Key Issues in the Levels Plan: Refugees, Refugee Claimants, and Other Humanitarian Admissions

Key Issues

Three weeks ago, AAISA released a summary of the key changes made in the 2025 – 27 Levels Plan. Now, we explore the implications of the plan further through an in-depth analysis. AAISA is releasing several Insights articles about:

• permanent residence admissions numbers
• temporary residence admissions numbers
• refugees, refugee claimants, and other humanitarian admissions
• racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric

In this article, we discuss refugees, refugee claimants, and other humanitarian admissions.

Additionally, as the series concludes, members will receive these articles in a report format, to share with colleagues within and outside the sector. We encourage members who have responses to this analysis, corrections, or additions, to contact mcunningham@aaisa.ca.

Refugees, refugee claimants, and other humanitarian admissions

As for other categories, the targets set out in the Levels Plan for refugees and other humanitarian categories were mainly reduced in the Levels Plan 2024 – 26 compared to previous years. The picture is a bit more complicated than that for economic immigrants or temporary residents, however, because for some categories, prior targets held steady.

**This number noticeably exceeds years prior to 2023 as well as targets afterward; our projections are probably overestimations.

Our data for 2024 is projected from data submitted to a parliamentary committee in May this year, and should be considered especially preliminary. Internal policies developed this year could shift the final numbers considerably upward or downward.

However, what is clear is that the overall trend is toward the reduction of humanitarian-stream programs, including the Government-Assisted Refugee stream, the Privately Sponsored Refugee stream, the Humanitarian & Compassionate stream, and the Protected Persons stream (which primarily affects refugee claimants).

The humanitarian streams differ significantly in their logistics. This means that reducing the targets for humanitarian streams has complex implications for each stream individually. We move through each of them in turn and conclude by drawing out certain implications that apply across streams.

Government-Assisted Refugees

Government-Assisted Refugees are resettled in Canada in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Although Government Assisted Refugees (GARs), along with refugee claimants, take up a significant proportion of the national conversation on immigrations levels, admissions through this stream make up only around 4% of the targets. Reductions here make little impact on total arrivals, yet they will have a disproportionately negative impact internationally and to the lives of some of the most vulnerable refugees in the world.

Looking at admissions in 2023, the last complete and confirmed year of data, the largest proposed decrease in 2025 is to the number of admissions through this stream, which reduces by close to 35%. In 2023, 23,311 people were admitted as Government-Assisted Refugees, but in 2025, IRCC now plans to admit only 15,250.

The government has followed through on an intention declared to the sector to hold the number of people admitted through this stream in 2025 to the same level that was targeted in 2024, rather than reducing it even further. This is an encouraging commitment that demonstrates the government’s understanding of its international responsibility to the resettlement of refugees. Nevertheless, the reduction from real arrivals is troubling.

Contrary to anti-immigrant discourse in both the US and Canada, which tends to presume these countries are “too humanitarian,” vanishingly few refugees worldwide move through this type of resettlement program. Less than one percent of the 31.6 million individuals identified as refugees by the UNHCR as of 2024 will find new homes in third countries in a given year. Resettlement is the last resort for those who have no other option. Last year, about 68% of those individuals came to the US, and about 11% came to Canada.

The reduction is especially troubling in light of the recent US election. Like in 2016, the new Trump administration plans to sharply reduce or even halt resettlement for refugees in the program that corresponds to Canada’s GAR program. Both these countries restricting their refugee resettlement programs simultaneously could be disastrous.

Privately Sponsored Refugees

Privately Sponsored Refugees (PSRs) are individuals abroad who are financially and socially supported by private Canadian groups, like faith groups and community organizations, to come to Canada. This number has been restricted by ~19% in comparison to 2023.

Often these organizations sponsor people with whom they have connections within their personal network. Their support even includes securing housing for the sponsored refugee. Given that IRCC’s stated purpose for reducing Permanent Resident admissions is to stretch scarce settlement and housing resources further, Privately Sponsored Refugees seem to be an especially low-impact group.

Despite this support, the backlogs for PSR admissions are already extensive. Community groups must stretch their resources and morale over years while waiting for their case to be addressed. In addition to endangering the lives of PSR candidates overseas, reductions to these programs will only bottleneck processing further.

