Canada’s International Immigration Reduction Isnt Going To Work

The Canadian government has recently announced a plan to reduce the influx of International students coming to Canada over the next 2 years. “To maintain a sustainable level of temporary residence in Canada, as well to ensure that there is no further growth in the number of international students in Canada for 2024, we are setting a national application intake cap for a period of two years for 2024,” he said. This comes as a housing crisis befalls the nation and the cost of living is rising. There are numerous exceptions and adjustments based on the population size of each province that make it specifically affect international undergraduate students looking to access Canada’s universities. The goal is to reduce the strain on the Housing crisis as well as the cost of living crisis. The Bank of Canada has stated that record levels of immigration are indeed driving up the cost of housing and that this measure among others may help reduce the strain of immigration. But this measure will not be as effective as the Government may hope. 

For starters, the many exceptions (probably justified and reasonable) mean that there will still be plenty of students coming through as well as there will still be plenty of immigrants coming through other means and for different reasons. In 2022, the Liberal government would increase the permanent resident target per year from 405,000 in 2021 to 465,000 in 2022, before settling at 500,000 in 2024. This is almost double the 260,411 permanent residents who arrived in 2014. Statistics Canada reported that at the end of 2023, there were 2,511,437 non-permanent residents in the country (this includes international students and temporary workers which is a lot more than the 1,305,206 in the fall of 2021). If immigration is a point of concern needing immediate addressing then there are very simply bigger issues at hand. But immigration isn't the whole problem and any significant reduction in immigration wouldn't be viewed too fondly by Trudeau’s supporter base. This will certainly not have a massive effect on housing or the cost of living. The plan only caps undergraduate students in Universities and Colleges for 2 years which suggests that they acknowledge that there may be future flexibility on the policy and may be unsustainable. But the issues it attempts to fix will not be resolved by a 2-year cap. The Bank of Canada even stated that while the measures may be helpful, it will only do so “gradually” suggesting a longer period is necessary (something not truly in line with the Liberal party’s platform). The solution to this issue is very much a wicked problem as there are many stakeholders involved and can have widespread effects such as with post-secondary funding. But this probably isn't the way to go if the policy is intended to solve the housing and cost of living crisis. There are simply more effective ways to go.

The policy may also be an attempt to solve another issue at hand regarding post-secondary funding. Post-secondary institutions have been using international students as a source of funding with limited governmental funding and a tuition freeze for domestic students. Schools in Ontario and BC may be heavily impacted financially by the policy since the cuts require a massive dip in how many international students they can bring in (although the Immigration Minister is currently working with the provinces on specific allocations). The issue is clear with Algoma for example. Algoma’s Brampton campus is 90% composed of international students and funds 65% of its revenue according to Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk. She found many Ontario schools relied heavily on international students to make their finances work. Steve Orsini, President and CEO of the Council of Ontario Universities said “Before [the government's immigration restriction], there were at least 10 universities facing sizeable operating deficits, totalling $175 million this year and growing to $273 million next year,” he said. The restrictions on international students will be a blow to them. The issue with having such dependency on international students is that it creates a dependency on the nations that provide them to keep the schools operational. For example, after some diplomatic issues with Saudi Arabia and the Feds, the Saudis took away 130 students from Laurentian University which cost the already struggling institution 3 Million dollars over the course of their projected program. The institution has now sought creditor protection. 

If the Government intends to use this policy as a way to limit international influence on funding, a much better idea would have been to put a cap on the proportion of students who can be international students. This would prevent institutions from relying on international fees to survive. Institutions would have to increase their domestic populations to allow more international students. This requirement could also be a plan to make sure the institutions can more sustainably handle the number of students it's bringing to the communities they reside in. This would also bring down housing prices in these university/college towns as it reduces the likelihood of a housing crisis happening again in post-secondary cities. The government should also increase funding to universities. But, with a conservative government in Toronto and arguably bigger spending concerns, it is unlikely that we will see a significant increase in funding for post-secondary institutions. What will be seen now is post-secondary institutions getting more creative with funding or just buckling under the weight of its costs.