Borderlines

On March 14, 2025, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in John Howard Society of Saskatchewan v. Saskatchewan (Attorney General), 2025 SCC 6. Prior to the case, in Saskatchewan’s provincial correctional institutions, inmates charged with disciplinary offences had to appear before a disciplinary panel, where the standard of proof was a balance of probabilities, even for major offences that may result in up to 10 days of disciplinary segregation or the loss of up to 15 days of earned remission. The Supreme Court found that this violated sections 7 and 11(d) of the Charter, and held that to the extent that the law permitted the imposition of disciplinary segregation and loss of earned remission for an inmate disciplinary offence on a lower standard of proof, it is inconsistent with the Constitution and must therefore be declared to be of no force or effect. As noted by the dissent, the case could have implications for Canadian immigration law.

Deanna discusses the new Ministerial Instructions rolling out the long awaited caregiver pilots on 31 March 2025.

Over 300,000 Canadians have signed a petition calling on the government to revoke Elon Musk's citizenship. Is this possible, and should it be? We also discuss the ongoing saga about changes to the law and policy regarding citizenship by descent.

Chantal Desloges is an immigration lawyer in Toronto. We discuss what the various Liberal leadership candidates have pledged regarding Canadian immigration policy, with a focus on Mark Carney and a speech that he gave to the Century Initiative.

Kubeir Kamal is a regulated immigration consultant in Toronto. In October, 2024, Quebec announced that it was limiting the number of foreign nationals invited from any one country in its Regular Skilled Worker Program to 25%. In February, 2025, Marc Miller said that Canadian post-secondary institutions need to be more diverse in their recruitment, noting that there would always be applicants from India. India is by far the number one source country of immigrants to Canada. How likely is it that Canada will cap applications from India? Should they? @3:00    Marc Miller recently commented that “there will always be applicants from India.” Is this true? @7:00    The data on top source countries for new immigrants to Canada and why India does so well.  @11:00 Why are so many people seeking to leave Canada? Has Canada lived up to their expectations? Is there a difference in the likelihood of success of immigrating to Canada vs. the United States?  @20:00 Thoughts on restricting and capping immigration based on country of citizenship.   @32:00  Audience comments on capping immigration. I note that in the episode both Steven and Kubeir refer to the removal of STEM and Tech occupations as priority occupations in Express Entry. Not all STEM and Tech occupations were removed, however, major ones like Software Developers, Web Designers and Software Engineers were.

In this episode, we break down IRCC's practice of rejecting applications for incompleteness, often for minor technical issues. Effectively a form of stats manipulation, this practice creates a misleading picture of departmental efficiency while leaving applicants stranded, often forcing them to restart the process for trivial errors. Cases discussed include Gennai v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2017 FCA 29 and Goel v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 FC 275.