Conservative MP and immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner is calling out Prime Minister Mark Carney for statements made to American media about being ready to ramp up Canada’s immigration numbers again — just over a year into taking office.
“To have the prime minister go to a foreign news outlet and announce a potential immigration increase on the horizon without discussing housing, healthcare, and jobs — it’s just irresponsible,” Rempel Garner said during a press conference on Wednesday. “It’s also irresponsible because it has broken Canada’s consensus on immigration.”
She said the Conservative Party of Canada will “vigorously oppose” efforts by Prime Minister Carney and his Liberal government to increase immigration and “continue their reckless mass migration policies.”
“We will also continue to press for major decreases in immigration levels,” she said. “Conservatives expect immigration levels to be set much, much lower in the upcoming immigration levels report.”
She vowed that Conservatives would “restore order and fairness” and would remove people with “no legal reason to be in the country.”
“We would get back to the principles of integrating folks into the Canadian economy and social fabric, which includes things like healthcare and education capacity.”
She blasted Carney for his claims that his government had “taken back control of immigration,” saying that he has “no plan to clear hundreds of thousands of asylum claims,” many of which she said were “bogus.”
According to Rempel Garner, Carney also has “no plan” to remove millions of non-citizens who are in the country without a legal right to be in Canada, such as migrants who overstayed their visas.
“Worse, it’s becoming evident that Mr. Carney’s government can’t even accurately track how many non-citizens are in the country or if they’ve left,” she said.
“Liberal mass immigration policies have created a youth jobs crisis. They’ve caused emergency rooms to overflow, healthcare wait lists across the country to spiral out of control, and placed massive strain on social welfare programs and provincial education systems.”
She also stated that Liberal immigration policies have caused rent to “skyrocket.”
“On top of all of these issues, Prime Minister Carney’s government has issued 112,000 new temporary foreign work permits and 174,000 new foreign student work permits between January and July of 2026,” Rempel Garner said.
“To put that in perspective, that’s a city roughly the size of Saskatoon that has been added to the Canadian population this year alone. That’s crazy.”
She called on immigration to be decreased significantly and accused Carney’s immigration policies of being dictated by lobby groups pressing for mass immigration, which she says “depresses wages and increases housing costs.”
When asked whether Conservatives have a target number they think ought to be Canada’s immigration target, Rempel Garner said that the Liberals have set “wildly high targets” without tracking who’s coming in and who's leaving the country.
“We have to stop that. Immigration levels need to be set in accordance with the country’s capacity to house people, to provide healthcare, and to provide jobs for everybody,” she said.
She also noted that Immigration Minister Lena Diab, Carney's Immigration Minister, “admitted” before the parliamentary health committee that she hasn’t consulted with provinces about healthcare capacity before setting immigration levels.
“The country cannot sustain the immigration levels that we have. Adding a city the size of Saskatoon’s worth of temporary foreign workers of different sorts in the first six months of this year alone is not sustainable,” Rempel Garner said.
She said the government should focus on “labour mobility strategies, skills training strategies to match Canadians with available jobs” to ensure Canadians get the first crack at available jobs, rather than adding new people to the country through mass immigration.
“We’ve heard a lot about buy Canadian,” Rempel Garner said. “It’s time to hear more about hire Canadian.