Rachel Bendayan: Canada’s New Immigration Minister

On March 14, 2025, Rachel Bendayan was named Canada’s new Immigration Minister as part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet shuffle ahead of the 2025 federal election. Her appointment comes at a pivotal moment, with immigration policy under the microscope amid a series of crisis and problems. So, who is Bendayan, and what does her background suggest about her approach? Here’s a quick look at her biography, her new role, and what we might expect.

From Law Firm to Commons

Rachel Bendayan has been the MP for Outremont, Quebec, since winning a by-election in 2019. Before entering politics, she built a career as a lawyer, specializing in international trade and arbitration. She also taught at the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Law. Since arriving in Ottawa, she’s taken on a range of roles under Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, including in finance, trade, small business, public safety, and a stint as Minister of Official Languages.

Bendayan’s appointment follows a turbulent stretch for Canada’s immigration system. Under Trudeau and Marc Miller, annual inflows hit record highs, sparking debates over housing shortages and stretched public services. Carney’s recent move to cap immigration at pre-pandemic levels signals a shift—or at least an attempt to address public frustration. Bendayan steps in as the Liberals aim to stabilize the file before voters head to the polls in 2025.

What Do We Know About Her?

She is of Moroccan-Jewish background, which might help in the fight against antisemitism. Or not, depending on how faithful to the Party she must remain – especially given the open anti-Israel bias of the Liberal Party in general and, in particular, of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, Mélanie Joly.

As Minister of Official Languages, Bendayan focused on bilingualism and cultural inclusion—priorities that fit Canada’s multicultural identity but which have lately gone off the rails, i.e. an overemphasis on identity politics and DEI ideology that consumed the Trudeau government. More recently, on March 7, 2025, as Associate Minister of Public Safety, she announced an expansion of Canada’s banned firearms list, a policy which is supported by the majority of Canadians.

On immigration, she’s a blank slate for now. Her predecessors, Ahmed Hussen, Marco Mendicino, Sean Fraser, and Marc Miller all did their part to break the system, creating the immigration crisis Canada finds itself in today. Bendayan inherits a department that is underfunded, understaffed, and suffering from poor decision making (thanks to faulty AI systems embraced by IRCC) that have flooded the Federal Court with immigration Judicial Review applications. It remains to be seen if she can right the ship by even a few degrees.

What Lies Ahead?

Bendayan’s challenge is clear: fix Canada’s immigration regime at a time when it’s testing the country’s limits. The truth is that with an election almost certainly around the corner, we cannot expect any meaningful change at IRCC. She has, however, been given the opportunity to at least start fixing some of our system’s most obvious problems: unacceptably slow processing times, a high volume unreasonable refusals, a digital portal system that is glitchy and mostly does not work, rampant abuse and fraud by unscrupulous immigration consultants – when immigration law should be the purview of lawyers – an imbalance in the CRS points system that is stopping C-level executives and business entrepreneurs from immigrating to Canada, the inability of Canadians to sponsor their parents, and many other ills affecting the system. If she remains as the Immigration Minister, we want to see sweeping changes, not just small tweaks. We will be watching.