Sawt Falasteen - Migrants forced to leave Canada after policy change feel 'betrayed'

"I'm broken. My life has been upended. My daughter is in her room, she cries day and night," the 50-year-old told AFP, his voice faltering over an impending departure from a country where he had hoped to stay.

For decades, Canada was viewed as one of the world's most coveted destinations for immigrants, especially among people from the developing world.

Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney has tightened immigration levels, echoing moves by his predecessor Justin Trudeau, who conceded last year that Canada had let in too many people to address labor shortages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Carney's budget, narrowly approved last month, said: "We are taking back control of our immigration system and putting Canada on a trajectory to bring immigration back to sustainable levels."

Aloui was hired two years ago to be a supervisor at a factory in Laval, near Montreal, in Canada's French-speaking Quebec province.

A program for skilled workers that would have allowed him to apply for permanent residency, known by its French acronym PEQ, was scrapped by the provincial government last month.

"Everything is blurry for me," Aloui said, a month before the expiration of his legal rights to remain in Canada.

- Canadian values -

Canada plans to authorize 380,000 new permanent residents in 2026, down from the 395,000 approved this year and a substantial decrease from the half-million people given rights to settle in 2024.

Temporary resident permits are set to be trimmed nearly by half, with the 2026 target set at 385,000, compared to 673,650 this year, as the government massively curbs foreign student visa slots.

The national statistics agency reported Wednesday that Canada's population declined by 0.2 percent in the third quarter of 2025 -- currently standing at 41,575,585 -- the first contraction since 2020, and caused primarily by foreign student departures.

For Gauri Sreenivasan, co-executive director at the Canadian Council of Refugees, "there has been no fundamental shift in Canadian values" broadly supportive of immigration.

But she accused Canadian politicians of exploiting "a global current" surrounding immigration, where newcomers are blamed for a range of challenges, including housing shortages and overstretched healthcare systems.

"Canada's population is declining and immigration is essential to our future prosperity," she said, warning against the use of "toxic and xenophobic narratives" that can harden attitudes against newcomers.

Data also points towards shifting public sentiment.

In 2022, 27 percent of Canadians believed the country was accepting too many migrants, a figure that has risen to 56 percent, according to the Environics Institute.

- 'The consensus has frayed' -

Sergio da Silva told AFP he feels "betrayed" by the cancellation of Quebec's PEQ program.

"We studied, we speak French. We meet all the conditions to stay," said the 36-year-old Brazilian, who is also set to lose his Canadian residency rights.

University of Montreal immigration expert Catherine Xardez said Canada had established a uniquely pro-immigration consensus, with cross-party support for welcoming people and bureaucratic processes that allowed migrants to stay.

"Canadian exceptionalism in immigration has been shaken," she told AFP. "The consensus has frayed, that's obvious."

She said a central challenge is that Canada's system was built to accommodate candidates for permanent residency.

But the influx of temporary immigrants, especially hundreds of thousands of foreign students, has caused friction in multiple communities.

Xardez said the situation in Canada was "in no way comparable" to developments in Europe or the United States, where politicians have achieved electoral successes fueled in large part by anti-immigration messaging.

S.AbuJamous--SF-PST