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Canadian immigration has had some stand-out years in recent history. 

2015 saw the launch of Express Entry. That year, worry was palpable about the impact of new cut-off scores, especially among Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates whose qualify-then-wait-in-the-queue process was ending. 

2013 saw that queue end for many Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) applicants. When former minister Jason Kenney returned 300,000 unprocessed FSWP applications that year, the queue was over five years long. 2013 was a burner of a year in backlog clearing.

2023 gave us category-based selection for Express Entry. I remember giving a presentation to international student graduates that year, urging them to run-not-walk if they wanted to pursue PR, because the competition was about to become occupation-specific and fiercer than they had been anticipating. (Thankfully, despite my re-occurring fears, CEC draws have continued, but with cutoff scores that continue to gobsmack).

2024 was the year of former minister Marc Miller’s chainsaw. Metaphors of hammers and scalpels have been used to discuss the rapid and voluminous policy changes to the International Student Program that regularly rolled out on Friday afternoons that year. I witnessed it all while living as a Spanish-language international student in Javier Milei’s Argentina, where the chainsaw was the political symbol of choice. For me, the picture of Canadian immigration in 2024 will forever be Marc Miller wielding a chainsaw à la Javier Milei.

In January 2024, I led a LinkedIn Live from Buenos Aires in, talking about my expectations for the year ahead. If you wish to look back and note my shortcomings, feel free. It’s still online. I nevertheless value the exercise of managing my own expectations in an unpredictable world. 

In an earlier imagining of this article, I was going to suggest that 2026 may see a year of stability in Canadian immigration. In retrospect, I can see that holiday eggnog and sugarplum dreams were making me buzz with false optimism. 

At a domestic level, however, the Carney government is projecting somewhat successfully to the Canadian electorate that immigration is under control. The official message is stability and control now that Marc Miller’s chainsaw has been put in the tool shed. An immigration system under control does not require drastic changes, nor does it require Canadians to fret about it. The Carney government does not seek political theatre on immigration news in 2026. 

That doesn’t mean it isn’t coming. 

In particular, events outside of Canada may create unexpected conversations about migration. Global events constantly shape Canadian immigration policies. What will those be? You tell me. I will keep my focus on more domestic areas of Canadian immigration, all subject to disruption.

Let’s go. 

Once upon a time, Express Entry had predictability. 2016-2019 was a good run for predictability. By 2022, when I had an unexpected moment to chat one-on-one over beer with former minister Sean Fraser in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, he asked me what the one thing is I would like to see changed. I said that predictability needed to be returned to the system, because people who migrate require multi-year plans. 

I think we can all agree that Fraser did not pursue predictability in 2023, when category-based selection was implemented. Since that time, Express Entry has felt like a lottery. 

We get some signals, fortunately. Annual changes are made to the categories after consultations. For 2026, IRCC has signaled the potential addition of senior managers, a research/innovation category, as well as a military/security category. Signs of the times. 

Expect some NOC additions and subtractions within the categories as well. 2025 was a big year for social workers, based on my personal snapshot of Canadian immigration, and I would love to see that continue. I had my suspicions about the education category sticking around for 2026, but I’ve since changed my opinion. I don’t think IRCC is done tinkering with education just yet. Things like healthcare and education intersect with Canadian immigration in endlessly curious ways. 

You have heard, right? 

The ideal PR candidate in 2026 is a French-speaking teacher settling outside of Quebec. That candidate may never get licensed and hired to teach in a public school, but Canada will welcome them all the same. 

I should now take a moment to eat my words from previous years. I never expected so many newcomers to Canada to take up French-language learning, but many temporary residents of Canada are ambitiously pursuing la carotte française. Félicitations! Vous me rendez fier. 

I pen this article from Montreal, where I’m getting an up-close perspective on Quebec immigration for the first time in my life. The much-despised Legault government is expected to be ousted in 2026. (Legault stepped down just before publication, in fact.) 

Quebec in theory controls its immigration levels, which are being cut in 2026. A major program known as the PEQ was abruptly ended in November 2025. Many temporary residents in Quebec are worried about what the future holds.

But while Quebec cuts, the Rest of Canada (ROC) wants increasing numbers of French speakers. When I say “ROC” though, I really mean IRCC. 

Word on the street is that at least a fifth of francophones find themselves back in Quebec (if they ever left). The game seems to be working for both Quebec and federal politicians who like specific messages on immigration that don’t always align with reality. The rest of us are learning exactly how the game plays out in real life. 

I remain fascinated by how French is playing out in the lives of my non-francophone clients learning it. A growing part of my practice involves talking to newcomers about French-language learning. I find that fun, because I spent my youth struggling with it and now listen in on my husband’s French classes on Zoom. 

French really has become the one variable over which a candidate can exert some control in a system that no longer has predictability. 

Since 2020, the Canadian immigration system—like the world—has become particularly unpredictable. 2020 saw the closure of international borders and global migration hitting pause.

The post-pandemic reopening of borders was a surge. It didn’t take long for backlash to happen globally in response to that migration surge. Late 2023 to 2025 has seen the strongest anti-immigrant sentiment in Canada that I’ve seen in my lifetime. Much of that is due to the Trudeau government being asleep at the wheel on immigration during the post-pandemic migration surge. Many like to make it a Canadian political issue without understanding that it was a global pattern. 

Right now, the wave feels like it's starting to move back to a focus on those very borders that—in 2020—were tightened and monitored in ways I hadn’t imagined possible in my lifetime. 

Borders are a big focus of Bill C-12, a major piece of Canadian legislation that may pass in 2026. 

This bill will change Canadian immigration in ways that we cannot yet fully comprehend. Many smart people have detailed significant concerns about the discretionary powers that will be given to ministers to cancel, suspend or change immigration documents. I encourage you to read more about this bill. We have numerous reasons to be concerned about how these new discretionary powers could be used in concerning ways by current or future governments.

The context of this bill’s creation was Donald Trump. In 2026 as in 2025, we all live on The Trump Show. In early 2025, Trump insisted that we focus on the US-Canada border. 

Carney responded with Bill C-12, adding items to, for example, cancel some asylum claims made since 2020. 

While there remains much to talk about in Canadian immigration at the program level (e.g., the Parent and Grandparent Sponsorship program remaining closed in 2026), I manage my expectations about the year ahead by looking at the bigger picture. 

Much of the global focus of 2026 will be on borders: in which ways they are secured and policed, who is allowed to cross them, who is allowed to redraw them, who can or cannot seek asylum at them. 

My daily work focuses on the minutiae of Canadian immigration policy, which fits within a bigger global picture. That picture used to involve something known as the international rules-based order, which emerged after the horrors of World War II. That order is being challenged by the neighbour south of our border. At the same time, the global appetite to support the values inherent in the UN Refugee Convention from 1951 also appears to be diminishing. 

Many Canadians now worry about the border with the US. I don’t worry about the border, but I watch in horror at the increasing hostile migration hunts happening south of it. The Safe Third Country Agreement is increasingly under scrutiny. 

In 2026, as Canada and the world pay more attention to borders, my worry is how increased attention to them often fosters hostile views of people crossing them.

I give thanks that Canada is not currently in crisis, but I am alert to what 2026 could bring. I do not believe Canada is broken, whatever the madding crowd may shout. Nor can I predict what awaits us in 2026, but I will manage my expectations for what may come, as I hope that reasonableness and a sense of humanity will prevail.