Poilievre calls out Liberals for overshooting their own immigration targets

Poilievre is slamming Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government, accusing them of broken immigration promises and exacerbating Canada’s housing, healthcare, and employment crises.

Source: Facebook

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is slamming Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government, accusing them of broken immigration promises and exacerbating Canada’s housing, healthcare, and employment crises.

In a statement posted to X on Monday, Poilievre said a “Canada First immigration and refugee system” should only admit “the right people in the right numbers so our jobs, healthcare and housing can catch up.”

Instead, he said the Liberals’ “radical open-borders policies broke Canada’s immigration system and made all these problems worse, which isn’t fair to anyone.”

Poilievre pointed to new mid-year figures showing the government exceeding its self-imposed caps in several categories.

He said 105,000 temporary foreign worker permits have already been issued, compared to a promised cap of 82,000 for the entire year, while 302,000 people entered through the International Mobility Program in the first six months of the year, surpassing the target of 285,000 for all of 2025.

He noted the government’s permanent resident intake remains historically high, with totals on track to exceed projections.

According to Poilievre, that would amount to welcoming the equivalent of “twice the population of Guelph and the population of Abbotsford” in a single year.

The Conservative leader also cited pressures on the asylum system, claiming the backlog has risen by 2,920 per cent since 2015, with hearing wait times now stretching beyond four years.

“These new numbers mean more delays, turning Canada’s asylum process into a waiting-room of broken promises,” he said.

Poilievre tied the figures to broader economic concerns, arguing Canada now faces “the lowest youth employment since 1998” while issuing a record number of temporary worker visas.

Carney, who took office in March after the Liberals won a third straight minority, has previously pledged to bring stability to the immigration system.

The Conservative leader argued that “these results show he’s worse,” accusing the prime minister of backing “out-of-control” policies that “delivered a triple-header crisis in housing, health care, and youth unemployment.”

Poilievre said the Conservatives will table detailed proposals this fall aimed at overhauling the system and “fixing what the Liberals broke.”