An IT specialist, a special-needs teacher, an engineer with two master’s degrees: They’re among hundreds of thousands of temporary residents who have been left in limbo by Canada’s immigration pivot.

After cranking out study and work permits to welcome the world to Canada after the pandemic, the government has reversed course, vowing to “take back control of the immigration system.”

“Our plan is working,” Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab told a parliamentary committee recently. “It is to ensure that we have a sustainable immigration system for the future.”

So many temporary residents are living in uncertain and frustrating situations, even when they have Canadian work experience or education and have made huge investments to come here and boost their odds of staying. Processing delays, point systems that leave them at a disadvantage and bureaucratic obstacles are leading some to look elsewhere.

To launch a new series, the Star spoke to temporary residents who are caught up in the numbers game and butting up against a system that once promised them hope. Each story reveals a slice of their struggles and challenges.

Once upon a time, skilled immigrants had a clearly defined route to permanent status: you study or work in Canada; create a profile in the talent pool; garner enough points based on your education, job experience, language skills and other factors; wait for a draw and get invited to apply.

At least, that was the case when Arthur Ma came from China to Markham for high school in 2015 and graduated from the University of Waterloo in late 2023. Despite a decent score of 499 and a job in cloud infrastructure engineering, he still hasn’t reached the lowest cut-off of 507 in the past two years for the Canadian Experience Class stream.

“Times have changed,” said the 25-year-old Torontonian, referring to the days when a score over 450 would almost guarantee permanent residence. “There’s more competition now, definitely.”

With his postgraduation work permit expiring in a year, Ma has paid for costly online French classes since September in hopes of getting extra points for knowledge of the language, which he took in high school and university. His other option is to go for a master’s degree, to buy time in Canada.

Five of his friends are going back to grad school. One went to college to study construction trades, and another has moved to northern Ontario and worked at a sushi restaurant, trying to qualify for permanent residence under a program to attract newcomers to rural Canada.

Ma is not sure if it’s worth investing more money, time and effort in this process, given he has already spent a decade of his life in Canada and his education here has cost his mother more than $200,000.

“I’m already established here,” said Ma, who has travelled to nine provinces and two territories. “My best friends are all here. My job and career are here.

“I’m basically Canadian.”

With a master’s degree in earthquake engineering from Iran, Sarah Amerinia arrived on a scholarship at Newfoundland’s Memorial University in 2021 for a postgraduate degree in environmental engineering technology. After graduation, she began working in water resource engineering in London, Ont., in 2024.

Perhaps surprisingly, her licence as a professional engineer in Canada in itself doesn’t give her much of an edge in pursuing permanent status, compared to someone with a certificate of qualification in construction trades that’s worth 50 points.

“Getting a P. Eng requires at least four years of work experience, multiple exams and detailed assessments,” said the 36-year-old woman, who will explore options in other countries. “In many ways, it’s an even more demanding process than certification in skilled trades.”

She could quit her job and work abroad for one year to bump up her current score of 472 with fresh foreign experience, but the goalposts keep moving. To be eligible for the Ontario immigration nomination program as a civil engineer, Amerinia said she must meet the median wage threshold of $100,000 a year — which is above her current pay scale. 

“I left my country, my family and everything behind, believing in Canada’s promise of fairness and opportunity,” said Amerinia, who recently got a new two-year work permit under a special policy offering temporary refuge for Iranians in Canada. “I studied hard, worked hard, and now I feel it’s all for nothing.”

Hennedige Udari Kasunka Fernando was crystal clear on her family’s designated pathway for permanent residence.

A schoolteacher with experience caring for children with special needs, the Sri Lankan woman arrived in Calgary in early 2025 on a spousal work permit to join her husband, a former banker. He had come a year earlier as a truck stop attendant, under the temporary foreign worker program.

She applied for permanent residence in March 2025 under the home child-care provider program, which requires a full-time permanent job offer and six months of work experience. Thanks to immigration processing moving at a snail’s pace, she has yet to get an acknowledgment of receipt for her application. Her work permit, along with her husband’s, expired in February.

