A history of international students in Canada: How did it get to this?

Late last week, IRCC announced a cap on international student visa activity in Canada. It was surprising but not unexpected. The topic has been gaining a lot of attention of late in Canada’s mainstream media with stories covering students living in squalor to students using food banks. For a topic that generally receives little attention, it has become a lightning rod in Canada’s media with visceral anger expressed on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, and even traditional media. So, how did we get here?

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Canada trailed other developed economies in retaining skilled graduates. Canada was losing many to the United States (the 1980-1990s brain drain) while countries like the United Kingdom were more successful in retaining qualified graduates. Discussed throughout the 1990s, Canada wouldn’t take any formal steps to changing policies until the tail-end of the 1990s and those changes wouldn’t take effect until well into 2005.

1999: Under the ruling Liberal Party, the government begins working on a Post Graduate Work Permit Program to be trialed in the Canadian Prairies (“outside Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver”) that will give graduates the opportunity to remain and work in Canada beyond a year. At this time, there’s around 120,000 international students in Canada.

2005: After the success of the 2003 pilot, the then-outgoing Liberal Party undertakes a final act before the Harper Government is elected, streamlining Canada’s very cumbersome and heavy student visa scheme. First, Canada streamlined the application process. Second, they expanded the availability of the Post Graduate Work Permit and introduced the Off-Campus Work Permit which would be fully instituted by the end of 2006. By this time, there’s about 170,000 international students in Canada.

2008: The Post-Graduate Work Permit is now available across Canada and graduates are eligible for an open work permit of 3 years in length (depending on program type and duration). Students anywhere in Canada are eligible. Moreover, students who have the requisite skilled, technical, and managerial work experience combined with academic degrees, may be eligible for permanent residency under the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) visa. By this point, 180,000 international students are in Canada.

2010: The Student Partner Program is introduced. Developed in Partnership with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges ( Colleges and Institutes Canada | Collèges et instituts Canada ), express visa processing is enacted for Indian students at a number of Visa Application Centers (VACs) across the subcontinent. Fewer than 5,000 Indian students are studying at Community Colleges in Canada, and this is aimed at bringing more to Canada, particularly outside the GTA.

2012: Under Minister Jason Kenney, the Canadian Experience Class visa program is expanded and the amount of requisite work experience is dropped to 12 months. At this point, there are about 275,000 international students in Canada.

2014: This is the year that the most comprehensive reform of the student visa regime is enacted since the early 2000s. The 2014 International Student Program enacts a large number of changes. It institutes a “Designated Learning Institution” (DLI) program where only approved institutions can issue letters for international students. The Off-Campus Work Permit is eliminated, and students can work 20 hours a week during study periods (and full-time during breaks) without a work permit. Canada simplifies the application process and commits to reducing the application time. During this period, visa processing times in countries such as Pakistan and the Philippines are well over 26 weeks. By this point, there are over 330,000 international students in Canada. Over the past 14 years, the student visa program increased international student headcount by about 169%. Over the next 10, the program would grow by a further 203%.

2017: International student Jobandeep Sandhu is arrested while driving a truck along the 401. Studying mechanical engineering at Canadore College, he obtained his CDL and drove full-time. Questions arose around how a student could obtain their CDL while enrolled full-time at a college and working. He begins to fight his deportation order from Canada. Questions arise around how students are being monitored while in Canada, with questions from opposition political parties pointedly demanding answers.

2018: The Student Partner Program, which went through some iterative changes over the eight years of its existence is eliminated. In its place is the “Student Direct Stream” which is only open to students from India, China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. It requires a higher maintenance fund threshold, and has specific requirements for language and background but also guarantees a much faster visa processing scheme than what existed, with a commitment of 20 calendar days. In this year, there are 567,065 international students in Canada.

2019: SDS expanded to Senegal and Morocco to expand the range of Francophone students recruited to Canada. Pakistan is added to the list. Jobandeep Sandu, the international student from Canadore College caught driving a truck, is deported despite protests supporting him.

