Authored by Andy J. Semotiuk, U.S. and Canadian immigration Lawyer with Pace Law Firm in Toronto.
A Ukrainian engineer arrives in Canada in 2022 under an emergency program. She arrives in Toronto with her children, while her spouse remains in Ukraine to fight on the front lines. Within months, she finds work, pays taxes, learns the system, enrolls her children in school, and builds a life. Three years later, she still doesn’t know whether she can stay. She can apply for another three-year work visa, but it feels like building her life on quicksand. It remains tentative and uncertain. Her son has graduated from high school with excellent grades, but because he is classified as an “international student,” he cannot afford the exorbitant tuition fees, which are two to three times higher than those for domestic students. Her daughter would like to work while attending school, but must obtain a work permit to do so. The mother does not know what the future holds for her and her family. She delays major decisions, such as buying a home or starting her own business in Canada.
Her story is not unusual. It is the quiet contradiction at the heart of Canada’s immigration system.
From its origins with First Nations thousands of years ago to the arrival of European explorers, the founding of English and French colonies in Ontario and Quebec, and the later arrival of settler peoples such as Germans, Ukrainians, Irish, and Italians, Canada has always been a multicultural country. That idea was formalized in 1971 under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s policy, which struck a careful compromise: English and French as two official languages, with no hierarchy among cultures. The policy was formally announced as “Multiculturalism Within a Bilingual Framework.” It was meant to ensure that Canada would never become a country where any one group dominates at the expense of others. The policy was secured by the Multiculturalism Act and then entrenched in Section 27 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.
Over time, however, that balance has begun to slip. Francophone communities across Canada have benefited from structured, targeted federal immigration support, including dedicated immigration pathways to sustain their demographic presence outside Quebec. In terms of language retention, this approach has proven sound. As the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism observed, “Language is the key to culture. Without language, a culture cannot survive.” The argument here is not about opposing official bilingualism or the need for basic English or French in Canada, given the Official Bilingualism policy. The question is how immigration policy is applied with respect to the multicultural dimension.
The point is that sufficient support has not been extended to non-English, non-French ethnocultural communities—even when their numbers warrant it. In many regions, these communities are equal in size to—or sometimes larger than—minority Francophone populations, yet they receive far less federal institutional recognition or support. The gap is most evident in sectors where heritage language knowledge is essential to effective service delivery, such as caregiving, education, media, religious life, and the arts, particularly in dance, filmmaking, theatre, and storytelling. If Canada is serious about multiculturalism, ethnocultural communities of sufficient size deserve a similar level of attention and policy support to that afforded to Francophone minorities outside Quebec. Instead, as taxpayers, these minority ethnocultural communities watch their efforts to retain language and grow culturally constrained by a country that falls short of its own stated multicultural commitment.
A similar problem was addressed in the United States in 1991 and merits consideration in Canadian immigration policy.
In the 1980s, U.S. immigration became concentrated in a handful of high-volume source countries, creating a clear demographic imbalance. Large inflows from countries such as India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines increasingly dominated immigration to the United States. Meanwhile, immigrants from many other regions—such as Ireland, Poland, and the Baltic countries in Europe; Fiji, Nepal, and the Stan countries of the east; Israel and Jordan in the Middle East; and a large swath of Africa—were scarcely represented. Policymakers viewed this as a narrowing of the country’s traditional diversity and moved to correct it.
The legislative vehicle was the Immigration Act of 1990, shepherded by key figures such as Senator Ted Kennedy and Representative Bruce Morrison. First, it locked in a 7% per-country cap on all family- and employment-based immigrant visas, a limit that had been implemented in previous immigration legislation. That cap was now cemented in the 1990 statute. In addition, the statute incorporated the diversity green card lottery into the broader immigration reform program. Henceforth, 55,000 green cards were to be allocated each year to immigrants from underrepresented countries to eliminate the identified bias. The aim was not to increase overall immigration but to recalibrate its composition—restoring a broader mix of national origins and reinforcing the longstanding American ideal of diversity drawn from many parts of the world. The program was an imperfect but deliberate effort to ensure that smaller and underrepresented countries remained part of the national fabric. It remains intact to this day.
Canada has no equivalent. It should. Neglect of Canada’s multicultural heritage in federal government policy, akin to the bias corrected in 1990 in the U.S., must not be allowed to continue in Canada.
At the same time, there is an even more glaring blind spot. This one is hiding in plain sight and has become the focal point of many recent arguments regarding Canada’s immigration policy.
Canada is already full of immigrants yet Canada refuses to fully recognize them. Who are they?
They are proven contributors. They are here as students, workers, and temporary residents. Many have lived in Canada for years. They pay taxes, fill labour shortages, and build communities. They are not hypothetical candidates. By 2025, it is estimated that up to 900,000 people will have lived in Canada for 6 years or more yet still be labelled as temporary residents.
Canada continues to assess them using the same criteria applied to overseas applicants—education scores, language tests, and predictive models that are biased toward selectivity. But these students, workers, and temporary residents are no longer predictions. They are the results.
Canada spends years educating, employing, and integrating people—only to risk losing them because they don’t fit neatly into a points system designed for applicants from abroad. In effect, the country “leases” talent it has already developed rather than securing it.
That isn’t merely inefficient. It’s irrational.
The economic cost is clear. Employers lose trained workers. Communities lose stability. Individuals, such as the Ukrainian engineer mentioned at the beginning, delay buying homes, starting businesses, or putting down roots because their future is uncertain. Canada’s investment in educating post-secondary foreign students, training foreign workers, and helping them integrate into Canadian life is lost when they are forced to leave under our immigration laws.
