Migrants, refugees, supporters march in Toronto’s west end ahead of Parliament resuming

Migrants, refugees, supporters march in Toronto’s west end ahead of Parliament resuming

Organizers, advocates call for permanent residency for all, end to deportations, exploitation

Toronto march calls for migrant justice and immigration reform

Migrants, refugees and their supporters marched through Toronto’s west end Sunday — the eve of Parliament resuming — calling on the Canadian government to provide permanent residency status for all, stop deportations and end exploitation.

Migrant Workers’ Alliance for Change coordinator Sarom Rho says migrants are being blamed for a crisis they didn’t create.

"Everywhere around in Canada, working people are struggling. Rents are high, there's an affordability crisis, tariffs are rising, and yet migrants are the ones being blamed," she told CBC Toronto Sunday. "This is simply not true."

Instead, Rho says migrants are caring for Canadian society.

"They grow food, care for our children, the sick and the elderly," she said. "Yet hundreds of thousands are being pushed out. They are being exploited at work, mistreated."

"These are our neighbors, our friends and our families," Rho added. "We're here to reject migrant scapegoating and call for a society that ensures everybody has the same rights."

The Toronto rally, which started at Christie Pits Park at 2 p.m. and made its way to Dufferin Grove Park, was one of 11 such marches taking place across Canada this weekend.

Approximately 600 people attended the event, Toronto police told CBC Toronto.

The march comes nearly a year after the Liberals introduced Bill C-12, which partially seeks to tighten the immigration and refugee system, and more than two years after the federal government implemented an international student cap.

Ontario alone was set to lose more than a third of its international student population this year, according to preliminary estimates from Statistics Canada.

Rally attendee Bikramjit Singh moved to Canada from India in 2019 as an international student. He told CBC Toronto he believed this would provide a path to permanent residence, but that didn’t turn out to be the case.

"Things are very difficult," he said. "When you don't have status and you have this fear, anybody can exploit you because in this system if you want to survive, you have to work. But when you don't have status, you have to work on cash and any employer can exploit you."

Singh is in the process of applying for a closed work permit, which means he would only be legally allowed to work for the employer named on his visa. He does not see a path to permanent residence, he says.

"When you are in this situation, you always stay under stress," he said. "You cannot make any of your future [plans] because … you don't know [if] you will stay here or you will not."

CBC News reached out to the federal government for comment.

In 2024, the government released an immigration plan to reduce permanent resident targets, "resulting in a pause in population growth in the short term to achieve well-managed, sustainable growth and economic prosperity for the long term."

“We are getting immigration under control,” Prime Minister Mark Carney told students at the University of Ottawa last October. "To match immigration levels with our needs and our capacity, the budget will include Canada’s new immigration plan to do better — for newcomers, for everyone."

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Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts and Activism Ethel Tungohan, who is also an associate professor of politics at York University, says tightened immigration measures have increased xenophobia and racism across the country.

"What's happening right now is absolutely galling," she told CBC Toronto Sunday. "Despite Canada's image as being an inclusive, liberal, welcoming country for immigrants, the fact is that Canadian history is replete with examples of the exclusion of racialized groups of immigrants."

"A lot of migrants are already afraid," Tungohan added. "It keeps me up at night."

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Ontario estimated to lose more than a 3rd of its international students after permit cap: StatsCan

She says a lot of migrants do jobs Canadian citizens don’t want to do, which is the purpose of the Labour Market Impact Assessment, the government's pathway allowing Canadian employers to hire foreign workers.

That’s why marches like the one in Toronto’s west-end matter so much, Tungohan said.

"What people are seeking is essentially to centre migrants’ interest, to show that migrants, newcomers, immigrants are people too," she said. "In coming together as a community through these rallies, we are signaling that this is not the Canada that we want."

"Power is becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of an executive without democratic debate and without democratic deliberation," she added. "That's extremely concerning."

Gabriela Silva Ponte has been with CBC Toronto since January 2025. Currently, she works as a web writer, but has previously taken on a variety of reporting roles in ethnic media newsrooms and at Toronto Metropolitan University. Gabriela graduated from TMU with a Bachelor of Journalism. You can reach her at gabriela.silva.ponte@cbc.ca.