New Delhi: Canada has introduced new norms for overseas students in its bid to tackle rising food costs and a housing crisis. With about 2.30 lakh Indian students enrolled in various courses, India is the largest source country for overseas students in Canada, according to the High Commission in Ottawa. Going by this number, Indian students will be the worst affected.
Canada has capped the number of student visas to be issued at 360,000. This is a 35 per cent cut as compared to last year. Canada’s Immigration Minister Marc Miller said this is a temporary policy for two years.
Canada is among the favourite destinations for Indians aspiring to study abroad. According to last year’s data from the Ministry of External Affairs, over 2 lakh students headed to Canada, the US, and the UAE. Australia and the UK were preferred destinations too, attracting about 90,000 and 50,000 students, respectively.
According to data from Ottawa, between 2013 and 2022, the number of Indian students moving to Canada to study has seen a massive rise of 260 per cent. Over a lakh Indian students moved to Canada in 2021 and 2022. About 40 per cent of overseas students in Canada are from India. China comes a distant second at 12 per cent, as per a Reuters report.
Canada Minister Miller said in an interview that he believes that the number of study permits for Indians is unlikely to rebound soon. “Our relationship with India has really halved our ability to process a lot of applications from India,” Miller said, according to Reuters.
The new rules
- Limit on the issue of post-graduate work permits for overseas students. This is aimed at encouraging them to return to their countries.
- Those pursuing Master’s or Post-Doctorate programmes will be eligible for a three-year work permit.
- Those admitted under a curriculum licensing arrangement will no longer be eligible for post-graduate work permits.
- Open work permits will now be available only to spouses of overseas students pursuing Master’s or doctoral programmes.
- The spouses of undergraduate and college students will no longer be eligible.
- Student permit applications now require a new document – a letter of attestation from a Canadian province confirming its capacity to accommodate the applicant.
The rapid surge in the number of overseas students entering Canada led to a housing crisis and rents went up. Statscan had found that rents in Canada rose by 7.7% from a year earlier, news agency Reuters reported. The rise in the cost of living, coupled with unemployment, emerged as a poll challenge for Trudeau.
“Right now we have a challenge with the sheer volume of students coming in. It’s just gotten out of control and needs to be reduced – I would say – significantly over a short period of time,” Canadian minister Miller said.
Others who will be affected
Apart from students, the new norms will also affect the universities as international students bring in about $16.4 billion annually, Reuters reported. Many institutions that had expanded their campus hoping that the inflow would continue now face disappointment.
Some businesses, including restaurants and retail sectors, have also warned that a cap on foreign students will create a shortage of temporary workers, Reuters reported.
Given that international students made up 4.6 per cent of 1.1 million workers in the food service industry in 2023, restaurants across Canada are grappling with labour shortages with nearly 100,000 vacancies, a lobby group told Reuters last week.
Apart from all this, Canadian banks had benefited from the influx of new students too. Each student was required to have a Guaranteed Investment Certificate of more than C$20,000, a prerequisite for international students to cover living expenses.
