The Simplest Way to Fix Canada’s International Student Program

A Canadian passport is displayed in Ottawa on July 23, 2015. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Commentary

The recognition that Canada’s international student program has major problems cuts across ideological lines—it is now a bipartisan consensus. With a few tough reforms, however, the program can be salvaged, and refashioned to serve the interest of Canadians and foreign students alike.

The federal government’s first hard cap on international student numbers put in place in January 2024 was a necessary stopgap measure to reduce the skyrocketing volume of students, thereby giving some breathing room to Canada’s housing, social services, and health care. But the fact that a cap was needed at all reveals a deep structural issue with the program: It has become seen by many applicants as a backdoor to work and obtain permanent residency.

Even with Ottawa’s second, revised foreign student cap imposed in September 2024, which slashed numbers by another 10 percent, the volumes are still astronomical: 437,000 study visas will be issued in 2025. By comparison, there were just 69,712 international student entries in 2003.

In the interest of easing the strain on Canada’s systems posed by the current rate of nearly half a million international students a year, a reasonable policy goal would be to decrease this volume significantly. As it happens, the reforms needed to dramatically cut the numbers would also accomplish the secondary benefit of turning the international student stream into a rules-based program that serves the national interest.

What kind of international student program would benefit Canada? How about a small number of foreign students who study hard, contribute to cultural exchange in our universities, and upon graduation return home with a fond affiliation for Canada as well as the skills needed to build up their own countries? If they meet carefully designed selection criteria that benefits Canada, they can later apply to become permanent residents to ensure they can contribute to Canada in a positive way. This can be accomplished—all that is needed is political will.

Any immigration program should be analyzed to see what kind of message it sends to applicants. Canada’s international student program allows students to work for up to 24 hours a week and they can fill those hours with more than one job. After graduation, many international students are eligible to apply for a post-graduation work permit (PGWP) that can be valid for up to three years. In 2022, there were over 132,000 new PGWP holders in Canada.

These permissive rules send a clear message to international students: You can come to Canada to work, and you can put your studies on the back burner. We can send the opposite message through two simple policy changes: Prohibit international students from working off-campus, and scrap post-graduation work permits.

This would serve as a powerful disincentive for foreign nationals who wish to use our international student program as a backdoor work permit, and attract only those students who are laser focused on their education.

Besides the work incentive, the other unhelpful message Canada’s international student program transmits to applicants is that it can be used as a pathway to citizenship.

Canada has a physical residency requirement for immigrants. Under current rules, foreign nationals must live on Canadian soil for 1,095 days in the five-year time span before they apply for citizenship. This not only applies to permanent residents seeking citizenship, but also to temporary residents—even students. Every day spent living here as a student counts as a half day for the physical residency requirement—up to a maximum of 365 days.

According to a report from Statistics Canada in 2021, three in 10 first-time international students became permanent residents within 10 years, and six in 10 first-time international students who worked either before or after graduation became permanent residents.

For many, a study visa is a conduit to Canadian citizenship—the “study” part is merely a means to an end. Canada could counteract this trend by not counting time spent as a foreign student towards the physical residency requirement for citizenship. We have gone back and forth over this policy before. In 2015, the Conservative government removed time as a student from the residency calculation, but this was reversed in 2016 by the newly elected Liberal government.

This is the simplest way to reform the international student program: Remove the right to work off-campus and after graduation, and stop counting time spent as a foreign student for our citizenship’s physical residency requirement. If Canada stops treating international students as workers and automatic future citizens, we will attract applicants who think of themselves solely as students on a mission to gain an education.

Transforming the international student visa into a strictly temporary visa centred purely on education would likely entail a dramatic decline in the total number of foreign students. While colleges and universities would have to adapt to the reduced tuition flow, this would mean Canada would attract students eager to learn—and then bring their skills and knowledge back to their home countries.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.