Immigration Minister Marc Miller is going to slap the provinces and territories in Canada with a two-year cap on international students that is expected to reduce the number of study permits by more than a third, reports The Globe and Mail.
“The cap is expected to result in approximately 364,000 approved study permits, a decrease of 35 per cent from 2023,” the immigration minister reportedly said. “In the spirit of fairness, we are also allocating the cap space by province, based on population.”
Under the proposed cap on study permits, the provinces and territories will each have a limit on their ability to welcome new international students. The national newspaper reports those proposed limits will allow some provinces to increase their international student population while dramatically cutting it in other provinces, including Ontario.
The move to cap study permits in Canada comes in the wake of a report on CBC News last week that an anonymous government source that the government was considering caps on study visas in certain provinces where the housing stock may be deemed insufficient for the number of temporary residents coming into the country.
That anonymous government source reportedly leaked to the CBC that Ontario and Nova Scotia were likely to be hit with limits on the number of international students they could welcome at their colleges and universities.
Miller, who announced the coming caps on international students on the first full day of the Liberals’ cabinet retreat on Monday, first floated the idea of a cap on international students in December to address worries that record immigration is contributing to the country’s housing crisis.
“Housing remains a pressing concern, especially in the post-COVID landscape, with the rise in interest rates, supply constraints, and affordability issues,” he said.
Under the 2024-2026 Immigration Levels Plan, Canada is now planning to welcome 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024, another 500,000 in 2025 and then hold the line on immigration in 2026 with another 500,000 newcomers.
That’s a total of 1.485 million immigrants to Canada over those three years.
And senior economists with Canada’s biggest banks say that level of immigration to Canada has been poorly managed.
Canada Has Poorly Managed Its Immigration, Says Economist
“Frankly I’m surprised we screwed it up because we sit in such a privileged position in Canada,” Beata Caranci, chief economist at Toronto Dominion Bank, has reportedly said.
“We designed our own policy, we put it in place, we implemented it, and we still screwed it up.”
Stéfane Marion, chief economist at National Bank of Canada, seems to agree, describing Canada’s immigration policies as a “population trap”.
During the past eight years, immigration by foreign nationals coming to settle permanently in Canada has reached record levels.
But it is the number of temporary residents, including temporary foreign workers and international students, which has created the greatest demand as their numbers have increased at a much faster rate than those of permanent residents.
While Canada saw a net loss of 27,030 temporary residents in the fourth quarter of 2015 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada swept into power, the country saw a net gain of 312,758 of them in the third quarter of last year, or almost 12.6 times as many, Statistics Canada figures reveal.
There are now more than one million international students in Canada.
are full-time students at a post-secondary public school (college or university, or CEGEP in Quebec), or at a private college-level school in Quebec that operates under the same rules as public schools and is at least 50 per cent funded by government grants, or at a Canadian private school that can legally award degrees under provincial law, and;
have a Social Insurance Number.
International Students Can Work In Canada While Studying
International students are also usually able to work off-campus without a work permit while completing their studies – when the current liftin of the 20-hour rule is not in effect – if:
are full-time students in a designated learning institution (a post-secondary program, or in Quebec at a vocational program at the secondary level as well);
their study program is academic, vocational or professional, it lasts at least six months and leads to a degree, diploma or certificate;
they are only working up to a maximum of 20 hours per week during regular academic sessions, and full time during scheduled breaks (for example, winter and summer holidays or spring break).
Certain study programs include work requirements such as co-op or internships. In such cases, a work permit is required in order for the foreign student to be able to complete the work.
With the work experience and education gained while at Canadian colleges and universities, many international students then apply for permanent residence in Canada under such immigration programs as the Express Entry’s Canada Experience Class Program (CEC).
