After accepting a job near Montreal, Mansef Aloui packed up his life in Tunisia, hopeful his children would thrive in Canada — but his pathway to settle in the country has been shut down.
“I’m broken. My life has been upended. My daughter is in her room, she cries day and night,” the 50-year-old told AFP, his voice faltering over an impending departure from a country where he had hoped to stay.
For decades, Canada was viewed as one of the world’s most coveted destinations for immigrants, especially among people from the developing world.
Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney has tightened immigration levels, echoing moves by his predecessor Justin Trudeau, who conceded last year that Canada had let in too many people to address labor shortages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Carney’s budget, narrowly approved last month, said: “We are taking back control of our immigration system and putting Canada on a trajectory to bring immigration back to sustainable levels.”
Aloui was hired two years ago to be a supervisor at a factory in Laval, near Montreal, in Canada’s French-speaking Quebec province.
A program for skilled workers that would have allowed him to apply for permanent residency, known by its French acronym PEQ, was scrapped by the provincial government last month.
“Everything is blurry for me,” Aloui said, a month before the expiration of his legal rights to remain in Canada.
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