Mark Carney just said the quiet part out loud. In an interview with the New York Times published late last week, the prime minister said Canada’s immigration system is back “under control,” and that the real question now is when the country resumes what he called a “controlled increase” in population.
“Now the question starts to become, when do we resume some controlled increase in the population, which is the nature of Canada?” Carney said. “So that will happen, and we just want to make sure that we’ve got it under control.”
No timeline, no numbers, just a signal. But the timing is everything. By law, the government has to table its next three-year immigration levels plan by November 1, a little over a month from now. Whatever Carney decides, it lands on paper soon. So let us talk about what a rising tide would actually mean for the Caribbean diaspora, because the headlines will talk about “immigration” in the abstract, and our people live it in the specific: the spouse waiting on paperwork, the farmworker renewing a contract, the cousin in Haiti trying to find a legal path north.
How we got here
Quick rewind, because the whiplash matters. The old plan was to push permanent resident admissions to 500,000 a year. Then the 2024/25 levels plan slammed the brakes. The most recent plan called for 385,000 permanent residents this year, dropping to 370,000 in 2027 and 2028, while temporary workers and international students got capped after Ottawa admitted the surge had strained housing, jobs, health care and just about everything else.
Carney said in July his government had “taken back control” of the system after the rapid growth of the Trudeau years. His office is now pointing to falling student and temporary worker arrivals, an October 2025 TD Bank report suggesting reduced immigration is easing housing pressure, and Statistics Canada numbers showing non-permanent residents at 6.7 per cent of the population as of July 1, with overall population growth at just 0.5 per cent year over year.
Translation: the tap was tightened, the pressure gauges are moving, and now the prime minister is floating the idea of loosening it again.
The Caribbean numbers tell their own story
Before we get to what changes, look at where we stand. IRCC’s own open data on permanent residents by country of citizenship shows a Caribbean story with a plot twist:
Jamaica admitted 4,245 permanent residents in 2022, 4,340 in 2023, 3,725 in 2024, and 2,985 in 2025. That is a drop of about 31 per cent in two years. Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Barbados are smaller and flat to declining.
Haiti, meanwhile, went the other way: 3,020 in 2023, then 5,175 in 2024, then 5,370 in 2025. Haiti has overtaken Jamaica as Canada’s largest Caribbean source of new permanent residents, up roughly 78 per cent from 2023.
Any “controlled increase” lands on top of these two very different trajectories: one community watching its pipeline shrink, another growing fast through channels that have little to do with the traditional economic streams.
The French-language door, and who walks through it
Here is the part of the immigration machine that matters most for Haitian families, and it is already wide open. Express Entry is having a record year, with nearly 115,000 invitations issued by mid-August and about 131,700 across 58 draws by late September. But the headline number hides the real story: category-based draws for French-language proficiency.
There have been 10 French-language draws in 2026, handing out 50,500 invitations, roughly 40 per cent of all invitations issued. The cutoff scores ran between 382 and 420, routinely more than 100 points below the Canadian Experience Class rounds sitting at 507 to 523. The 2026-2028 levels plan targets French-speaking admissions outside Quebec at 9 per cent of the total this year, rising to 10.5 per cent in 2028 and heading toward 12 per cent by 2029.
Put plainly: if you are a French-speaking Haitian applicant, the system is currently built to find you. One caveat worth stating honestly: IRCC publishes draw totals but not invitations by country of citizenship, so nobody can say exactly how many Haitians came through these draws. That would take an access-to-information request. But structurally, this is the most Caribbean-relevant door in the building right now.
The farmworker corridor holds, mostly
Now the Jamaican side of the story, which runs through a field in Ontario. The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program is a Caribbean-only corridor: Mexico plus 11 Caribbean countries, with Jamaica as the flagship. The 60th anniversary of the Canada-Jamaica farm work partnership was marked this year, and Jamaica’s Ministry of Labour placed 15,156 workers in Canada and the US from the start of 2025, 59 per cent of them through SAWP, with 2026 send-offs already underway.
