictions on refuge requests.

The entire climate influenced the life of those who have chosen Canada in search of better living conditions.

“Uncertainty ends up becoming a torment,” says Brazilian Carolina Mansur.

Since he has not yet finished his permanent visa process, his fear, he says, is to leave the country to visit the family in Brazil and, when he returned, to start a new immigration process or even prevent you from entering the country.

“The changes in immigration have been constant since the end of 2023 here,” he says. Therefore, the “legal insecurity” that believes is enormous.

The Canadian government has informed BBC News Brasil that “Canada remains one of the main destinations for new arrivals and the government continues to deliberately work to manage immigration and guarantee a balanced and sustainable system” and to “align immigration with the ability of Canada to receive and integrate” people.

But Mansur’s story is similar to that of thousands of other immigrants. Like that of Indian friends Pushpinder Bawa and Sukhpal Randhawa, who came from India to Canada as students and were able to obtain permission to work.

Pushpinder works in a warehouse and sukhpal as an application driver.

The two say that today the situation is more complicated for those who decide to immigrate to Canada.

“Compared to three years ago things are much more difficult, before immigrants were not necessary to obtain a permanent visa,” says Sukhpal.

However, the two friends have hope.

“I don’t think the Canadian dream should end. It’s difficult, but it’s not the end,” says Pushpinder.

Source: Terra

Rose

Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.