Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has quietly co-opted many of the Conservatives’ signature policies — from cutting international student visas to tightening refugee claims — leaving Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre searching for a new way to stand apart. His answer? Push Canada’s immigration debate further to the right than it has been in decades.
Over the past year, Poilievre has shifted from promising reforms to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to pledging to cancel it outright, blaming it for taking jobs away from Canadian youth — a claim for which he offers no evidence. He has gone from calling for slower population growth to openly demanding negative population growth, and has sharpened his rhetoric by declaring that non-citizens convicted of crimes must “get the hell out of Canada” after serving their sentences.
The Conservative Calculus
Poilievre’s allies in conservative think tanks and media circles say this marks a “new era” for the party. Former staffers frame it as a chance to move beyond risk-averse messaging, while commentators like Geoff Russ and Amy Hamm argue that immigration can now be debated openly “without Conservatives being branded as racist.”
Political strategist Sean Speer calls it a “worthwhile bet” that urban and suburban Canadians are ready for a tougher line. The logic is simple: rising unemployment, surging housing costs, and a cost-of-living crisis create fertile ground for scapegoating newcomers.
Liberals Shift Rightward, Creating Space
Carney’s Liberals have moved right on immigration themselves — promising caps on permanent residents, restricting asylum claims, and sustaining a record level of deportations. This is a continuation of a trend that began under Justin Trudeau, whose government cut international student intake and increased removals in its final year.
These moves leave the Liberals poorly positioned to resist Conservative messaging. When Carney echoes Poilievre by linking immigration to housing shortages and social-service strain, he helps legitimize the narrative that migrants are to blame — even though research shows these crises are driven more by underinvestment, corporate speculation, and policy failures than by immigration levels.
The Danger of Oversimplification
Poilievre’s rhetoric simplifies complex issues. His call for negative population growth ignores that Canada is already projecting a slight population slowdown under current federal targets. The danger is not just that such rhetoric is misleading — it also risks emboldening extremist movements that call for mass deportations and openly spread anti-immigrant hate.
Already, polls show the highest level of opposition to immigration in 30 years, and far-right groups have become bolder, marching with banners in Canadian streets. By praising “good” immigrants who come the “right way” while vilifying “bad” ones, Poilievre creates a moral hierarchy that hardens public attitudes and fuels polarisation.
What’s at Stake
The real threat is not just policy divergence but the shifting of Canada’s political centre. With both Liberals and Conservatives competing to sound tough on immigration, a vacuum opens for openly xenophobic forces to grow louder. This is the same pattern seen in parts of Europe and the United States, where mainstream parties’ concessions to anti-immigrant narratives have empowered the far right rather than blunting it.
The Progressive Response
Stopping this slide requires a different conversation: one focused on solutions that raise wages for all, expand housing supply, invest in public health care, and regularize the status of undocumented people. Without such a push, Poilievre’s strategy could succeed — delivering him electoral victory while leaving immigrants as the scapegoats for Canada’s systemic challenges.