Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says Ottawa may soon allow its population to grow again after three years of immigration cuts, a signal being watched closely by Haitians in Canada and by tens of thousands in the United States who have lost legal protection and are weighing a move north.
Carney told The New York Times in an interview published Sept. 27 that Canada’s immigration system is “back under control,” Newsweek’s Brendan Cole reported. The prime minister said the next question is when the country will resume “some controlled increase in the population,” adding that it “will happen.”
He gave no numbers. Those will come in the 2027–2029 Immigration Levels Plan, which the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act requires the immigration minister to table by Nov. 1.
Because that date falls on a Sunday this year, the plan is expected in the first days of November. Last year’s plan was released on Nov. 5, 2025.
The plan in force sets permanent resident admissions at 380,000 a year for 2026, 2027 and 2028. Within that total, the categories most Haitian families rely on are shrinking or flat. Family sponsorship, the route for Canadians and permanent residents bringing over spouses, children and parents, is set at 84,000 places in 2026, falling to 81,000 in each of the next two years. Refugees and protected persons account for 49,300 places in 2026.
Economic immigration is moving the other way, rising from 239,800 places in 2026 to 244,700 in 2027 and 2028. New temporary resident arrivals, including students and foreign workers, are scheduled to drop from 385,000 this year to 370,000 in 2027 and 2028.
The government has also committed to raising French-speaking immigration outside Quebec, with a target of 12% of permanent admissions by 2029, according to federal briefing documents. Quebec, home to most of Canada’s Haitian community, selects many of its own economic immigrants under a separate agreement with Ottawa.
Canada’s Haitian community numbers close to 100,000 people, nearly 90% of them in Quebec and most in Montreal, according to 2021 census figures cited by WLRN.
Any reversal is unlikely to show up quickly. Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo, told Newsweek that because the plans run three years at a time, higher levels would take effect late. “If there is a ramping up of the immigration levels, it won’t happen before 2029,” Skuterud said.
Skuterud traced the cuts to a post-pandemic surge in temporary residents, largely international students holding three-year post-graduation work permits. He told Newsweek that many paid tuition for “a promise of immigration,” and that the government is now trying to encourage people without a path to permanent status to leave.
Statistics on those temporary residents are central to the debate. Non-permanent residents numbered 2,779,774 on July 1, 2026, or 6.7% of Canada’s population, according to figures cited by Newsweek. That is down from a peak of 7% in October 2024 but above the government’s 5% goal. The country’s population grew by only 189,425 people over the year to July 1, the smallest July-to-July increase since 1944–45.
Not everyone in Canada’s policy circles supports a shift. The C.D. Howe Institute’s Immigration Targets Council recommended in September that the non-permanent resident share fall to 5% next year and to 3% over the longer term. It proposed permanent resident admissions of 380,000 in 2027, 350,000 in 2028 and 340,000 in 2029.
Parisa Mahboubi, the institute’s associate director of research, told Newsweek that public confidence in the system “has not fully recovered” and that immigration policy should be judged on productivity and living standards rather than on population growth alone.
For Haitians in the United States, the levels plan addresses only part of the problem. The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way in late June for the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for about 350,000 Haitians, WLRN reported.
Haitians were the largest group of asylum claimants processed at Canada’s land border ports of entry in 2026 as of July 26, according to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) data reported by CBC News. But the Canada–U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement generally requires people to seek protection in the first of the two countries they reach. Claimants arriving from the United States who do not qualify for an exception are usually ruled ineligible and returned.
CBSA told CBC News that 827 asylum claimants had been sent back to the United States under the agreement as of July 27. Overall, the agency had processed nearly 9,000 asylum claims at the border by Aug. 9, more than 60% fewer than at the same point in 2025, according to a CBSA spokesperson quoted by The World.
The most common way through is the agreement’s family exception, which applies to claimants with certain relatives already in Canada. In the spring and summer of 2025, Haitian nationals made up 67% of the arrivals behind a spike in claims at Quebec’s land border, most of them eligible under that exception and most entering at the Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle port of entry, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) briefing notes.
Haitians who do reach the system face long waits. About 29,400 Haitian asylum claims were pending before the Immigration and Refugee Board at the end of 2025, making Haiti the second-largest source country in the board’s backlog, the Montreal outlet L’Union Suite reported, citing board data. The same report put the acceptance rate for decided Haitian claims at 71% for the 2025–26 fiscal year through the third quarter.
Montreal advocates have asked Ottawa to open a dedicated route for Haitians losing U.S. status, CBC News reported. IRCC has said the border agreement is continually assessed but has announced no change.
Some Haitians are trying economic and work-permit routes instead of asylum. Cassandra Fultz, a regulated Canadian immigration consultant, told WLRN her office has seen a 20% to 30% increase in inquiries and applications from Haitian nationals, including through employer-sponsored permits and Express Entry for skilled, bilingual workers.
Those programs are the ones Carney’s comments could eventually expand.
Whether the next plan adds places for family reunification and refugees, the categories on which many Haitian households depend, will be known only when the government tables the 2027–2029 targets in early November.
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