Migrants, including undocumented people, students and refugees, marched in cities across Canada Sunday to demand permanent residency status for all ahead of the resumption of federal parliament on Monday.

In Toronto, migrants and supporters marched downtown, including through the intersection of Yonge Street and Dundas Street, prompting police to say on social media that traffic in the area had been disrupted.

The protesters are calling on the government to create an uncapped program that would grant permanent resident status to all migrants and undocumented people without any exclusions, according to Sarom Rho, an organizer with Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

"Without permanent resident status migration, undocumented people are facing massive exploitation at work, are denied life saving treatments in healthcare, live in daily fear of deportation and the pain of family separation," Rho said…

The protest comes after Canada's temporary foreign worker program was labelled a "breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery" by a United Nations official earlier this month. Tomoya Obokata, UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, called on the federal government to give all temporary foreign workers a pathway to longer term or permanent residency…