Refugee & Migrants' Rights
Whether migrants are coming with their families, are planning to send the money they earn back to them, or are coming for themselves, for far too long, corporations have lobbied the federal government to trap far too many of these people in a corrupt system, used to exploit their labour.
Because, when people come here on study permits, work permits or visitor visas, they have to work to survive, and are too often forced into the jobs corporations know they can pay them far too little for. And if their visas expire, and these people have already put down roots, whether with family, or because they’re able to send back just enough, they’re often forced to remain, which then leaves them undocumented.
What we have in Canada today is a pool of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of workers across the country, to be exploited and extracted by the corporations. This system first and foremost benefits the corporations, who’ve lobbied to bring these migrants here, and who continue to benefit from having them left without status.
Sign The UN And ILO Conventions On Migrant Workers
Canada has never ratified the UN's convention protecting the rights of migrant workers and their families. Even as Canadian employers grow more dependent every year on the labour of temporary residents, seasonal workers and international students, the federal government has refused to enforce or even agree to international rules built to protect migrants. Signing on would create a minimum standard a country commits to be held accountable for. That's why New Democrats are calling for Canada to sign the outstanding UN and ILO conventions protecting migrant workers' rights, and to bring Canadian law all the way into line with the international commitments the federal government claims to believe in.
Enforceable Housing Standards For Migrant Workers
A 2025 report from more than two dozen researchers, clinicians and advocates found the same problems recurring on farms across the country: inadequate heating and cooling, no reliable access to clean drinking water, not enough bathrooms or kitchens for the number of people living there, and, in nearly half of all cases, five to ten people crowded into a single house. In a separate survey of over 500 migrant workers, two-thirds reported having no privacy at all. What we have across Canada today is migrants coming here on closed work permits, unable to quit unless they apply for a new permit altogether, stuffed into overcrowded, often dilapidated company housing by an employer on whom their residence in the country depends. Which is why the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery in its 2024 report called Canada’s TFW system a ‘breeding ground for modern slavery.’ Canada's Auditor General flagged the need for national minimum accommodation standards back in 2020. All these years later, housing standards are still set piecemeal by whichever province, territory or municipality happens to have jurisdiction. That's why New Democrats are fighting to create and enforce real national housing standards for migrant workers: clean water, working locks on doors, cooling during heat waves, and regular inspections.
No Permits Tied To Anything, Full Stop
In 2024 alone, while TFWs made up 1 per cent of Canada’s workforce, they made up 26 per cent of the agricultural workforce, and another roughly 14 per cent of the food and beverage manufacturing workforce. However, in 2024, only 20 per cent of work permits were issued under the TFWP; 80 per cent were issued under the International Mobility Program or IMP. The difference between the two is that TFWP requires a Labour Market Impact Assessment to be done, while IMP does not. That Assessment determines whether or not there is a gap in the labour market that can only be filled by immigration, meaning for most work permit holders, there is no proof required that a work permit even needs to be issued in order to fill the position. All permits issued under TFWP are closed; as of 2021, there were approximately 845,000 TFWs in Canada, more than double since 2011. Of TFWs who arrived in 2010, just 31 per cent had gotten permanent residency by 2022. While only 10 per cent of those under IMP are closed, or 117,000, that still means in Canada today, there may very well be nearly a million workers on closed permits. The TFWP, and closed permits issued through IMP, are not just a breeding ground for modern slavery; they are modern slavery. Their employers may control their housing, their residence in the country, and these workers have no recourse, no means to demand decency and dignity for themselves. That's why New Democrats will fight for an immediate end to permits tied to a single employer, and to permits restricted by sector, hours, occupation, or category of any kind. For far too long, our government has allowed migrants to come here under the TFWP, or the IMP, under the pretense that they would be allotted a certain amount of dignity and decency. And yet, these workers have instead faced a cruel, exploitative system, in which employers have been allowed to extract the value of their labour through overtime violations, wage theft, abuse, and threats of deportation. Too often, the corporations, the elites who’ve administered this system, aren’t even our own; they’re foreign-owned corporations, using our country as a breeding ground for slavery. We cannot allow it to continue.
One-Tier Permanent Residence
In Canada today, there exist millions of second-class citizens. Though they work and pay taxes to our government, they lack the right to vote, and in far too many cases, they are unable to access the same basic government services. The result is a two-tier country, where hundreds of thousands live under entirely different laws for years, even decades. For far too many, it is not just how they start off in this country; it becomes permanent: renewed and re-justified every year or two, with full rights always one more approval away. That's why New Democrats are calling for the creation of a single-tier immigration system: permanent resident status for everyone who comes to build a life and a livelihood here, and equal rights from the day they arrive. No longer should the lives of working people be in the hands of bureaucrats who decide whether they have the right to remain here.