Fernando said she gets up before dawn to prepare lunches for her son, daughter and husband, who works the 7 a.m. shift and weekends, so one of the parents can be home to care for the kids. The couple are managing on minimum wage.

“We don’t go out and eat much,” said the 37-year-old woman. “I cook.”

Fernando and her husband took a chance on Canada because they’re concerned about the worsening economic crisis in Sri Lanka and wanted to give their children a better future. They sold their house and cars in Colombo, and going back home is not an option as their permanent resident application will be cancelled once they leave the country.

“Nobody is coming to Canada expecting to go back home after two years,” said Fernando, whose husband has recently received a temporary authorization to continue work while their work permit extension application is pending. The current processing time for new work permit and extension applications from within Canada is 217 days.

“I’m a Roman Catholic and we go to church here. We pray to God to give us a pathway to stay in Canada. But I’m on the verge of losing my faith.”

Parth Israni has exhausted all available avenues to secure permanent residence. He was even tempted to pay more than $20,000 for a fake job offer to extend his stay in Canada.

With a bachelor’s degree in business administration from India, he came to Canada to study in December 2019, about three months before the pandemic led Ottawa to close the border. He finished two postgraduate diplomas, in global business from Conestoga College and in supply chain management from Mohawk College.

He quickly found jobs in the financial sector upon graduation and most recently was hired as a personal banking associate in Hamilton, all while waiting in Canada’s talent pool for a call to apply for permanent residence that never came. 

When his three-year postgraduation work permit ran out in January 2025, he applied for an extension even knowing that permit could not be renewed. But it bought him six extra months to legally work in the country before a refusal came in July and he had to immediately stop working at the bank.

He believed he could wait for an invitation for permanent status with any extra time he could buy in Canada. He then applied to restore his status on a visitor record, which would let him stay legally but not allow him to work.

“It was too expensive for me,” said the 27-year-old, who used up his $10,000 savings since he stopped working. “I worked hard. I got a decent job in my field. So why would I do that? I would have to work in some gas station and restaurant, and that would not help me with my career.”

Disappointed, confused and lost, Israni returned to India in February. Before he left, 10 people from his gym and work showed up to bid farewell at a party, many expressing dismay that he did everything right and couldn’t stay. It felt like a validation of his struggle.

His Canadian dream has not ended; he hopes one year of foreign work experience will bump up his score for immigration to the 500s from the current 492. But he knows Canada’s immigration policies can change seemingly on a whim.

“You wake up tomorrow and something can change again,” said Israni, who now works as a supply chain consultant at a shipping company in India. “You never know.” 

Murali Jampani’s case shows the perils of the age factor in the immigration scoring system — even for someone in a high-paying job in Canada. His case worked out differently from the others, with a provincial nominee program eventually giving him a chance at permanent residence.

With work experience in the U.K. and the U.S., Jampani said the opportunity sounded appealing. Although no permanent residence was promised, he expected Canada to do its utmost to retain the talent it actively recruited for a technical leadership role as a staff architect of IT systems.

Despite his qualifications and a job that pays him about $200,000, Jampani is punished for his age in the immigration points grid, which favours applicants under 30 and awards fewer points as each year goes by after that. At 37 and married, he starts with a 50-point deficit against someone under 30 and single.

The Immigration Department can do special draws for candidates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, but the last time it did was April 2024. It didn’t help when quotas for provincial immigration programs also got reduced by half, diminishing his chances to be picked. (In February, the department established a new permanent resident category just for executives and senior managers with Canadian work experience.)

“There’s no way mathematically possible for me to get permanent residence,” the father of two said in an earlier interview. The family has delayed buying a house due to his uncertain status, fearing they couldn’t get a rebate of the 25 per cent foreign homebuyer tax. 

“We’re ready to make Canada home. We have worked so hard to achieve the Canadian dream. What I’m asking for is give us a fair chance.”

Recently, Jampani’s work permit was extended and he was nominated by Ontario for permanent residence with his employer’s support. “Even though things worked out for me in the end, the uncertainty and stress were very real,” he lamented. “I know many others are still going through it.”