Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre lambasted Prime Minister Mark Carney’s immigration policies on Thursday, calling for a period of “net-negative immigration” and more aggressive reforms to Canada’s asylum system.Speaking at a press conference in Calgary on Thursday, he said that reducing the total number of incoming migrants — both permanent and temporary applicants — will give Canada time to catch up on housing, healthcare, and an ever-uncertain job market.“The overall number needs to go down,” he said. “Over the next several years we need more people leaving than coming.“That’s net-negative immigration.”The comments come in the wake of a recent Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) report stating that 599 foreign nationals with criminal records have gone missing in the country.Poilievre emphasized the need for Canada’s immigration system to prioritize enforcement, security, and balance, saying he would use all of the country’s federal security agencies to, “find out where [the criminals] are, arrest them, put them on planes and get them out of Canada.”.WATCH: Poilievre says he will reduce immigration if elected prime minister .He also made it clear that non-citizens who commit hate crimes or acts of violence against identifiable groups should face automatic expulsion if they are not permanent residents or Canadian citizens.“Anyone who has been deemed inadmissible needs to leave, they need to be deported,” Poilievre said.“Anyone who has committed a crime while they’re in Canada should be immediately detained, and when their detention is complete, they need to be deported from the country.”Canada saw a record surge in immigration between 2021 and 2024 under the Trudeau government, with nearly 500,000 newcomers arriving annually at the peak.Meanwhile, emigration from Canada reached 104,565 in 2023–2024, continuing a gradual upward trend since 2020.The Conservative leader believes the Liberal government’s current system incentivizes false asylum claims through lengthy appeals, saying those who are not real refugees can appeal their case for, “seven or eight years, during which time they can receive all sorts of benefits.”.Bernier warns Poilievre will bring in mass immigration.In order to combat this, Poilievre proposes a change to the system where asylum seekers who are the last to arrive have their claims processed first, in order to make sure false claimants are sent back to their country of origin in a matter of weeks and not years.“If we make it very clear that the benefits wouldn’t be there, they would be sent back within a couple of weeks and they wouldn’t come in the first place,” he said.On the economic side of immigration, he reiterated his stance on significantly reducing the number of international students and temporary foreign workers, accusing large corporations of using loopholes in the system to exploit foreign workers and suppress wages for Canadians.According to Statistics Canada, the national unemployment rate fell slightly to 6.9% in June, while youth unemployment remains high at 14.2%, still above pre-pandemic levels.“The big corporations love it because they can drive down wages for Canadian youth who face unprecedented unemployment,” Poilievre stated.“If they’re having a hard time getting Canadian youth working, what they need to do is raise wages.”
