Government working to track visa holder exit data

Canada’s immigration department says it plans to launch a pilot program next month to reach out to international students with expiring visas as part of its plan to track entry and exit data.

Deputy Immigration Minister Ted Gallivan told a House of Commons committee today that the department is working toward having an indicator on visa holder profiles that states whether they’re still in the country.

An auditor general’s report released in March found only a handful of potentially problematic student visas were being investigated.

Immigration Minister Lena Diab told the same committee that her department has now reviewed all 153,000 students visas flagged as potentially non-compliant between 2023 and 2024.

Diab says 64 per cent of those were found to be valid, 22 per cent were held by people who had either left the country or had overstayed their visas, and 14 per cent were held by people who had applied for asylum.

The minister says her department is working with the Canada Border Services Agency to develop a system to track exits of temporary visa holders by the end of the year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2026. 

By David Baxter | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.