2020: Canada introduces a fast-track study permit processing program in Nigeria which has a chronically high rejection rate. Due to COVID, the number of students drops by more than 100,000 to 528,190.

2021: SDS is again expanded, this time for students from the Caribbean, Central and South America. International student numbers rebound and hits over 620,000.

2022: It is announced that a temporary measure has been enacted and International students in Canada can work an unlimited number of hours off-campus between November 2022 and December 31st, 2023 (later extended into 2024).

2023: International student population is about 949,000 with 435,000 visas processed between January and June 2023. Attention is now growing. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have accounts dedicated to showcasing the problem. Line ups of applicants at grocery stores and malls (often several hundred people) are featured. Campus activities attracting large groups of South Asian students are covered extensively. Articles about the exploitation of students by landlords and the utilization of food banks by international students are increasing. Students are being blamed for warping the rental markets in cities like Brampton, Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo. Concerns are raised about the impact of curbing international students will have on Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) and retail trade. It is pointed-out that most international students are arriving capable of funding only a portion of the first year’s living expenses and cost. They need full-time work to pay for subsequent tuition and living expenses. By late-2023, the rate of new applications from India begins to drop for the first time in more than two decades. ?

2024: The number of international students is now over a million. Since 2014’s ISP change, the rules have not been refined. New programs and rules have been added on. Reporting mechanisms have remained inefficient for more than a decade. The system is now heavily bureaucratic and clunky. Students are falling into, or exploiting, the gaps. Some changes are being instituted to help curb some of the obvious fractures in the system. As of early-2024, students will have to show available funds for living expenses of $20k which is the first increase in more than 19 years. This number is still only 75% of the low-income cut-off (LICO) rate set by Stats Can, and probably nowhere near enough for students, but it changed. Given that many administrative aspects of Canada's student visa policies have not been given any attention in upwards of 20 years, concerns are growing that the program needs to be entirely overhauled.

In the 1990s, Canada sought a radical shift in how they recruited qualified talent, but it became a program that gave colleges and universities the resources they needed when contending with stagnating transfers from the provinces. Canada has fallen behind Europe and America, and with recent cuts, Canadian universities used international students as a bulwark. Depending on the scale of the cap being proposed by IRCC, Canada may see reduced numbers; however, without any cap it is projected that Canada will welcome 1,400,000 international students by 2027. The ruling government is dealing with reports from Canada’s top banks pointing-out failed policies and unsustainable growth. Analysts believe that the government knew there was insufficient housing being built and the health care system was stretched after admissions are made that decisions to proceed with growth was done in contravention of advice given to the ministers. This has a trickle-down impact on students, which is seeing a surge of attention online.

International students aren’t to blame for any of that. Rather, (HEIs) saw an opportunity. They created programs with broad appeal overseas, including language and internship programs. They worked with agents and created overseas partnerships all in the quest to recruit more students. And why wouldn’t they? Public investment in Higher Education has been paltry (at best) and the government was creating new routes to retain talent. HEIs recruited thousands of students, but offered no housing, only limited International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) and failed to create balanced cohorts. Students became embittered when they realized that earning their living expenses and tuition was nearly impossible while many also felt “ghettoized” in programs where they were often only studying with other students from their home country. A great concept became toxic.

HEIs have became overly reliant on international tuition dollars while the public agencies overseeing these programs failed to communicate. Immigration rates were set without regard for housing, employment, and health. Federal agencies were often surprised to find out what was happening on joint files. There was almost no communication between the provinces and federal government, but more troubling was that within the federal government itself, there was often nothing. Canada got to where it is because no one was reviewing the performance of these programs. No impact assessment. No metrics. Data from Stats Can was often released years later, far too late to be of any value. By the time people understood the scale of the program, people were taking to social media to denounce the issue. It has become a hot-button issue that has seen the attitudes of Canadians shifting on the immigration dossier. And there’s an election sometime in the next 22 months…