OTTAWA — The federal government is cancelling intake for two economic immigration programs as it moves to reduce application backlogs and rein in immigration levels.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said Friday it will stop accepting new applications for the Start-Up Visa (SUV) program — Canada’s only business immigration stream — beginning Jan. 1. The department is also immediately pausing intake for the Home Care Worker Immigration pilots until further notice.
“It saddens me with the cancellation of a program that has been a backbone of the provision of care to the elderly, to the young,” said immigration lawyer Lou Janssen Dangzalan. “I wouldn’t be surprised if other programs would be on the chopping board.”
In a news release, IRCC said demand for the caregiver pilots continues to far exceed available spaces, leading to long processing times. For 2025, applications were capped at about 5,200.
The Start-Up Visa program, launched in 2013, was designed to attract international entrepreneurs to build innovative, high-growth businesses in Canada by offering work permits and a pathway to permanent residence. In return, Ottawa hoped to spur job creation and economic growth.
“Canada now has no innovative business program,” said Toronto immigration lawyer Stephen Green. “All other countries are going to take tremendous advantage of this because startups can’t come to Canada. They’re going to go to other places, and Canada is going to suffer from an economic standpoint.”
IRCC has also stopped accepting new work permit applications tied to SUV candidates, except for applicants already in Canada who are seeking extensions of their current permits.
The department said the move aligns with its push for more sustainable immigration levels and supports Ottawa’s newly announced talent attraction strategy. The 2025 federal budget promised a one-time initiative to recruit more than 1,000 highly qualified international researchers and an accelerated pathway to attract skilled foreign workers currently in the United States.
“This is another example where they make an announcement and provide nothing to take over what it would have been,” Green said. “The prime minister has talked about H-1B (U.S. visas). No one’s seen it. No one has heard about it. Nothing exists.”
Ottawa has already sharply reduced permanent residence targets for SUV applicants — from 5,000 in 2024 to 2,000 in 2025, and down to 1,000 in both 2026 and 2027. As of August, there were 17,919 SUV permanent residence applications in the system, with an average processing time of 52 months.
“In support of reducing Canada’s temporary resident population through transitions to permanent residence, we are also prioritizing the permanent residence applications of those already in Canada with a SUV-specific work permit,” the department said.
“These measures will set the foundation for the transition to a new, targeted pilot program for immigrant entrepreneurs and help address the large inventory of applications for Canada’s business programs.”
The changes come as Ottawa seeks to curb immigration amid public concern over rapid population growth. A bill now before the Senate would give the federal government broader powers to cancel and suspend immigration documents and applications as a way to better manage flows and combat fraud.
“They can cut programs if they choose to,” Dangzalan said. “Perhaps what they’re asking for in Bill C-12, from a legislative perspective, is in excess of what’s actually needed to do this right-sizing.”