This is a key issue that also affects the two remaining classes: Humanitarian and Compassionate class and the Protected Persons class. We will return to this issue of reduced processing capability in the conclusion of this article. First, we describe the final two humanitarian immigration streams in more detail.

Humanitarian and Compassionate class

The Humanitarian and Compassionate class (H&C) serves as a “last resort” in many cases. When the immense complexity of the immigration system allows people with unusual circumstances to fall through the cracks, if returning to their country of origin would put their life or well-being at risk, sometimes they can obtain permanent residence through the H&C class.

Sometimes, public policies make room for permanent resident admissions under the H&C class for a particular group of people, as with the promising pilot that offered permanent resident status to out-of-status construction workers in Toronto or to family members of Sudanese-Canadians whose lives are threatened by the war in Sudan. In other cases, H&C class admissions are used to attempt to reunite or keep together children and parents with different statuses.

In 2023, Canada provided 14,355 people with status under this class. But in 2025, the government’s announcement is that they will admit only 10,000 people, and the target will continue to reduce over the coming three years to a shocking low of under 5,000 admissions.

In the case of Sudanese-Canadian relatives, for example, slow processing for these visas has already become a matter of great concern. The Hill Times reported (paywalled article) that the first applications were approved for this stream only in October 2024 after almost eight months. More than 3,250 eligible family members’ applications remain to process. Lowering the targets for H&C admissions year-over-year between 2025 and 2027 seems to tie the government’s hands even further in terms of their ability to process backlogs like this one efficiently.

Refugee claimants, Protected Persons, and their Dependents Abroad

Finally, we look at the Protected Person status, which is associated with refugee claimants.

The most common circumstance under which a person receives “Protected Person” status is after the Immigration and Refugee Board delivers a positive decision on their refugee claim. About three-quarters of refugee claimants are ultimately confirmed to be in need of this protection.

What does it mean to make a refugee claim? The UN Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 14 that everyone has the right to seek “asylum from persecution” in other countries. In other words, if a person feels they are unsafe in their country, they can leave and seek protection from another nation. Canada and most other nations have standardized legal processes of different types to recognize and accommodate this human right. In Canada, a person arriving at a border office or an inland office of the Canadian Border Services Agency can indicate that they would like to commence a refugee claim process, and the officer will provide the appropriate forms and determine the next appropriate steps.

Within Canada, the term “refugee claimant” is preferred by organizations like the Canadian Council for Refugees to refer to a person who has undertaken this difficult process. However, the Canadian government has used the term “asylum seekers” in much of its Levels Plan communication this year, which is also used in the United States and elsewhere, and this term is common in the media.

The targets for admissions in the Protected Persons category were set at 20,000 in 2025, down from the 23,898 admissions in 2023 under this category. This represents a decrease of almost 35%. In 2026 and 2027, the targets are due to be reduced further to 18,000 admissions in each year.

A historically significant number of refugee claims have been made in Canada since 2022. Before Covid, the highest number of claims in a year was 64,030, but afterward, in 2022, 91,710 claims were made, and in 2023, almost 140,000. Now, the Immigrant and Refugee Board faces a backlog of 250,000 claims in September 2024.

However, lowering targets for admissions in the Protected Persons category won’t lower the number of refugee claims made. It also won’t affect the processing of the current backlog.

IRCC can’t set targets for the number of refugee claimants. These individuals are independently claiming a human right from Canada in its function as a signatory to the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention. Limitations to this number are as illegitimate as would be limitations to the number of Canadians who can receive a fair judicial trial or move between provinces.

Instead, as far as public data allows us to conclude, the Levels Plan sets targets for how many of these refugee claimants who have established successful claims will be provided with permanent status.

These are individuals who have been recognized by the Immigrant and Refugee Board as in need of protection—they can’t return to their country of origin. After years of waiting for a determination, they are typically deeply embedded in Canadian communities. By refraining from granting these individuals permanent status, IRCC would fail to recognize the extent to which these refugee claimants are invested long-term in Canada and contribute to its economy and society. Limiting their access to permanent status would be deeply concerning and contrary to their rights as members of Canadian communities.

Overall impacts across categories

Two implications across these various immigration streams are especially troubling. First, reducing these numbers might restrict the government from processing significant existing backlogs in several categories. Second, the reduction in the humanitarian targets seems indiscriminate in light of the human cost.

