This House of Commons committee meeting on Citizenship and Immigration continued its study of Canada’s immigration system. Witnesses appearing were Margareta Dovgal, a public policy analyst; Allan Ralph Basa, a caregivers policy reform advocate; Daniel Hengeveld, vice-president of investment attraction at Toronto Global; Doug Parton, business manager of Ironworkers Local 97; Shamira Madhany, managing director of World Education Services; and Peter Copeland, deputy director of domestic policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
Margareta Dovgal argued that Canada’s value-neutral approach to immigration has eroded public trust, administrative fairness, and social cohesion, citing polling that shows 49% of Canadians view immigration negatively. She recommended that immigration policy prioritize public safety and societal cohesion, enforce laws against criminals and those who game the system, and move beyond postnationalism to define a unifying Canadian identity, noting that her own family’s experience showed the consequences of failing to invest in linguistic integration.
Allan Ralph Basa testified that caregivers face severe backlogs and low caps, with only 4,200 of 34,000 applications processed in 2025 under the home care worker immigration pilot’s 5,500 cap, leaving many in limbo and vulnerable to exploitation. He urged the committee to increase immigration levels for caregivers, improve processing capacity, and grant provisional open work permits upon application receipt to prevent caregivers from falling out of status due to systemic delays.
Daniel Hengeveld reported that global companies investing in the Toronto region are concerned about unpredictability in work permit renewals, status changes, and permanent residency pathways for senior leaders, which creates business risk and personal strain. He recommended clearer communication on application timelines, realistic service standards, and dedicated streams for senior talent central to major investments, while noting that Canada remains attractive overall.
Doug Parton stated that the temporary foreign worker program’s construction stream is being used as a business model for cheaper, untrained labour, suppressing wages by up to $10.44 per hour and undermining apprenticeship training for Canadian youth. He recommended requiring union consultation before approving trade-related LMIAs, using collectively bargained wages as benchmarks, restricting TFW access to employers with apprenticeship plans, and pausing approvals pending a review.
Shamira Madhany emphasized that over 20% of Canadians are over 65 and that skills mismatches cost up to $50 billion in GDP annually, with 47% of internationally educated health care professionals underemployed. She recommended creating a cross-departmental coordinating body for levels planning, a national skills strategy with harmonized credential recognition and labour mobility, and clear transition pathways from temporary to permanent residency for long-term contributors.
Peter Copeland argued that Canada’s immigration system has prioritized openness over integration, leading to declining social trust, strained services, and weakened national identity, citing a drop in generalized trust from 54% to the mid-forties. He recommended linking immigration levels to absorptive capacity in housing and health care, making long-term residency conditional on integration metrics like labour market participation and civic literacy, and learning from models like Denmark’s to strengthen social cohesion.
The committee also heard from members in rounds of questions, with exchanges covering topics such as the impact of immigration on youth jobs, the need for amnesty for out-of-status caregivers, and the importance of provincial integration models like Quebec’s interculturalism. No procedural debate, motions, or votes occurred during this meeting.
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