Ontario Premier Doug Ford, top centre, speaks as he hosts the premiers during the 2025 summer meetings of Canada’s Premiers at Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Ont., July 22.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Premiers say they are taking more control over immigration as Ontario Premier Doug Ford criticized the federal Immigration Minister and said he would be issuing his own work permits in the province.
At the conclusion of the three-day premiers’ meeting on Wednesday, the provincial and territorial leaders called for an increase to economic immigration levels to meet their labour needs and said they would use powers under the Constitution to issue work permits, criticizing the federal government for moving too slowly.
Mr. Ford, who is wrapping up his time as chair of the council of the federation, criticized federal Immigration Minister Lena Diab, accusing her of being offside with Prime Minister Mark Carney on giving premiers more autonomy over immigration.
He said at a meeting this week with provincial counterparts, Ms. Diab “wasn’t on the same page as her prime minister.”
“We need the Prime Minister to be very, very clear with his minister. She needs to work with the provinces and territories to fix Canada’s immigration system and make it more responsive to economic and market needs,” Mr. Ford said at the closing press conference in Ontario’s cottage country on Wednesday.
He said premiers would exercise their powers under section 95 of the Constitution to issue their own work permits.
“I’ll speak for Ontario. We will be issuing our own work permits. We aren’t going to sit around and wait for the federal government,” he said.
Ms. Diab’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the Prime Minister’s Office referred questions to Ms. Diab’s office.
Mr. Ford said Ontario has a large amount of asylum seekers living in hotels who are healthy and willing to work, but unable because work permits take too long. Last year there were close to 100,000 asylum seekers in Ontario, he said.
“They’re just sucking up the system non-stop,” he said.
“We’re tired of waiting around. I can’t wait around. It’s costing our province an absolute fortune.”
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Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said he’s going to look at the situation in his province, adding there is a delay in people’s ability to work. “We want the system to be as efficient as possible.”
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said she is also interested in having more authority and autonomy over who comes to work in her province.
“We certainly share what was expressed I think by the other premiers,” she said. But she said the criticism that the federal minister is offside with Mr. Carney may be a matter of wires crossing because they both held meetings around the same time.
“It’s quite possible that they hadn’t spoken, so I think that is the kind of thing that can be cleared up quite easily.”
Premiers also called for Ottawa to increase allocations for economic immigrants under the provincial and territorial nominee program, which was cut by 50 per cent under Justin Trudeau’s government.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said his province relies on the program to power sectors such as manufacturing and services, particularly in rural areas.
“So having that number cut by 50 per cent is a threat to our economy at the same time that we’re trying to deal with the tariff threat,” he said.
“There’s consensus among the premiers that we’re just going to, I think, take a much more active approach to trying to make sure that we just have that part of our economy moving and we have people contributing when it comes to income taxes.”