How lowering immigration levels could impact access to justice

In a nutshell

The CBA’s Immigration Law Section is responding to Immigration and Refugees Citizenship Canada’s 2025 consultation on immigration levels. Access to justice encompasses clarity of program rules, transparency in decision-making and processing times, and timely, fair administrative processes. The section is concerned that lower levels of immigration without careful attention to unwanted impacts will lead to negative consequences, including more judicial and administrative reviews, more contested proceedings before the Federal Court and Immigration and Refugee Board, and more enforcement-related litigation. These effects will exacerbate backlogs, overburden adjudicative and enforcement bodies, and reduce access to timely justice. 

Key concerns

Significant reductions in immigration levels will have adverse downstream effects on administration and access to justice. The section highlights specific concerns to address:

• Processing Delays and Quota Pressures: Lower targets already prompt offices to hold files until quota space becomes available, creating delays and uncertainty. Such a lack of predictability can further fuel litigation and contribute to Federal Court backlogs, which are now overwhelmingly comprised of immigration cases. 
   
• Loss of Status and Resulting Claims: Reduced levels increase the number of temporary residents who are unable to transition to permanent status or renew their permits, leading to many who are unwilling to remain without authorization to pursue judicial reviews, humanitarian applications, refugee claims, or other legal processes to maintain their status. This creates further inventory backlogs.
   
• Enforcement Pressures: Lower immigration levels will inevitably leave more temporary residents without status, creating a larger undocumented population. This will require greater CBSA enforcement activity. Increasing removals will generate more stay motions and judicial reviews, all of which must be processed by the Federal Court, which is already overwhelmed.
   
• Labour Market Disruption: Restricting permanent residence pathways for workers in critical sectors forces more reliance on the Labour Market Impact Assessment process, which has high refusal rates. Each refusal or contested LMIA decision can lead to review or appeal, adding to caseloads. 
   
• International Students and Work Permit Holders: Capping work permits or permanent residence pathways will also directly affect the roughly three million international students and work permit holders currently in Canada. When reduced levels of support intersect with post-graduation work permit eligibility or other transition points, more individuals will fall out of status and turn to judicial reviews, appeals, or humanitarian applications. 

Why this matters

Reducing immigration levels without careful consideration of the impact on the administration of and access to justice will not simply change intake numbers; it will create or exacerbate negative consequences and, in turn, trigger more applications to courts, tribunals, and enforcement bodies. These filings will lengthen backlogs, overextend resources, and further delay resolutions of matters. The downstream effect is apparent: a diminished capacity to deliver timely and fair outcomes, and a measurable weakening of access to justice.

Read the full submission.