Prime Minister Mark Carney campaigned on being different from Donald Trump. Yet his government’s first major legislative act, Bill C-2—the so-called “Strong Borders Act”—represents nothing less than a shameful capitulation to Trumpian xenophobia that fundamentally betrays Canada’s legal and moral obligations to refugees and migrants.
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, who introduced this sweeping 127-page bill on Tuesday, has openly admitted that it addresses “irritants for the US”—a stunning acknowledgment that Canada is willing to sacrifice human rights to appease Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. Speaking to CBC News, Anandasangaree confirmed that while he didn’t brief US border czar Tom Homan before introducing the bill, he did speak with Homan afterward “to provide details of the plan.”
These revelations expose what Canadians are now witnessing: the deliberate construction of a mass deportation machine designed to tear apart families and communities across Canada.
A Stunning Betrayal of His Own Values
What makes Anandasangaree’s introduction of this legislative assault particularly deplorable is his own history as a passionate advocate for refugee rights. Previously as a human rights lawyer and backbench Member of Parliament, Anandasangaree spoke eloquently about Canada’s moral obligation to those seeking refuge. In 2016, he wrote an op-ed in which he passionately discussed how accepting 155 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees 30 years earlier “changed Canada” and marked “a turning point in Canadian refugee and immigration history.”
Reflecting on the 1986 rescue of Tamil refugees off the shores of Newfoundland, Anandasangaree praised Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s declaration that Canada was “not in the business of turning away refugees.” He warned against repeating Canada’s shameful history of rejecting those seeking refuge, writing: “as Canadians, we should commit to never repeating our history of turning away those who come to our shores seeking refuge.”
Anandasangaree understood then what he seems to have forgotten now—that “people in normal circumstances do not risk their lives—and the lives of their families—to flee for reasons such as economic stability. They do so out of desperation and as a last resort.” He called for Canada’s doors to “always be open, not just to those who come to our shores, but those taking extraordinary risks to cross other shores in search of refuge.”
That passionate advocate for refugee rights has now become the architect of their systematic persecution. The man who once condemned Canada’s historical failures to protect refugees is now authoring legislation that will create new chapters of shame in Canada’s national story.
A Brutal Attack on Refugee Rights
The centerpiece of Bill C-2’s cruelty is its one-year deadline for making refugee claims, which makes refugee protection claims ineligible for consideration by the Immigration and Refugee Board if claimants entered Canada after June 24, 2020, and failed to make their claim within one year of their entry, effectively preventing these individuals from receiving a hearing on their asylum case. The provision does not apply retroactively to claims already made before the bill’s introduction in Parliament. Refugee lawyer Maureen Silcott argues that this approach will merely shift the refugee backlog rather than solve it, noting that the timing of a claim doesn’t determine its validity.
The devastating implications are clear. Individuals whose home countries deteriorate into conflict or persecution after their arrival in Canada would be denied the fundamental right to seek asylum protections simply due to timing. A student from Myanmar who arrived in 2021 and watched their country descend into military dictatorship would be barred from seeking protection. A worker from Afghanistan who came before the Taliban’s return to power would face deportation despite the obvious dangers they would face. International students from Iran, Ukraine, Ethiopia, or any number of countries experiencing political upheaval would find themselves trapped—unable to return home safely but prohibited from seeking refuge in Canada.
The retroactive nature of this provision is particularly vicious. People who have been living, working, studying, and contributing to Canadian society for years could suddenly find themselves deportable based on an arbitrary timeline they had no way of anticipating. This violates basic principles of fairness and due process while creating a climate of terror among migrant communities.
One of the bill’s changes seeks to allow officials to “remove inactive cases from the system.” By doing so, this will likely give authorities broad discretion to eliminate refugee claims without proper adjudication. What constitutes “inactive” is largely left undefined, potentially allowing officials to close files simply because applicants lack legal representation, face language barriers, or are dealing with trauma that prevents them from navigating complex bureaucratic requirements.
Expanding Trump’s Failed Border Policies
Bill C-2 also expands the Safe Third Country Agreement in ways that directly mirror Trump’s harsh border enforcement. Previously, migrants entering Canada from the US between ports of entry could apply for refugee status after 14 days. The new legislation eliminates this exception entirely, forcing individuals to remain in Trump’s America despite his administration’s widely criticized immigration crackdown.
This change effectively increases Canada’s complicity in Trump’s immigration detention and deportation regime. Canada is pushing asylum seekers back into the arms of an administration that has made clear its hostility toward migrants and refugees.
