A council of immigration experts says Canada temporary resident tracking is broken, and Ottawa is flying blind on who actually leaves the country when a permit expires. The warning comes from the C.D. Howe Institute’s immigration targets council in a submission released August 30, 2026.
The Numbers Driving the Warning
Federal figures dated June 30, 2026 counted 632,000 people in Canada on study permits. Another 1.5 million held temporary work permits at the same point. Together, temporary residents remain a significant share of Canada’s population even after two years of federal cuts to intake targets.
Statistics Canada estimates temporary residents currently make up about 6.2 percent of the population, or roughly 2.5 million people. The federal government has set a target of bringing that share below 5 percent by the end of 2027.
Why Canada Temporary Resident Tracking Worries the Council
Council chair Parisa Mahboubi says the government’s target relies on an assumption rather than verified data. Ottawa largely assumes people leave once their permits expire, without a reliable system to confirm departures actually happen.
The council includes former immigration minister Jason Kenney alongside academics who study migration policy. Their submission argues that without better exit tracking, nobody, including the government, can say with confidence whether the 5 percent target is realistic or already being missed.
What the Council Wants Ottawa to Do
The submission calls for two changes. First, deeper cuts to temporary resident intake beyond what is already planned. Second, and more urgent according to Mahboubi, a functioning system to track when temporary residents actually exit the country rather than simply assuming compliance.
Canada already collects some exit data through information-sharing agreements with the United States at land borders, but coverage gaps remain, particularly for people who leave by air to destinations other than the US or who overstay without formally departing at all.
How Canada Currently Tracks Departures
Canada shares some border-crossing data with the United States. An information-sharing agreement covers land crossings between the two countries. That system can confirm when someone leaves Canada for the US, but it captures only one exit route among several.
People who fly to other countries fall outside what that data can confirm. So do people who simply remain in Canada after their permit expires without formally departing. The council’s submission argues this gap is large enough to undermine confidence in any national compliance estimate.
Provincial data adds another layer of uncertainty. Health cards, driver’s licenses, and school enrollment records could in theory help confirm whether someone is still in the country, but these systems are not currently linked to federal immigration status data in a systematic way.
Building those links raises its own privacy and jurisdictional questions, since provinces control much of that data independently of the federal government’s immigration mandate.
Mahboubi’s council did not set a timeline for when better tracking should be in place, but framed it as a prerequisite for any credible claim that Canada’s temporary resident population is actually shrinking toward the government’s target.
Opposition critics have echoed parts of the council’s concern. The political debate over intake levels themselves remains far more divided, though, than the narrower, more technical question of how departures get counted.
That narrower question, Mahboubi argues, is where Ottawa could make the fastest progress, since better tracking does not require the same political consensus that setting new intake numbers demands.
What Other Countries Do Differently
Several peer countries, including Australia and the UK, run more comprehensive exit-tracking systems that log departures at all major air, land, and sea points. Those systems let governments report overstay rates with more confidence than Canada currently can.
The C.D. Howe submission points to these systems as a model Canada could adapt, arguing that better data would let policymakers set intake targets based on verified outcomes rather than assumptions about who has already left.
Building a comparable system in Canada would likely require new agreements with airlines and closer coordination between IRCC, the Canada Border Services Agency, and provincial governments that currently hold pieces of the relevant data separately.
Where the Levels Debate Goes From Here
The council’s submission feeds into the government’s annual immigration levels consultation, which shapes targets for permanent and temporary admissions in the years ahead. Ottawa has not yet responded formally to the recommendations.
Study permit holders and temporary workers already navigating a tighter Canadian system, including recent caps on the Post-Graduation Work Permit’s eligible fields of study, are likely to face continued scrutiny as this debate over tracking and targets plays out over the coming months.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many temporary residents does Canada currently have?
Statistics Canada estimates about 2.5 million temporary residents, roughly 6.2 percent of the population, as of mid-2026.
What is Canada’s target for temporary residents?
The federal government aims to bring temporary residents below 5 percent of the population by the end of 2027.
Why does the C.D. Howe Institute say tracking is a problem?
The council argues Ottawa assumes people leave when their permits expire without a reliable system to confirm departures, making the 5 percent target hard to verify.
Who is on the C.D. Howe Institute’s immigration targets council?
The council is chaired by economist Parisa Mahboubi and includes former immigration minister Jason Kenney along with academics who study migration policy.
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