Bill C-12 Canada: The Immigration Law Explained

Bill C-12 (45th Parliament, 1st session), formally titled the Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act, received Royal Assent on March 26, 2026 (Statutes of Canada 2026, c. 4) and is now law.

Its immigration parts amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), and IRCC groups them into four areas:

• Powers over immigration documents and applications: authority to cancel, suspend or amend immigration documents and to pause or end application intake and processing (including for groups of people through a single order).
• New eligibility rules for asylum claims, including a one-year rule and a 14-day land-border rule that decide whether a claim is referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).
• A modernized asylum process, put in place by regulations that took effect on November 3, 2026.
• Domestic information sharing within IRCC and with federal, provincial and territorial government partners.

Its other parts amend the Customs Act, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Oceans Act, the anti-money-laundering law and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act.

Not every measure took effect on the same day. Some measures applied immediately, certain asylum eligibility rules apply retroactively to claims made on or after June 3, 2025, and the group powers over immigration documents and intake can only be used through an order.

Bill C-12 changes who is eligible to have an asylum claim referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), whose inventory of claims has been growing. According to IRCC, the two central new rules are time-based eligibility bars.

• One-year rule: a claim made more than one year after the person’s first entry into Canada will not be referred to the IRB. This applies to people whose first entry into Canada was after June 24, 2020.
• Fourteen-day rule: a person who enters between official land ports of entry from the United States and makes a claim more than 14 days after entering will not be referred to the IRB.
• Retroactive reach: IRCC states both eligibility rules apply to claims made on or after June 3, 2025, so they can affect claims filed before the law formally came into force.
• Exceptions: since regulations made on November 3, 2026, IRCC says the rules do not apply to a person under 18 who has no parent or legally responsible adult in Canada. Nor do they apply to a person who submits the start of the claim online before the one-year cut-off.
• No change to the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) itself. People who claim at a land port of entry, or within 14 days of an irregular crossing, generally continue to be returned to the US unless they qualify for an existing exception.

The border security and integrity parts include these measures:

• New Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) powers to examine goods destined for export, and rules that let officers examine holders of a visa or eTA who are outside Canada to confirm they still qualify (IRPA s.32.1).
• Broader information-sharing within IRCC and with federal, provincial and territorial partners, subject to written agreements and privacy safeguards.
• Measures addressing irregular entry between official land ports of entry from the United States (the same situations the 14-day asylum rule targets).