The good news: on-farm primary agriculture, SAWP included, is exempt from the low-wage workforce cap, the LMIA fee and the one-year LMIA limit, and SAWP LMIA processing now averages six business days, the fastest of any stream. The government’s goal of cutting temporary residents to five per cent of the population by the end of 2027 mostly does not touch the fields.
The catch: SAWP numbers still count toward overall temporary foreign worker arrival targets, which drop from 60,000 in 2026 to 50,000 in 2027 and 2028. And Caribbean workers in non-agriculture low-wage roles face a 10 per cent workforce cap, refusals in cities with unemployment at or above six per cent, and narrowed spousal open work permits. Carney said September 10 that the temporary foreign worker program would “target specific, strategic sectors, and needs in specific regions.” Farmworkers look safe. Everyone else should read the fine print of the November plan.
There is also a quieter economic thread here. Canada’s share of Jamaica’s remittance inflows crossed 10.5 per cent in July 2025, the first time above ten per cent in the reporting series, attributed partly to expanding SAWP participation. When Ottawa tweaks this program, Kingston feels it in the foreign exchange line.
Family reunification: the slow lane and the detour
For the diaspora, immigration is rarely about a stranger arriving. It is about family. Here is the state of play.
Spousal and partner sponsorship has a 2026 target of 69,000, easing to 66,000 a year in 2027 and 2028. Processing is running around 12 to 14 months for cases outside Quebec, though the numbers bounce around by reporting date, so treat that as a range, not a promise. Quebec is far worse, at 25 to 33 months.
The Parents and Grandparents Program is effectively frozen: no new interest-to-sponsor forms or invitations since January 1, 2026, while IRCC works through a backlog of about 50,900 applications, with admissions capped at 15,000 a year through 2028. If you were waiting for the next intake to bring your mother up, that wait just got structural.
The working detour is the super visa: open year-round, up to five years per entry on a ten-year multi-entry visa. The trade-offs are real, though. The sponsor has to meet income thresholds, the parent needs at least $100,000 in Canadian private medical insurance for a full year, and there is no work authorization and no provincial health coverage. It is a long visit, not a landing.
The 148,000 wildcard
Buried in the levels plan are two one-time measures adding about 148,000 permanent residents over 2026 and 2027 on top of the headline targets: fast-tracking roughly 115,000 protected persons already in Canada, and transitioning up to 33,000 in-Canada work-permit holders to permanent residence. By June, about 11,300 of the worker target and 15,000 of the protected-person target had been processed.
This is where the Haitian story gets complicated. Haiti is Canada’s number two asylum-claim nationality: 1,585 claims in January and February 2026 alone, up 31 per cent from a year earlier even as overall claims fell 35 per cent. Canada maintains a removal moratorium for Haiti. But Quebec opted out of the protected-persons fast-track, and most Haitian asylum seekers land in Quebec. Add Bill C-12, the Strong Borders Act, which the Canadian Refugee Council warns could leave Haitian nationals in legal limbo under a one-year asylum bar, and the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants warning of disproportionate impact on Black communities, and you get a picture where the headline “increase” and the on-the-ground reality for Haitian families may point in opposite directions.
One honest structural note: the worker fast-track rewards continuous skilled Canadian work experience, which seasonal SAWP workers who rotate home each year generally do not accumulate. The measure that looks like a gift to temporary workers may largely pass the farmworkers by. That is the tension to watch.
So what happens November 1?
The politics are pulling in both directions. Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner says levels need to go down, not up. The C.D. Howe Institute’s immigration targets council, which includes former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, recommends cutting further: 380,000 in 2027, 350,000 in 2028, 340,000 in 2029, and shrinking temporary residents to three per cent of the population instead of five. Council member Mikal Skuterud, a University of Waterloo economist, warned Carney not to let the business lobby turn immigration into a cheap-labour tap: “Businesses have to compete for scarce labour… I worry that… the lobbying from them is going to cause him to make the same mistakes the previous governments have done.”