Many irregular border crossers arrive in Canada after harrowing journeys, often in severe weather conditions, and may require medical attention, trauma counseling, or simply time to understand their legal options. The elimination of the 14-day grace period is particularly cruel given such realities faced by asylum seekers. Moreover, this change further contributes to Canada’s ongoing violation of its commitments under the 1951 Refugee Convention, which prohibits penalizing refugees for irregular entry. By reinforcing different standards for asylum seekers based solely on how they entered the country, Bill C-2 solidifies Canada’s discriminatory two-tier system that undermines the fundamental principle that the right to seek asylum should not depend on one’s mode of arrival.
Unchecked Powers for Mass Deportations
One of the most troubling aspects of Bill C-2 is the broad power it would give the Governor in Council—meaning the Governor General acting on the advice of the federal Cabinet—and immigration officials to revoke, suspend, or modify immigration documents for entire groups without any legal process.
The bill, if implemented into law, grants the Governor in Council sweeping authority to issue orders that certain immigration applications “are not to be accepted for processing” or that their processing “be suspended or terminated” whenever they determine it is “in the public interest” to do so. The breadth of this power is staggering and dangerous. There are no clear criteria for what qualifies as “public interest,” no evidentiary standards, no appeals processes, and no safeguards to prevent arbitrary decisions.
Under these provisions, the Governor in Council can also cancel or alter a wide range of immigration documents—including permanent resident visas, work and study permits, and temporary resident visas—or suspend them entirely. Conditions attached to these documents, or to individuals themselves, can be imposed or changed without warning or oversight.
This means that migrants already living in Canada—students, workers, and families with deep community ties—could suddenly lose their legal status. Even those who have applied for permanent residency or refugee protection could be rendered deportable overnight. Entire categories of people, such as workers from specific countries or international students, could be targeted en masse based on political motives rather than individual merit or need.
This comes amid existing policy changes under Trudeau’s government where, as noted by Migrant Rights Network, over 3,000 work and study permits expire daily, forcing thousands to leave and separating families. Bill C-2 will make it worse by adding more ways to deport people, removing protections that exist, giving the government unlimited power over migrants’ lives. The combination of mass permit expirations and these new mass cancellation powers creates the infrastructure for deportations on an unprecedented scale.
The Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) process, which the government claims will protect those barred from making refugee claims under the new ineligibility provisions, is notoriously inadequate and represents a cruel fiction of protection. When migrants are denied the right to make refugee claims due to the one-year bar or the expanded Safe Third Country Agreement restrictions, the government points to PRRA as an alternative avenue for protection. However, this substitute process is fundamentally flawed and inadequate.
PRRA decisions are made on paper without in-person hearings, oral testimony, or the ability to assess credibility through direct examination. These assessments are often conducted by officials with limited country-specific expertise who may lack understanding of the complex political, social, and security situations refugees flee. The PRRA process has rejection rates exceeding 90 percent with officers frequently dismissing claims based on outdated or superficial country information that fails to capture the nuanced risks faced by individual applicants. The process provides no right to representation, limited ability to submit evidence, and extremely restricted grounds for judicial review. Treating PRRA as an adequate substitute for full refugee hearings with legal representation, oral testimony, and proper appeals represents a fundamental downgrading of protection standards that violates Canada’s international obligations.
Privacy Protections Stripped Away
Bill C-2, if implemented into law, would dismantle core privacy protections and build a sweeping surveillance regime that criminalizes migrants for asserting their rights.
The bill would give explicit authority to the Immigration Minister to disclose personal information—including “the identity of an individual,” changes to that identity, and “the status of an individual in Canada”—to any federal or provincial body, including Crown corporations. It also permits sharing “between different IRCC programs,” meaning that applying for humanitarian relief, for example, could expose someone to deportation through a different channel.
These provisions are especially dangerous for vulnerable individuals—such as survivors of domestic violence, trafficking victims, and those fleeing persecution—who previously accessed healthcare, education, or support services without fear that their information would be shared with immigration authorities. Bill C-2 would eliminate these protections, turning help-seeking into a potential trigger for deportation.
The surveillance powers extend far beyond immigration enforcement. Bill C-2 amends the Criminal Code and CSIS Act to enhance law enforcement and intelligence access to personal information, mandates telecom providers retain user data for police access, strips away postal privacy protections allowing mail searches, and grants authorities warrantless inspection powers at warehouses and shipping facilities.
Far from safeguarding public interest, Bill C-2 constructs an infrastructure of fear—silencing communities, enabling abuse, and institutionalizing state power over the most vulnerable.
Scapegoating Migrants for Government Failures
The economic arguments behind Bill C-2 are deliberate misdirection. Rather than addressing the real roots of Canada’s housing and affordability crisis, the government has opted for a cynical narrative that blames migrants for problems born of decades of political and policy failure.
Canada’s housing crisis began in 1993 when then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s government tabled its final budget. That budget eliminated all new federal funding for social housing outside First Nations reserves, ending a longstanding policy of building around 20,000 units of social housing per year. This marked a pivotal shift away from treating housing as a public good and toward commodifying it as a financial asset. The federal government essentially stepped back from its responsibility, leaving housing supply almost entirely to the private market.
