CIMM Committee Report

Nobody knows for certain how many migrants are currently living in Canada illegally. The fact that they lack status in this country makes them impossible to accurately track. Estimates of the population living in Canada without status range from 80,000 to 500,000.[124]

There are a variety of means by which people end up living in Canada without status; however, it is believed that most enter legally and fall out of status while still in Canada. This is unlike the situation in the United States, where many migrants cross the border into the country illegally are therefore never known to authorities. Accordingly, such people are often referred to as “undocumented.” Since most immigrants living illegally in Canada have been known to authorities at some point and are therefore “documented,” we are using the term “non-status” to refer to them in this report.

There are lots of different situations that lead to migrants having no legal status in Canada. Some common scenarios are as follows:

• a foreigner enters Canada to work or study legally on a temporary basis, and stays in the country after their temporary status expires;
• an elderly parent visits their adult child in Canada and never returns home;
• a failed refugee claimant does not leave the country after their claim is refused and avenues of appeal exhausted; or
• the foreign spouse or common-law partner of a Canadian or permanent resident of Canada comes to Canada for a “visit” and stays in the country without filing a spousal immigration application, or before such an application is processed.

Actual situations are as numerous as the people who experience them. Often people fit into several categories, (e.g., a temporary foreign worker overstays his or her visa and then files a refugee claim that is denied.)

Different people react differently to being without status in the country. Some seek to take advantage of Canada’s refugee and social system by filing false refugee claims or fraudulently seeking social benefits. Periodically the media reports stories of people here illegally who repeatedly commit crimes and yet avoid deportation. Less often do we hear the stories of the untold thousands who find jobs under the table and quietly toil for years, often at jobs Canadians refuse, while they raise their children and integrate into Canadian society.

Witnesses described for the Committee how such workers and members of their families are even more vulnerable than temporary foreign workers to abuse and mistreatment in the workplace, and marginalization in Canadian society. Fear of being reported to the authorities leads some non-status workers to tolerate substandard working conditions.[125] Unwillingness to report abuses or to take advantage of protections, and ineligibility for social benefits and supports compounds problems.[126] Even the Canadian-born children of non-status workers may suffer if their parents are too scared to take advantage of the services and supports available for the children.[127]

There is no way out. I have no future and no plans, and I cannot allow myself to make plans because I don’t know if I’ll still be here tomorrow.[128]

Despite the regrettable conditions in which many non-status workers and their families live, there is no consensus on establishing an amnesty program to regularize their statuses. Non-status people have not respected Canada’s immigration rules, and therefore many are of the view that Canada should not reward such people by giving them permanent resident status, especially when hundreds of thousands of people are patiently waiting years to legally call Canada home. In addition, and depending on how it were structured, an amnesty program could very likely exacerbate the problem of non-status migration if it simply attracted more people to come to Canada illegally.

Perhaps the one thing we can all agree on with respect to the non-status migration problem is that it is complex and multifaceted with no single clear solution. Tough enforcement can be brutal; sweeping regularization can open the flood-gates; and almost any approach to deal with the problem seems unfair to someone.

Accordingly, the Committee does not propose to solve the problem of non-status migrants in Canada. We recognize that these people are contributing to our society by filling a labour need that is not being met domestically.[129] We understand that in many cases, these people were failed by our immigration system that provided them with no realistic opportunity to immigrate to Canada legally.[130] We know that these people and their families are vulnerable to marginalization and mistreatment, and that many suffer chronic anxiety. Accordingly, the Committee offers the following observations and recommendations with a view to stopping the problem from getting any bigger.