Government says it's working to track temporary resident exits following AG report

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Lena Metlege Diab waits to appear as a witness at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Monday, May 4, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA — Canada’s immigration department says it plans to launch a pilot program next month to reach out to international students with expiring visas as part of a plan to track entry and exit data.

Deputy Immigration Minister Ted Gallivan told a House of Commons committee on Monday that the department is working toward having an indicator on visa holder profiles that states whether they’re still in the country.

“(Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) didn’t have a game plan or even an intention to manage the departure of people at the expiration of their visa. We’ve not taken responsibility for managing that in collaboration with the CBSA,” Gallivan told the committee.

“This is a paradigm shift, I think, for IRCC where we agree with the concern that Canadians have that we’re not sure who is in or out of the country and we’re doing the work, both from an IT perspective and management perspective, to manage that more effectively.”

Ontario Conservative MP Costas Menegakis asked Immigration Minister Lena Diab why the government hasn’t been tracking the entry and exit of visa holders, especially after the number of temporary residents dramatically increased in recent years -- reaching a height of more than seven per cent of the population in October 2024.

“That’s a good question, I wondered the same thing but that’s how Canada has been throughout its history. That’s nothing new,” Diab replied.

“The issue now, and I agree with you, we should have it and we are working towards it.”

An auditor general report released in March found only a handful of potentially problematic student visas were being investigated between 2023 and 2024.

This included only 4,000 of 153,000 cases of suspected non-compliance with visa conditions being investigated, 16,000 of 39,500 people with expired visas leaving the country and 800 cases of visas obtained with fraudulent or misrepresented info not being followed up on.

Diab told the same committee her department has now reviewed all 153,000 student visas flagged as potentially non-compliant.

Diab said 64 per cent of those were found to be valid and 14 per cent applied for asylum, which Diab said is an issue now covered under one of Canada’s new border laws, Bill C-12, that restricts the ability to make a conventional asylum claim to a person’s first year in Canada.

The minister said the remaining 22 per cent of the potentially non-compliant visa holders, about 33,000 people, saw their documents expire and may or may not still be in Canada.

“Some of them would have left the country, we don’t have the exact number today. Some may have remained in Canada without applying for a new permit,” Diab said.

“But because we don’t exactly know the specifics of that … that’s why we’ve implemented a pilot initiative that will be the beginnings of the process of an exit system.”

Diab added that this will cover the entire temporary resident program, not just the student visa program.

Both Saskatchewan Conservative MP Brad Redekopp and Bloc Quebecois MP Alexis Deschenes asked Diab about the 800 cases outlined in the auditor report where fraud was discovered, but nothing was done. They wanted to know what is being done about these cases.

The auditor’s report showed that more than half of those cases saw people get additional immigration documents approved and 105 received permanent residency.

Gallivan responded in French that all of these cases will be investigated and some will see their status in Canada cancelled and they will be removed.

The minister said her department is working with the Canada Border Services Agency to develop a system to track exits of temporary visa holders by the end of the year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2026.