Here is what we could not find, and it matters: no Caribbean-Canadian organization, not the Jamaican Canadian Association, not the Haitian community groups in Montreal, has put out a public response to Carney’s remarks yet. That is a reporting gap, and frankly an organizing gap. The November 1 levels plan will set the numbers our families live with for three years. The community that shows up with data and demands before it is tabled gets heard. The community that reacts after does not.
Watch the French-language draw sizes, watch the SAWP carve-outs, watch whether the protected-persons fast-track survives Quebec’s opt-out, and watch the parents and grandparents line. Carney said an increase “will happen.” For Caribbean families, the only question that matters is: an increase for whom?
Sources
- Narcity / The Canadian Press (David Baxter), “PM looks at when to boost immigration as government gets system ‘under control’,” published Sep 29, 2026. https://www.narcity.com/carney-suggests-immigration-increase-on-horizon
- NewsBeep (CP syndication), “Carney suggests immigration increase is on the horizon in New York Times interview.” https://www.newsbeep.com/751391/
- Moving2Canada, Mark Carney immigration policy tracker 2026 (Sep 26, 2026 entry; Express Entry ITA records). https://moving2canada.com/immigration/mark-carney-immigration-policy-tracker/
- IRCC open data, “Canada, Permanent Residents by Country of Citizenship” (Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Barbados figures 2022 to Jul 2026). https://www.ircc.canada.ca/opendata-donneesouvertes/data/ODP-PR-Citz.csv
- CIC News, Express Entry 2026 draw coverage (French-language draws, cutoffs 382-420). https://www.cicnews.com/2026/06/provincial-nominees-receive-invitations-in-first-express-entry-draw-since-may-0676084.html
- Amir Ismail, Express Entry draws 2026 tracker (~131,715 ITAs across 58 draws by Sep 29). https://www.amirismail.com/express-entry-draws-2026/
- Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2025 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration (Jamaica: 10,090 TFWP admissions in 2024). https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/documents/pdf/english/corporate/publications-manuals/annual-report-parliament-immigration-2025.pdf
- Jamaica Information Service, Jamaican farm workers depart for Canada (2026 send-offs; SAWP 60th anniversary context). https://jis.gov.jm/jamaican-farm-workers-depart-for-canada/
- Employment and Social Development Canada, SAWP Caribbean employment contract 2026 amendments. https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/foreign-workers/agricultural/seasonal-agricultural/requirements/caribbean/agreements.html
- IRCC via SECU, Immigration Levels Plan 2026-2028 (two one-time measures: ~115,000 protected persons, ~33,000 in-Canada workers; French-speaking targets). https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/transparency/committees/secu-apr-30-2026/immigration-levels-plan.html
- IRCC via CIMM, comprehensive data package Apr 20, 2026 (Haiti: 1,585 asylum claims Jan-Feb 2026, up 31 per cent year over year). https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/transparency/committees/cimm-apr-20-2026/comprehensive-data-package.html
- Canadian Refugee Council, Bill C-12 brief to Senate SOCI, February 2026 (Haiti moratorium country; one-year asylum bar). https://ccrweb.ca/sites/ccrweb.ca/files/2026-02/CCR%20C-12%20Brief%20Senate%20-%20SOCI%20(February%202026).pdf
- OCASI, House CIMM brief on Bill C-12 (disproportionate impact on Black and racialized communities). https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/451/CIMM/Brief/BR13738092/br-external/OntarioCouncilOfAgenciesServingImmigrants-e.pdf
- Citizen Press Online, “Canada sets new family immigration caps,” Sep 24, 2026 (spousal targets; PGP pause and backlog). https://citizenpressonline.com/2026/09/24/canada-sets-new-family-immigration-caps/
- JSR Legals, PR admissions June 2026 and student/worker arrivals July 2026 trackers. https://jsrlegals.ca/blog/pr-admissions-june-2026/
- Jamaica Homes News, “Jamaica remittances July 2025” (Canada’s share of inflows crossed 10.5 per cent). https://news.jamaica-homes.com/2025/08/01/jamaica-remittances-july-2025/
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