Canada can’t stop relying on temporary pilot programs

Canada has been piloting its way toward a permanent immigration system for caregivers for a remarkably long time.

In 2019, the Canadian government launched two five-year caregiver immigration pilots, which were themselves designed to replace expiring pilot programs. The Home Child Care Provider Pilot and Home Support Worker Pilot expired in June 2024. Ottawa then introduced another set of temporary programs: the Home Care Worker Immigration pilots.

The new programs opened in March 2025. By the end of the year demand had already exceeded available spaces, and IRCC announced that it would not reopen intake as scheduled in March 2026.

The department itself seems to recognize the problem. An IRCC briefing note acknowledged “the need for stability in caregiver programming” and said it expected the newest pilots to be the last before a permanent program is implemented.

But the caregiver story points to a broader tendency in Canadian public policy. Governments respond to enduring problems through instruments designed to expire: pilot programs, one-time benefits, interim measures, and funding envelopes that they must actively renew.

IRCC’s own internal audit describes immigration pilots as temporary mechanisms to test innovative approaches or address particular economic needs. Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, economic immigration pilots created through ministerial instructions can operate for no more than five years. They are supposed to be assessed before the government decides whether they should become permanent.

In other words, the expiration date is supposed to force a decision. But Canada increasingly seems comfortable replacing one temporary arrangement with another.

Consider rural immigration. The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot ended in 2024 after five years. Ottawa itself called it a success. Preliminary survey findings found that 87 per cent of respondents who arrived through the program had stayed and intended to remain in participating communities. More than 8,500 newcomers received permanent residence through it.

The government had already indicated it wanted to make the model permanent, but its response, instead, was to launch two more temporary programs: the Rural Community Immigration Pilot and Francophone Community Immigration Pilot.

There is nothing inherently wrong with these tools—indeed, governments should experiment. Emergencies require rapid responses, and policymakers should be able to test an idea before making it permanent.

The problem begins when the experiment itself becomes permanent. What emerges is a kind of permanent temporariness. The contradiction is particularly visible when temporary funding is directed at problems nobody expects to be temporary.

Permanent problems, temporary money

Homelessness is another obvious example. Reaching Home, Canada’s principal homelessness strategy, operates through fixed term funding commitments. The 2024 budget added $1.3 billion over four years.

Housing programs frequently follow a similar model. Ottawa’s Housing Accelerator Fund, intended to encourage municipalities to remove barriers to homebuilding, totals $4.4 billion over five years after receiving a $400-million top-up in the 2024 budget.

Employment Insurance offers another example. EI is supposed to provide a permanent safety net for workers who lose their jobs, yet according to a recent CCPA analysis, fewer than four in 10 unemployed workers currently access it. When crises expose these gaps, Ottawa has repeatedly responded with temporary workarounds.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government created the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to quickly support millions of workers rather than rely on the existing EI system alone, which quickly collapsed under the strain of its unnecessary bureaucratic requirements. The emergency of the pandemic justified an emergency response, but it also shows how much the permanent system was in need of structural reform—a reform that did not come.

We’re seeing something similar now, with the Canada-US trade war. Beginning in 2025, Ottawa introduced a series of temporary EI measures, which included waiving the one week waiting period and providing additional weeks of benefits to some long tenured workers. Those measures have since been extended, and in August 2026 the government announced another 3.5 billion in rapid response support for workers and employers affected by American tariffs.

These interventions may be necessary, but their repeated use raises the larger question of why Canada keeps building temporary scaffolding rather than actually addressing the gaps within it.

Sometimes, though, temporary policy can also work as intended. Take the Canada Dental Benefit—a program that was explicitly created as an interim measure. Between 2022 and June 2024, it provided payments to eligible families with children under 12 who lacked private dental insurance. When it ended, eligible children could transition into the broader Canadian Dental Care Plan. Today, the Canadian Dental Care Plan has become both universal and permanent. The pilot worked—and the government responded accordingly.

Why governments like expiry dates

Part of the reason why governments find temporary programs so attractive is fiscal. A permanent program creates a continuing claim on future budgets. A four or five year fund allows the government to announce billions in spending today without creating an equivalent obligation a decade from now.

There is also a political advantage. Ending an established permanent program requires an affirmative and potentially unpopular decision. A temporary program can disappear through inaction. The government does not necessarily have to announce that it is abolishing something; it can just decide not to renew it.

Temporariness can also expand executive flexibility. This is particularly visible in immigration. Parliament has given the immigration minister considerable authority to establish economic pilot programs through ministerial instructions. IRCC itself notes that ministerial instructions can govern matters ranging from application intake to immigrant selection.

That flexibility can be useful, sure. But there is a trade off when policies affecting thousands of people are repeatedly governed through shifting administrative instruments rather than durable frameworks.

Pilot programs often include substantial and important investments, and an expiry date does not make a program ineffective. But temporary funding has consequences for the institutions trying to turn federal announcements into durable services.

A municipality or community organization does not just “spend” federal funding. It hires staff, develops expertise, establishes relationships, and builds administrative capacity. Those decisions become more difficult when nobody knows whether the money supporting them will continue coming in.

The uncertainty is effectively transferred downward. Ottawa has the flexibility to renew, redesign, or terminate the program. Municipalities and service providers assume responsibility for maintaining the people and infrastructure required to deliver it.

Temporary funding can therefore create an unusual arrangement: the social need is permanent, the service is expected to continue, but the financing repeatedly has to justify its own survival. This is permanent temporariness in practice.

An expiry date should force a decision

The answer is, obviously, not to make everything permanent. Ineffective programs should end. Governments need room to experiment, and public policy would become worse if every emergency measure automatically transformed itself into a long-term program. But temporary programs should always contain a plan for what happens next.

Every substantial pilot should begin with publicly defined criteria for success and a timetable for evaluation. Before the program expires, the government should explain whether the program met those criteria and whether it will be terminated, redesigned, or made permanent. If one pilot is replaced with another addressing essentially the same problem, the government should explain why another experimental period is necessary.

Programs financing ongoing services through municipalities and nonprofits should similarly include transition plans well before their expiry. Predictability matters, especially to the workers that organizations can hire and retain as well as the people who depend on their services.

Canada will always need pilot projects, temporary benefits, and emergency programs. A capable state requires the freedom to respond quickly and experiment. But experiments are supposed to produce conclusions.

When governments spend years piloting solutions to problems that have existed for decades, repeatedly renew funding for services they know communities will continue to need, or answer persistent insecurity through programs designed to disappear, temporariness becomes the policy itself—allowing governments to postpone the harder question of what they are actually prepared to make permanent.

About the author

Nir Hagigi

Nir Hagigi is an MA candidate in Political Science at York University and a Graduate Diploma student in Advanced Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies. His research focuses on the history and migration of Tunisia’s Jewish communities. He is a graduate of Carleton University’s Global and International Studies Program.