The government intends to improve and streamline the processes by which people who currently have temporary resident status can achieve permanent resident status. 40% of new permanent residence admissions have been dedicated to this task in 2025. These policy goals are commendable. Temporary status makes newcomers more vulnerable to exploitation and discourages them from investing in a long-term life in Canada. “Good enough to work, good enough to stay” has been the rallying cry for many organizations supporting the rights and well-being of those in Canada with temporary status, and the government has taken important strides toward equity for all Canadian workers by explicitly reserving permanent residence pathways for people who currently have temporary status.

Yet by lowering targets for these humanitarian streams at the same time, the government puts roadblocks in the way of its own goal. Protected Persons stream candidates, and some H&C stream candidates, are already living in Canada. Lowering the number of Permanent Resident admissions in these categories merely throttles the process by which these individuals receive the permanent status they are eligible for according to the government’s existing policies.

Backlogs have another urgent effect for those outside Canada. This applies to some H&C stream candidates, such as those in the family reunification programs established for Sudan and Gaza, and to Privately Sponsored Refugees. Here, because of the circumstances of the overseas candidates, backlogs even threaten their physical safety. The difference between having to stay in Sudan or Gaza for one month and having to stay for one year could be the difference between life and death.

While there is no formal backlog of accepted claims for Government-Assisted Refugees, as for other categories, there is a large and growing number of displaced people worldwide who have no option except for resettlement in a third country. The UNHCR’s resettlement program is a testament to international bonds of coordination and collaboration hard-won over decades. Reductions of targets in these programs are also life-threatening in many cases, since the UNHCR only refers those people who are in the most peril and have exhausted all other options to the resettlement program.

What seems especially perplexing is that these dangerous reductions make for very small margins in the Permanent Residents admissions targets overall. The government has stated that its reduction in Levels Plan targets has been undertaken in service of economic sustainability. Whether this will play out as the government proposes remains to be seen, since reductions in immigration have complex economic effects. But either way, humanitarian targets are only a small percentage of the overall Permanent Resident admissions.

The humanitarian classes make up only around fifteen percent of the overall Permanent Residence admissions in recent years. The levels could have been maintained or even raised without affecting the overall targets by more than a few percentage points. For example, if the targets from last year had been maintained for all humanitarian class admissions, the overall Permanent Resident admissions target would only have been 4.1% higher.

Whatever the government’s economic model, a reduction this small doesn’t seem to justify the outsized ethical impact on people who have been slated to receive permanent resident status through the humanitarian class until the declaration of the new levels.

The constriction of humanitarian admissions is counterproductive to the government’s stated goals and international commitments, both because of the exacerbation of inefficiency and backlogs, and because the reduction has a human cost that should outweigh economic considerations, whether or not those considerations hold true. Reviewing these factors, we fear that, more than sound policy, a rise in public anti-immigration sentiment has motivated this across-the-board reduction of humanitarian levels.

What this means for settlement agencies

Resettlement Assistance Programs (RAP), the programs directly tasked with serving refugees, will be most directly affected by the Levels Plan changes to Government-Assisted Refugees. RAP providers in Alberta include Calgary Catholic Immigration Services, Brooks and County Immigration Services, Lethbridge Family Services, Grande Prairie Centre for Newcomers, YMCA of Northern Alberta (in Fort McMurray), Catholic Social Services (in Edmonton and Red Deer), and Saamis Immigration Services (in Medicine Hat).

However, as Permanent Residents, refugees can also access services at other agencies, particularly after the period of initial government assistance expires. Service providers may want to be prepared to field questions about changes in the Levels Plan that affect the number of refugees. Family reunification may be a particular concern. Unfortunately, as of yet no special guidance has emerged from the government on how they will prioritize the needs of people in these categories.

Similarly, Protected Persons who have Permanent Residency and people admitted through the H&C class can also access services at any settlement service provider. They may have concerns about the change in atmosphere, and attention to shifts in government programming for these individuals will continue to be vital.

Next article

In the last three articles, we reviewed the new levels set for permanent resident admissions, temporary resident admissions, and humanitarian admissions. Throughout, we noted that the changes in the levels occur in the context of increasing anti-immigration sentiment in Canada. In the next article, we will turn directly to the question of racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric.