The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has laid out a troubling pattern in Canada’s immigration system: the drive to process applications quickly has repeatedly come at the expense of proper security screening and enforcement. The result is a temporary resident stream that has been exploited by fraudsters and, in some cases, by people who go on to commit serious crimes.
Several high-profile cases illustrate the problem. In Abbotsford, B.C., an elderly couple was murdered by individuals who had entered Canada on study visas; at least one of the perpetrators was not attending classes. Extortion networks operating in cities such as Brampton, Calgary, and Surrey have frequently involved non-citizens on study or expired visas. A FINTRAC bulletin has described the recruitment of young male international students as foot soldiers and money mules. The 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar also involved individuals who had entered on temporary visas, including study permits.
An Auditor General’s report from earlier this year found that more than 150,000 foreign students were flagged as potentially non-compliant between 2023 and 2024, yet only a small fraction of cases were investigated. The Student Direct Stream, which heavily favoured applicants from India and carried approval rates near 98 percent, was flagged for fraud concerns long before it was finally shut down. Hundreds of fraudulent study permits were identified but not consistently pursued.
When the immigration department treats applicants as clients whose files must be cleared as fast as possible, the basic responsibility to protect the public takes a back seat. Temporary programs that lack rigorous attendance checks, weak follow-up on non-compliance, and limited capacity to investigate fraud create openings that criminal networks can exploit. Recent government pledges to share lists of expired permit holders with the Canada Border Services Agency are a start, but they do not erase the consequences of years of prioritising volume over verification.
Public safety is not an optional add-on to immigration policy. It is the core obligation of any government. Restoring meaningful security screening, enforcing the rules already on the books, and ensuring that fraudulent or non-compliant cases face real consequences would be a more responsible approach than simply accelerating the next wave of applications. Canadians have a right to expect that the people admitted into the country have been properly vetted. The current record shows how often that expectation has been set aside.
