Changes to Canada's asylum system that have recently become law under the Carney government were first proposed by the previous Trudeau government. Specifically, the request originated from a letter penned in the fall of 2024 by then-Immigration Minister Marc Miller to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Miller sought permission for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to deny asylum claims to individuals who had been in Canada for over a year.
The Trudeau government, however, did not act on these recommendations at the time. The current legislation, retroactively applied, has stirred considerable debate, with estimates suggesting that roughly 30,000 applicants could be deemed ineligible under the new rules, according to IRCC.
Bill C-12, the legislation that enacted these changes, faced a difficult path to passage. First introduced in the late spring of 2025, it was later divided into two separate bills following concerns raised by opposition parties regarding its security and immigration components. Re-introduced as Bill C-12, the Senate scrutinized it closely, proposing multiple amendments, including the removal of the one-year bar. Ultimately, senators dropped their amendments after the government rejected them. The Liberal government, under Carney, secured support from the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois to pass the law.
The Prime Minister's Office has referred questions about the previous government's inaction to current Immigration Minister Lena Diab, who stated that she could not speculate on the actions of the previous government.
