Canada is preparing a “major program” to regularize some of the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants living and working in the country illegally, Marc Miller, the immigration minister, said Thursday.
In an interview with the English-language daily Globe and Mail, he said he wanted to present a plan in the spring.
“The debate about the legalization of people living here, who I think should be Canadians, is not unanimous in the country,” he said.
“We need to have a bigger conversation about this as a country,” he added.
According to him, 300,000 to 600,000 people have been living irregularly in the country for years and are at risk of being deported at any time.
The new program would also include people who entered the country legally as temporary workers or international students and remained here after their visas expired, according to the Globe and Mail.
In recent months, the government has held numerous meetings with associations in defense of illegal immigrants and social organizations to develop this legalization plan, which would be the most important in the history of the country.
Canada, with a population of 40 million, experienced record population growth in 2022 due to the influx of immigrants. Ottawa already plans to admit 500,000 immigrants annually by 2025.