But there is a deeper cost: loss of credibility.
An immigration system that cannot recognize success when it sees it begins to look arbitrary. Arbitrary systems don’t inspire confidence.
The solution is not complicated. It requires rules that reflect reality.
First, Canada should establish a clear, automatic pathway to permanent residence for long-term temporary residents. When an individual has completed two full work permit cycles—or two post-secondary study cycles—typically six years or more of lawful residence, employment, and tax contributions—a pathway to permanent residence should open as a matter of course, provided the individual has complied with Canadian laws.
At some point, time invested in Canada must count. A clearly defined pathway to permanent residence for these people is one way to demonstrate this.
Second, Canada must confront the reality of undocumented individuals living within its borders. It is estimated that about 500,000 such individuals live in Canada. Most are visa overstays; some crossed the U.S.-Canada border irregularly or entered by car, boat, or plane. Many have spent years—sometimes decades—working, contributing, and raising families in the shadows. Many are from countries they fled because of poverty, violence, or war, including Ukraine. A rational system cannot indefinitely ignore this reality. These people live in the shadows and are prevented from building ordinary lives and families. They are vulnerable to criminals, gangsters, and exploiters. Their status erodes the respect our system of justice should enjoy.
A one-generation rule should apply: individuals who have lived in Canada for a sustained period approximating a generation, demonstrated good character, and contributed to society should be granted a pathway to permanent residence. To compensate for jumping the immigration queue, they should be subject to a financial penalty and a period of mandatory community service, such as helping the sick or cleaning up their hometowns, to qualify for permanent residence. Bringing people out of the legal shadows strengthens—not weakens—the rule of law.
Third, Canada should abandon its rigid and largely arbitrary cap on annual permanent-resident admissions, currently set at approximately 385,000. That number may serve administrative planning, but it makes little policy sense in a country already hosting millions of temporary residents. The cap artificially constrains the transition of individuals who are already here, already contributing, and already integrated. Immigration policy should prioritize outcomes, not quotas. There is little substantive difference between someone living in Canada on a temporary work permit and a permanent resident, aside from the temporary status of a work permit holder.
Meanwhile, numerous studies have shown that Canada needs more immigrants. In fact, Canada does not lack immigrants. It lacks a mechanism to recognize those it already has.
The Ukrainian case makes this point vividly.
Ukrainians in Canada: A Case Study
The experience of Ukrainians under the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) clearly illustrates how an inland, merit-based approach would function. Since 2022, more than 300,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Canada under this program, receiving temporary status and open work permits but no direct pathway to permanent residence. It is estimated that of the 300,000 who have arrived, fewer than 175,000 remain in temporary status on CUAET visas in Canada, due to the family unification program, qualification under other existing programs, or returns to Europe or even Ukraine.
Consistent with the track record of early Ukrainian settlement in Canada before World War I, these new arrivals have demonstrated high employment rates, strong educational attainment, rapid integration, and minimal reliance on public assistance. Many have settled in regions that benefit from population growth and labour participation, supported by established diaspora networks.
The conditions that brought them to Canada remain unresolved. The war continues, infrastructure has been devastated, and the prospect of a safe return is uncertain. For many, returning is neither practical nor rational. They have built lives, contributed economically, and integrated socially in Canada.
These circumstances give rise to legitimate reliance interests. Individuals who arrived through emergency programs and have since built stable lives cannot reasonably be expected to remain indefinitely in temporary status. Their children cannot be left in limbo as they struggle to find work while their education is stymied by high tuition fees. Keeping these people in temporary status will create unnecessary instability and undermine confidence in Canada’s immigration system.
Ukrainians under CUAET are not seeking preferential treatment. They are demonstrating the need for a broader policy shift in Canada. They meet all reasonable criteria for permanent residence, including lawful presence, sustained contribution, integration, and good character.
Their situation highlights the inefficiency of a system that fails to convert proven contributors into permanent residents. In short, Ukrainians with CUAET visas should be the first group Canada admits under this revised vision for the country’s immigration system. Their admission will not heighten anxiety about housing demand, since the temporary cohort is presumably already housed. They will not increase settlement costs, as most temporary residents have already addressed their settlement needs. Such an initiative will address the public’s concern that the government has lost control of its immigration program by “cleaning up” some temporary residents. Since they will not add any new residents to Canada, this will ease concerns about population growth. Given that the federal government is already in the process of a major overhaul of the IRCC Economic Stream Program, this is a good time to add this to the agenda.
Canada does not need to guess which immigrants will succeed. It already knows who.
At the same time, the broader question of diversity cannot be ignored. A truly multicultural country cannot rely solely on passive forces to shape its population. Without a corrective mechanism, diversity risks narrowing rather than broadening over time.
Balance does not happen by accident. It requires intentionality.
Canada once understood this. The original vision of multiculturalism was not merely symbolic—it was meant to guide policy. Over time, however, that clarity has faded.
What remains is a system that works—but not as well as it should, nor as fairly as it could.
Canada does not need to search the world for better immigrants. It needs to recognize those already here—and finally decide whether they are temporary guests or future citizens.
Andy J. Semotiuk is a Forbes contributor whose articles have been read by more than one million people over the last 10 years. He previously worked as a U.N. Correspondent in New York, affiliated with Southam News and other news outlets. For three years, he served on the Tribunal Panel of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. He is currently a Senior Advisor to the Centre for Eastern European Democracy, based in Toronto. Over the past four decades, as a U.S. and Canadian immigration lawyer, he has helped more than 10,000 clients with a range of legal issues. He now practises U.S. and Canadian immigration law with Pace Law Firm in Toronto.
