OP-ED: If Canada joined the EU, immigration policy would no longer be ours alone
Lawyer Sergio R. Karas writes, "In short, it would mark the single largest transfer of immigration control in Canadian history."
By: Sergio R. Karas
Sergio R. Karas, principal of Karas Immigration Law Professional Corporation, is a certified specialist in Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Law by the Law Society of Ontario, Division Chair of the ABA International Law Section, past chair of the Ontario Bar Association Citizenship and Immigration Section, past chair of the International Bar Association Immigration and Nationality Committee, and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
The idea of Canada joining the European Union resurfaces whenever Ottawa’s relationship with Washington grows tense. Advocates speak warmly of shared values, diversified trade, and geopolitical alignment. Yet beneath the rhetoric lies a practical question Canadians cannot avoid: what would EU membership mean for immigration?
In short, it would mark the single largest transfer of immigration control in Canadian history.
At the heart of EU membership is the free movement of persons, a legal right embedded in EU citizenship and reinforced by the Schengen system, which removes internal border controls among participating states. Free movement is not a policy preference that can be tweaked at the margins; it is a constitutional principle of the Union. Membership would give nationals of EU states, and their families, broad rights to live, work and settle in Canada with limited discretion for Ottawa to refuse entry or impose national quotas.
That alone should give pause. Canada’s immigration system is deliberately selective. It prioritizes skills, language capacity, labour-market fit and—increasingly—security screening. EU free movement operates on a very different logic: equal access based on nationality, not selection. European states may apply limited safeguards, but the default rule is non-discrimination. Canada would surrender its ability to calibrate admissions in line with domestic economic capacity, housing supply or social cohesion concerns.
Supporters argue that free movement works both ways. Canadians could live and work across the EU. True—but the asymmetry is obvious. Canada’s population is roughly 40 million. The EU’s exceeds 450 million. Migration flows tend to follow opportunity and demographic pressure. Canada already faces acute strains in housing, healthcare and infrastructure under current immigration levels. Adding an open-ended EU mobility right would make planning—already difficult—nearly impossible.
Asylum policy raises further complications. EU membership would bind Canada into Europe’s common asylum and migration framework, an area that has been under sustained stress for over a decade. The EU continues to struggle with divergent national responses, internal border reinstatements, and political backlash tied to irregular migration. Several member states routinely re-impose internal border controls, acknowledging—implicitly—that the system remains fragile. Canada would import those tensions wholesale, without having shaped the system from the ground up.
There is also the question of legal control. EU free movement rights are enforced by supranational courts. National parliaments can tighten rhetoric, but not easily change outcomes. Britain’s Brexit experience was driven in large part by the public’s sense that immigration decisions had slipped beyond democratic accountability. Canada risks learning that lesson the hard way.
None of this is an argument for isolation. Canada benefits from immigration and from close cooperation with Europe. Bilateral labour-mobility agreements, mutual recognition of credentials, student exchanges and targeted work visas are sensible tools. Canada already enjoys deep economic and mobility ties with the EU without ceding sovereign control over who can settle permanently.
EU membership would be different in kind, not degree. It would replace a managed immigration system with a rights-based one designed for a densely interconnected continent still wrestling with internal migration pressures. Canadians should be clear-eyed about that trade-off.
Before dreaming of Brussels, Ottawa should focus on restoring public confidence at home: fixing housing supply, enforcing immigration rules, and ensuring intake aligns with absorptive capacity. Immigration works best when citizens believe it is fair, controlled and accountable. Handing core decisions to a distant supranational framework would undermine all three.
Canada does not need EU membership to be open, generous or internationally engaged. But if it ever pursued that path, immigration—not trade—would be the issue that ultimately decided the debate.
