Mark Carney is pushing a self-sufficiency agenda. He can’t pull it off without workers from elsewhere.

By Rick Lamanna Macleans April 30, 2026

In the last year, Mark Carney has put together a laundry list of fast-tracked infrastructure projects he says will create a more self-sufficient Canada. And I, like many Canadians, am aligned with that philosophy. But these are no small undertakings. Take the floating natural gas facility slated for the B.C. coast, for example, or the handful of open-pit mineral mines across the country. These projects have massive potential for Canadian prosperity, but there’s a problem: we’re short on the skilled labour needed to tackle them. 

Don’t take it from me—take it from Carney himself. In his spring economic update this week, he admitted the labour shortage will stall major projects if we don’t act fast. Already, almost half of small and medium businesses say they don’t have enough skilled workers, and over the next two years, 700,000 tradespeople will retire. Carney’s solution is to invest in the skilled trades, but that doesn’t address Canada’s most immediate need. The crux of the issue is the country’s low—and shrinking—population. 

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Last year was the first since Confederation in which the population declined and, this year, growth is expected to be net zero. Low birth rates play a role in that stagnation, but the much bigger factor is immigration. After years of lax policies that swung the doors open to certain newcomers, the government is shutting them again. This year, the federal government cut the number of permanent resident admissions by 120,000 and, by 2027, it plans to drop the country’s temporary resident volume from 6.3 to five per cent. 

I’ve been an immigration lawyer for 20 years, and I know that these changes are likely to result in negative economic outcomes. The country’s labour-force growth comes almost entirely from immigration. Newcomers represent 29 per cent of the workforce, even though they make up only 23 per cent of the population. Now, the federal government is turning the tap in the wrong direction.

Meanwhile, Canada’s infrastructure has been crumbling for years. Most of it was built in the postwar boom and is fast approaching the end of its lifespan. Take last year’s catastrophic Calgary water main break, which flooded city streets and subjected over 3,000 residents to a boil-water advisory. Or Canada’s roads and bridges: 40 per cent are in fair, poor or very poor condition. As for energy, we haven’t built a new nuclear plant in 30 years. If we can’t even maintain our current infrastructure, how can we expect to build more, in such a narrow timeframe, without newcomers?

The government had reasons to cap immigration: mismanagement and fraud have plagued the system for years. In the first half of 2024, it rejected more than 52,000 temporary residence applications due to some form of misrepresentation. The system was also extraordinarily bad at making appropriate decisions. On the Comprehensive Ranking System—a points-based tool used to rank skilled workers applying for permanent residence in Canada—fast-food managers would earn the same scores as experienced, highly skilled corporate managers working for Fortune 500 companies. Often, the fast-food managers scored even higher, since younger candidates are assigned more points.

These problems with Canada’s immigration system are real, but the solution isn’t a blanket cap. In fact, the government’s clampdown has only made the situation worse. At Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, officers are making dubious decisions on legitimate applications.

Meanwhile, applications haven’t slowed down, so the agency is now contending with massive processing backlogs. Some of my clients with work or study permits have had to wait a maddening 200 days, or more, just for extensions on their status. In the meantime, they are hesitant to leave the country because they will lose their status, and they’re afraid of being denied re-entry. IRCC announced 3,300 layoffs in January—a quarter of its workforce—which will only slow processes down. Attempts to mend the problem with AI have, so far, been fruitless. 

Canada could outcompete America for skilled labour, but not without a functional immigration system. Ours has lost sight of its purpose. What we really need is a pragmatic approach that funnels the workers we require into the industries that need them. The government could look to Canada’s industries—which have been asking for more workers for years—for help in deciding which sectors should get newcomers. A 2025 poll of Canadian manufacturers indicated that many of them urgently need millwrights, industrial electricians and other kinds of skilled industrial labour.  

A robust trusted-employer program could help. These programs grant faster approvals for businesses with a history of compliance, expediting workers into the industries that need them. Dozens of countries, including Australia, the U.K. and the Netherlands already leverage this type of framework—the Dutch system has a relatively rapid two-week approval timeline for trusted sponsors. Canada is behind the curve. It only began piloting a relatively narrow three-year trusted-employer program for temporary foreign workers in 2023, after a recommendation from the House of Commons years earlier—and stopped accepting new applicants to the program in 2024.

We have lots to learn from countries with more efficient immigration systems. Australia, for example, has been using digital visas since 2015, cutting the cumbersome process of mailing documents worldwide. Canada piloted the technology with a small group of Moroccan immigrants in November. If the government decides that the pilot went well, an expansion could slim down IRCC’s workload and reduce processing delays.

I don’t think changes should happen all at once. Doing too much, too fast placed significant strain on our systems and infrastructure. But there’s no reason we can’t be both bold and flexible. If we fix the system, Canadians can place their trust back in it. There’s a lot at stake if we don’t get immigration back on track, and there are big opportunities to be gained if we do. Canada remains a desirable destination, especially in light of geopolitical unrest abroad. It is in our collective economic interest to seize the moment, and welcome skilled labour from around the world with open arms.

–As told to Edward Lander

https://macleans.ca/politics/if-canada-wants-to-build-it-needs-immigrants/