Canadian passport, immigration services to face disruption as 155,000 employees announce strike

TORONTO – Immigration and passport services in Canada are slated to be disrupted massively as over 155,000 public servants in the country are planning to go on strike on Wednesday.

The strike would put a halt to multiple services if a deal is not reached with the government by 9 p.m. ET April 18 on wages and other demands as the largest union of Canadian government employees is amongst the ones pushing the demands.

Besides immigration and passport services, tax processing and government buildings would also be affected during the strike which comes primarily because the workers at over 20 departments have been employed without a contract since 2021. 

The scale of the protest can be gauged from the fact that international trade at ports, harbours, and airports, consular services and new requests for veterans benefits would also be disrupted if a deal is not struck with the authorities.

Union officials seem to be having fewer hopes on any negotiations as they say the two sides are divergent on wages, job security and remote work.

“These workers — like all workers — deserve fair wages and decent working conditions. Despite some progress at the bargaining table, our members are frustrated that while negotiations drag on, they continue to fall behind,” Chris Aylward, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), told a news conference.

“We’re committed to remaining at the table until a fair deal is reached for all our members – both for our 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency members who resume negotiations today, and our 120,000 Treasury Board members still at the table,” he said. 

Canada is an attractive destination for immigrants due to multiple reasons including a better social safety net which becomes a reason for it to attract hundreds of thousands of skilled professionals from across the world.

The country has seen record breaking population growth last year, in what appears to be the direct result of pro-immigration policies and according to the official statistics, the country’s population grew by over a million last year, first time since 1957 due to multiple reasons.

Statistics Canada, the government census agency, recently said that the population has reached 39.5 million after the recent growth which marks the first 12-month period in ‘Canada’s history where population grew by over one million people’.

Canada welcomed 437,000 immigrants in 2022, while the number of non-permanent residents in the country grew by 607,782.

The swell in population could be attributed to the policies of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who has made efforts to attract more immigrants since assuming power in 2015. Last year, the government announced to welcome half a million immigrants a year by 2025.