'We're taking back control': Carney defends his record on immigration after damning auditor report

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney defended his government’s record on immigration on Wednesday, following a report from the auditor general this week that showed the international student program lacked proper controls.

“We’re taking back control on immigration,” said Carney, on his way into a cabinet meeting.

“You’ve seen temporary worker numbers down by 50 per cent, asylum claims down by a third,” he said. “New foreign student numbers down by 60 per cent since this government came in, and 100 per cent investigations since 2025, which is as long as I’ve been prime minister.”

Carney’s comments come two days after a new report by the auditor general’s office showed Canada’s immigration department in a two-year period only investigated a fraction of the 153,000 international students flagged for non-compliance and potential fraud.

Between 2023 and 2024, the department only had the capacity to investigate over 4,000 cases. When the cases were investigated, the department took “limited action” in confirming non-compliance beyond contacting the student for more information.

The audit also highlighted that the department failed to follow up on 800 cases where fraudulent documents were used. The report also found that the department failed to monitor which students were expected to leave each year and which students had left the country.

In response to the report, Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab said her department would be centralizing investigations and sharing more information with the Canada Border Services Agency. Diab also said since 2025, 100 per cent of the discrepancies reported were “followed up.”

Diab was not immigration minister during the period that was audited, instead, it was Marc Miller, who is now the heritage minister, and Sean Fraser, now the justice minister.

On Tuesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Carney should fire Diab, Miller, and Fraser over their handling of the immigration file.

In 2022, the Canadian population grew by more than one million people, thanks to record immigration designed to ease labour shortages. In 2023 and 2024, Canadian attitudes towards immigration hit a 30-year low, according to the immigration department’s own tracking surveys.

The Liberal government reversed course on some of its immigration policies starting in 2024, bringing in stricter rules for work and study visas, while also introducing an international students cap.

The government’s 2025-2027 Immigration Levels Plan projected a decrease in overall permanent resident admissions to 395,000 in 2025. Canada let in a total of 393,530 people in 2025, compared to 483,655 in 2024.

The 2026-2028 levels plan stabilizes permanent resident admission targets at 380,000 per year for three years, while setting a target for new temporary resident arrivals at 385,000 in 2026 and 370,000 in 2027 and 2028.

Canada’s population shrank by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2025, marking the country’s first decrease since the COVIC pandemic in 2020.

The department’s 2024 online tracking survey showed that when informed the target was 395,000 for 2025, 63 per cent of Canadians still thought that figure was too many, while 28 per cent thought it was either about right or too few.

National Post

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