Borderlines17 Nov 2025

#189 - The 2026–2028 Levels Plan: Behind the Numbers

Canada’s new 2026–2028 Immigration Levels Plan is here, and it’s a lot more confusing than media headlines suggest.

This episode unpacks how the Carney government has quietly layered “one-time initiatives” on top of the official levels plan, including a massive cohort of protected persons and in-Canada temporary residents transitioning to permanent residence, and why the oft-repeated topline of 380,000 PRs is misleading once you add those extra streams.

Topics discussed also include shrinking the temporary resident share of the population, the quiet rollback of francophone immigration targets, cuts to IRCC’s budget, and the rule-of-law issues when the same legal criteria suddenly produce totally different outcomes and higher refusal rates.

We also answer live listener questions on CEC, work experience across multiple NOCs, why there aren't many ITAs, the H-1B pathway, and more.

5:05 – The “math’s not mathing”: topline 380,000 vs extra 140,000 PRs

19:00 – Temporary resident caps, extensions, and the missing data

27:26 – Francophone targets quietly reduced & what that signals

33:06 – Massive rebound of the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) in 2026

36:06 – H&C: 1,100 admissions and a 50-year backlog

37:35 – Budget cuts, IRCC HR reductions & shift to automation

43:04 – Potential new categories: researchers, senior managers, allied military

44:49 – Listener Q&A: is there hope for CEC? TR→PR vs CEC draws

48:02 – Are CEC ITAs being stalled to protect processing time stats?

49:16 – CEC work experience across multiple NOCs & “primary NOC” confusion

51:00 – Can wrong NOC coding sink an otherwise solid CEC application?

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Episoder(227)

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