Status For Undocumented Neighbours
In 2007, the RCMP estimated there were anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 undocumented migrants in Canada; that was the last official estimate to date. Since then, millions migrated to Canada on study and work permits, and for some, once they expired, they left; for others, they didn’t. Because while their permit may have expired, their reason for coming here, to make money for their family, to build a better life for themselves, didn’t. Meaning the number of undocumented migrants across the country is far higher. Left without access to their provincial labour board, the tenants' rights board, or any other institution meant to protect them, they are far more vulnerable to exploitation by their employers and landlords. And by having half a million workers and tenants across the country, completely beholden to corporate interests, without any say or recourse, this traps the rest of us in a race to the bottom, for the lowest wages and highest rents. That's why Mission—Matsqui's New Democrats are fighting for a permanent regularization pathway for undocumented migrants already living, working, and raising families in our communities, including those with expired visas and overstayed permits.
End The Safe Third Country Agreement
Under the Safe Third Country Agreement, Canada and the United States each declare the other a safe country for refugees, and turn away almost anyone who tries to cross the land border to claim asylum here after passing through the other country first. In March 2023, Ottawa expanded the Agreement to cover the entire length of the border, not just official crossings, closing off the routes people had been using and pushing asylum seekers toward smugglers and more dangerous crossings instead. The premise of the Agreement was always shaky. The United States is not a safe country for every refugee, and pretending otherwise doesn't make it true. More importantly, in the event American citizens are forced to claim asylum in Canada, they are unable to do so. That can mean the family and friends of Canadians, who live just five minutes across the border, could be denied the ability to claim asylum in Canada. That's why New Democrats will end the Safe Third Country Agreement outright. Protecting refugees means assessing their claims on the merits, not outsourcing the decision to whichever country happens to share a border with them.
A National Plan For Asylum With Dignity
Canada's asylum system is under more strain than it's been in decades, yet Ottawa's response so far has been to make claims harder to file rather than easier to process. The Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act, passed in March 2026, now bars entire categories of asylum claims from ever reaching a hearing, including claims filed more than a year after someone's first entry into Canada, regardless of the reason for the delay. Asylum seekers shouldn’t be forced to navigate a bureaucracy that keeps changing its own rules; that's why New Democrats are demanding the creation of a National Plan for Asylum with Dignity: a real network of reception centres with dedicated funding for shelter and housing, so no one fleeing war or persecution ends up sleeping on the street while the federal government decides their case.
Double Canada's Refugee Resettlement Commitment
Canada's 2026 immigration plan cut the target for Government-Assisted Refugees from 15,250 to 13,250, even as the total number of refugees and protected persons Canada plans to resettle drops 15 per cent and privately sponsored refugee spots fall by nearly a third. Refugee organizations across the country had been calling for the opposite: at least 20,000 Government-Assisted Refugees a year. Instead, Ottawa is moving the other way, redirecting immigration toward economic streams while the world's refugee crisis only deepens. While the federal government continues to sign arms contracts and provide subsidies to the very countries and corporations driving people around the world to flee their homes and seek refuge, the federal government continues to shirk its responsibility. Canada built its reputation on being a country that showed up when the world's most vulnerable people needed somewhere to go. That’s why New Democrats will double Canada's Government-Assisted Refugee commitment, well past what refugee advocates say is the bare minimum, to meet Canada's humanitarian obligations instead of quietly walking away from people fleeing war and violence.
Rebuild IRCC:
Clear The Backlog
Even as Ottawa cuts 40,000 jobs from the federal public service, more than a million applications for permanent residence and citizenship remain stuck in IRCC's inventory, as hundreds of thousands more wait long past the department's own service standards. Every month the backlog persists is another month families stay separated for no reason but understaffing. Clearing a backlog this size takes case officers to process the files. That's why New Democrats are calling for the reversal of this government's public service cuts and the hiring of 3,000 new immigration public servants to clear the backlog and reunite families now.
End The Wait
For Families
Right here in Mission—Matsqui, families wait years, sometimes decades, for the chance to sponsor a parent or grandparent to join them. Ottawa caps how many applications it'll even accept each year, then charges application fees on top of the wait. Family reunification is supposed to be a cornerstone of Canadian immigration policy; however, it has become a lottery. As of 2014, it was estimated Canadians were sending $24 billion out of the country each year in remittances, simply because they’d come to work to earn money for their families, who lived elsewhere. In 2014, Canada’s GDP grew by 2.5 per cent, approximately $46.2 billion, meaning 2014’s remittances would’ve represented more than half of Canada’s GDP growth. Allowing families to reunite doesn’t just make working families' lives better and easier; it also keeps more money circulating in our economy. That's why New Democrats are fighting to eliminate the intake quota on parent and grandparent sponsorship, cut application and landing fees, and set immigration levels that actually reflect the workforce needs and family reunification requests of the people already living here. We can either keep families apart, keep children in the dark, and keep billions of dollars each year flowing out of the country, or we can reunite families and keep the wealth workers create here.
Recognize The Credentials Newcomers Already Have
Doctors, engineers, and tradespeople move to Canada every year only to find their qualifications don't count here, forced to retrain from scratch or take work far below what they're trained to do, while Canada faces shortages in the exact fields their credentials would fill. Our PR system prioritizes those with credentials, yet our system fails to actually employ these professionals in their fields. That's why New Democrats are demanding a fair, transparent, and fast system for recognizing international credentials, so the skills newcomers bring with them get put to work instead of wasted.