Canada to continue restricting permits for international students and workers

Ottawa:

The Canadian government said Wednesday that in a bid to curb the number of temporary residents in the country, the number of study permits granted to international students will be further reduced and eligibility criteria for work permits will be tightened.

The announcement comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, which is trailing in opinion polls and suffered a byelection defeat this week, is seeking to limit the number of temporary residents – including international students and workers – in the country.

The issue has become one of the most controversial in Canadian politics, with a federal election due no later than October 2025.

The changes announced Wednesday will reduce the number of international study permits issued to 437,000 in 2025. Canada approved 509,390 permits in 2023 and 175,920 in the first seven months of 2024, according to data from the Immigration Department.

These changes will also limit the eligibility for work permits for spouses of some students and temporary foreign workers.

As Canada sees a surge in asylum seekers, the government said Wednesday it plans to review measures to strengthen visa integrity and is “reviewing the visa decision-making process to ensure our highly trained officers have the right tools to detect fraud and reduce the number of bogus visitors.”

“The reality is that not everyone who wants to come to Canada will be able to do so — just as not everyone who wants to stay in Canada will be able to do so,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in a statement.

The government has already committed to reducing the number of temporary residents to 5% of the total population, down from 6.8% in April.

Migrants have been blamed for social problems including a lack of affordable housing and rising living costs, even as post-pandemic inflation fell to the Bank of Canada’s annual target of 2% in August.

Immigrant rights activists and some economists say the link between migrants and economic problems is too simplistic and that vulnerable newcomers should not be held responsible for complex economic problems.

Polls show that a growing segment of the public believes Canada is accepting too many immigrants, and anti-immigration rhetoric and attacks have increased in Canada, once known for its welcoming attitudes to newcomers.

But after years of increasing the number of temporary residents in Canada, its federal government is about to backtrack.

In January, the government imposed a two-year cap on international students’ enrolments; enrolments are expected to fall by almost half this year.

Earlier this month, the government withdrew an extension of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program into 2022. In some sectors, it reduced the maximum share of low-wage foreign workers who can be hired temporarily. In some sectors, it also ended the hiring of low-wage foreign workers in communities with high unemployment.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)