What Happened to Canada’s Immigration Policy? Assessing Responsibility and Weighing Solutions

January 22, 2026 | 5:00PM - 7:00PM

Online & in-person

Harney Program, Migration & borders

This event is over

Location | Boardroom, 315 Bloor St. West, Toronto, M5S 0A7

For many years, Canada was seen as a global success story when it came to welcoming newcomers. Most Canadians supported immigration, and leaders across politics, business, labour, and civil society largely agreed on its value. Public debate on the issue was relatively calm, with little overt anti-immigrant rhetoric. Today, that consensus is under strain. Public opinion has shifted, media coverage has grown more critical, and political debates over immigration are increasingly loud and polarized. Questions that once seemed settled now spark controversy and hostility that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago. Please join us for a roundtable discussion exploring what has changed, why it matters, and how Canada can move toward a more constructive and sustainable approach to immigration.

Sponsor: Harney Program on Ethnic, Immigration, and Pluralism Studies

Harney Program, Migration & borders

Contact: Karen Reyes

harneyprogram@utoronto.ca

Speakers

Tony Keller

Columnist with The Globe and Mail. Over a career of more than 30 years, he has been editorials editor and member of the editorial board for The Globe, editor of The Financial Post Magazine, a managing editor of Maclean’s, and a news anchor at BNN. Born and raised in Montreal, he is a graduate of Duke University and Yale Law School. He has also been a visiting fellow at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He won Canada’s National Newspaper Award for editorial writing in 2016. He is the author of Borderline Chaos: How Canada Got Immigration Right, and Then Wrong.

Andrew Parkin

Executive Director of the Environics Institute for Survey Research, a not-for-profit agency created in 2006 to conduct in-depth public opinion and social research on the issues shaping Canada’s future.

Mireille Paquet

Professor in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University, where she holds the University Research Chair on Immigration Policy. She is the Director of the Institute for Research on Migration and Society (IRMS) at Concordia University and leads several projects under the CFREF research program Bridging Divides: Immigrant Integration in the 21st Century. Mireille's work focuses on comparative immigration policy and examines the role of bureaucracies in shaping immigration policy, changing attitudes toward specific immigration programs, and political debates surrounding the use of technology in the immigration sector.

Marta Morgan

Experienced leader in economic policy and foreign policy, having held a number of senior leadership roles in the Government of Canada. She is currently a Senior Advisor on government relations at McMillan Vantage. Marta was the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2019-2022 and the Deputy Minister of Immigration from 2016-2019. She has broad experience in the development of economic policy, at the Departments of Finance and Industry, and six years as Vice President Competitiveness and International at the Forest Products Association of Canada. Marta is a Fellow of the Public Policy Forum and is the Co-Chair of the International Economic Policy Council at the CD Howe Institute. She is a Board Director at Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific and was a member of the Transition Board for Sustainable Development Technology Canada.