Canada is scaling back its immigration mandate and notifying public servants of significant layoffs. Staff at the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) just received an email from the Government of Canada (GoC) warning of layoffs as early as next month. The cuts will amount to roughly the equivalent of 1 in 4 roles at the IRCC, which oversees Canada’s immigration program. The decision will make the country more dependent on outsourcing, as it has a backlog of millions to process and has struggled with resources to screen applications adequately. Like all things, this is about real estate.
Canada’s Immigration Department Will Eliminate About 1 In 4 Roles
The GoC emailed IRCC employees to notify them that budget cuts will affect the department. As part of its budget reduction strategy, the agency will eliminate 3,300 jobs. The IRCC believes that 80% of this reduction can be achieved by eliminating future roles and temporary staffing. The remaining 20% will be achieved through WFA [workforce adjustment], basically the GoC’s rebranding of layoffs. It must be easier to sleep delivering hundreds of workforce adjustments instead of laying off hundreds of workers.
The cuts will lead to a significant reduction to the IRCC’s in-house staffing. The department had 13,100 employees in 2024, meaning the 3,300 roles eliminated would be equivalent to 1 in 4 jobs. It’s hard to appreciate the scale of this, but a large company in Canada is defined as having 500 or more employees. Imagine GM Canada fired half its staff, and that’s the equivalent impact on the unemployment rate. It’s unclear what the public benefit is since the savings aren’t reducing funding liabilities or being reallocated to other public services in any obvious way.
Canada’s Immigration Backlog To Grow, Already Struggles To Screen
The cuts are likely to grow an already significant backlog in processing. The IRCC currently has 2.27 million applications that need to be processed, with 1.01 million of those currently exceeding the service time. This impacts even programs with a clear economic benefit, such as the Start Up Visa which now has an estimated processing time close to 4 years. In contrast, even with a new immigration mandate, the US equivalent has an estimated processing time of 6 months.
In addition, there’s been a gap in adequately screening applications. This burden falls on the country’s border protection agency, which has over 30,000 outstanding warrants for people they can’t find, including over 300 for people the agency considers a “public danger.”
“Last month, immigration processing wait times continued to reach record-breaking backlog levels, and these cuts will only worsen an already dire situation,” said Rubina Boucher, the National President of the CEIU, the immigration workers component of the Federal public sector union PSAC.
Adding, “Families longing to reunite, businesses grappling with critical labour shortages and a healthcare system desperate for skilled workers will all suffer the consequences of this reckless decision.”
Canada Shifts Focus From Saving On Office Space To Fewer Workers
Canada’s cuts are part of a broad shift from the Federal government to “refocus” billions in spending. The Treasury Board has been tasked with finding $15.8 billion in savings by 2027, and an additional $4.8 billion per year after. It was initially pitched as an issue they could tackle primarily by reducing spending in discretionary areas, such as non-essential travel and excess office space.
At the end of 2024, policymakers changed course to preserve real estate values. Government agencies ordered workers to follow a prescribed minimum (a minimum number of days in office) to ensure demand for pricey downtown real estate. The decision was later sold to the public to improve collaboration. However, the orders often came with no other rules to ensure workers even showed up on the same days, though it was enough to ensure they had to remain within commuting distance.
A month after implementing prescribed presence, they floated the idea of public servant layoffs to meet their goal. A truly remarkable coincidence.
Rather than eliminating the roles, PSAC suggests reducing the country’s reliance on outsourced firms. The cuts are often billed as “savings” by the media, but described as “refocusing” spending by policymakers. It’s not exactly clear where the spending will be reallocated, but it is clear it’s not going to public sector employees.