Meeting 25 · March 23, 2026 · 11:02–12:59 (1h 57m)
45-11 witness · 445 interventions · 15,077 words
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration met to study the subject matter of the supplementary estimates (C), 2025-26. The committee heard from Scott Harris, Associate Deputy Minister of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, and initially from the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lena Metlege Diab.
Minister Diab stated that the government’s plan to restore control over immigration is working, citing a 53% drop in temporary worker and international student arrivals in 2025 and progress toward reducing non-permanent residents to under 5% of the population by 2027. She outlined that the supplementary estimates include funding for the City of Toronto to support asylum claimants, modernization of digital services, and the passport program, including a new guarantee that passport applications will be processed within 30 business days or be free starting April 1. On Bill C-3, she reported that 1,301 applications for proof of citizenship were processed between December 15, 2025, and January 31, 2026, and she denied seeing a spike in applications, while also noting that some related ads could be fraudulent.
Scott Harris, Associate Deputy Minister, addressed the Auditor General’s report on the international student program, acknowledging that while 150,000 potential non-compliance cases were flagged, the department investigated 4,000 cases in 2023-24 due to resource constraints, but he noted that improved tools and a reduction in flagged cases to 35,000 in 2025 are enhancing capacity. He explained that the department is working with provinces and municipalities to build long-term housing capacity for asylum claimants, such as through the interim housing assistance program, and that the government is not directly housing claimants in hotels. On enforcement, he deferred removal processes to the CBSA and noted that Bill C-12 will strengthen the asylum system, while also clarifying that the 5,000 doctors targeted under express entry include those already in Canada on temporary status. He confirmed that the department consulted over 800 organizations and tens of thousands of Canadians for the 2026-28 levels plan, and that the non-permanent resident population has dropped from 7.6% to 6.5%, on track to meet the 5% target by 2027. He disagreed with the characterization that the department can only investigate 2,000 fraud cases, emphasizing that evolving tools will allow for more efficient follow-ups, and he committed to providing the committee with a list of municipalities that received funding for housing infrastructure.
The committee briefly adopted a $500 budget for the study, and there was procedural debate about the minister’s attendance for only one hour instead of the two hours originally scheduled.
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Scott Harris
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Opening remarks
I will turn to Ms. May if there's additional detail there. I believe the program you're speaking to is a program to recruit graduate students and those in higher-level education in the pursuit of bringing talent to Canada, with an interest in ensuring that we have the skills to build the future and that we remain competitive in attracting top talent to Canada.