Successive governments reinforced this approach through cheap credit, weak rent controls, and exclusionary zoning that entrenched speculation and scarcity. The result: national housing prices have soared—rising 80 percent since 2009—and wage growth hasn’t come close to keeping pace. By 2024, 68 percent of Canadian households “couldn’t afford to purchase a home based on earned income alone.”
Immigration isn’t the root cause. As the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives confirms, Canada’s housing crisis stems from policy failure, not population growth. Yet Bill C-2 diverts attention by blaming migrants—many of whom are building the very housing Canadians need.
Migrant workers are indispensable to the construction industry, which faces a looming shortfall of over 245,000 workers by 2032 due to retirements. Newcomers already make up a large share of tradespeople, general laborers, and skilled workers. Ontario’s Youth Apprenticeship Program and new innovations like 3D-printed homes and prefab construction all underscore the same truth: we need more workers, not fewer. But instead of supporting the migrant workforce, Bill C-2 threatens them with deportation.
The economic consequences are massive. Migrant Rights Network, in their May 2025 public letter addressed to Anandasangaree and other Canadian officials, cite that 1.2 million temporary residents expected to leave due to new immigration caps represent $50 billion in lost annual tax revenue. Migrants don’t just pay taxes; they fill labor gaps, start businesses, drive innovation, and contribute to every sector of the economy.
Nowhere is this clearer than in agriculture, where temporary foreign workers plant, harvest, and package the food Canadians rely on, often for poverty wages and in unsafe conditions. Without them, Canada’s food system would collapse. The same is true in healthcare and childcare, where thousands of migrant workers support long-term care facilities, home care, and daycare services. Yet under Bill C-2, these essential workers may face deportation.
Meanwhile, the infrastructure needed to enforce this mass removal—detention centers, surveillance, deportation logistics—will cost billions. Those resources could be redirected toward housing, healthcare, or education. Worse, these enforcement mechanisms will push economic activity underground. Migrants afraid of deportation are less likely to report wage theft or unsafe conditions, giving unscrupulous employers more leverage and driving down standards for all workers.
Communities across Canada already recognize that migrants drive growth. In Cochrane, Ontario, officials are offering residential lots for $10 to attract newcomers and support a new mine. Mayor Peter Politis notes that northern Ontario holds 90 percent of the province’s land but just 6 percent of its population—and immigration is the key to revitalizing these underpopulated regions.
If the government were serious about solving the housing crisis, it would focus on evidence-based policy. That means public investment in non-market housing, ending exclusionary zoning, introducing stronger rent controls, and reforming tax laws.
As noted in an article on Maclean’s, only 4 percent of all homes in Canada are non-market housing—such as public, co-operative, or non-profit housing—compared to 7 percent on average in OECD countries. In countries like the Netherlands and the UK, the share is much higher, with non-market housing marking up about 30 percent and 15 percent of their total housing stock, respectively. A Deloitte study found that reaching the OECD average by 2030 could deliver a $67 billion economic boost and increase productivity by up to 9.3 percent.
Instead, public money continues to flow to private developers building luxury units out of reach for most Canadians. Corporate landlords are flipping rental properties into investment vehicles, while since 2019, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, rents have jumped over 25 percent. Migrants are not the cause of the crisis—they are the ones keeping the system functioning despite it.
A Call to Resistance
Bill C-2 is a moral catastrophe that is designed to appease a foreign leader’s xenophobic agenda. That it comes from a minister who once understood the moral imperative of refugee protection makes it all the more damning.
Gary Anandasangaree once wrote that “our country will never be the same again” because of the Tamil refugees Canada welcomed in 1986. He was right—their contributions enriched our society immeasurably. Now he threatens to ensure Canada will never be the same again for entirely different reasons—because Canada chooses economic illiteracy over evidence, cruelty over compassion, deportation over the $67 billion in economic benefits that real housing solutions would provide.
Every parliamentarian who votes for this legislation will be complicit in a system designed to terrorize and exclude some of the most vulnerable people in our society while simultaneously sabotaging our economic recovery and worsening the very crises it claims to address. This bill must be stopped, and those responsible for its creation—especially those who once knew better—must be held accountable for this vicious assault on immigrant rights and economic common sense.
Canada can and must do better. Our humanitarian values, international legal obligations, and economic interests all demand the same thing; welcoming the workers we need while investing in the public housing solutions that actually work. Anandasangaree once understood this. His current betrayal of those principles—and of basic economic reality—does not change their truth.
Pitasanna Shanmugathas is a third-year student at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law and a Senior Editor for Long Form Content at JURIST.
