Carney Defends Immigration Policies Amid Oversight Gaps

0:00It's March 25, I'm Cory with the story, and this is Vancouver News today, your AI-powered local news. Prime Minister Mark Carney defended his government's immigration policies this week after an auditor general report exposed major gaps in oversight. For international students, the report found that between 2023 and 2024, officials flagged 153,000 students for issues like non-compliance and fraud, but only investigated around 4,000 cases. Many of those probes led to minimal action, like just asking students for more info. Earlier this week, the audit also revealed failures to follow up on 800 fraud cases and poor tracking of student departures. Carney highlighted progress since his government took office in 2025, pointing to temporary worker numbers down 50 percent, asylum, claims reduced by one-third, and new foreign student arrivals cut by 60 percent. Students poured in quickly, with immigration minister Lena Medogay Diab, announcing plans

1:01to centralize investigations and boost info sharing with. Border services. She noted that since 2025, every reported discrepancy gets followed up. Conservative leader Pierre Polyver called for firing Diab and two former ministers over past handling. Shifting public views played a big role too, as attitudes toward immigration hit 30-year lows in 2023 and 2024 after. Record inflows eased labor shortages. The government tightened work and study visas in 2024 and CAP students. Now with permanent resident targets stabilizing at 380,000 annually through 2028 and temporary arrivals easing, Canada's population even shrank 0.2 percent in the third quarter of 2025. The first drop since the pandemic.