Canadian universities blast international student visa cap

Canada’s leading colleges and universities have blasted the Trudeau administration for its planned cap on international student enrolment, accusing it of a vast overreaction to visa abuses that threatens deep and lasting damage to the nation’s academic reputation.

“The potential consequences are difficult to overstate,” the sector’s two main associations, Universities Canada and Colleges and Institutes Canada, say in a letter to Marc Miller, the nation’s immigration minister, one week after he announced the policy.

Mr Miller’s plan, starting in the coming academic year, threatens to impose a 35 per cent cut in the number of new overseas students arriving in Canada, and to hold that level for at least two years.

The minister said the government was acting because of rampant abuses, largely involving privately operated institutions – mostly in Ontario and British Columbia – that have enrolled classes comprised almost entirely of foreign students, fuelling problems that include extreme housing shortages.

The higher education associations acknowledge that such abuses are real, but complain that Mr Miller and the Trudeau administration acted with no meaningful consultation of academic leaders and without proportionality to the institutions most responsible for the trouble.

And while the visa limits are not scheduled to take effect until the coming academic year, the university groups complain that Mr Miller is effectively making them immediate by requiring that all new study visa applications include a letter of attestation from provincial governments vouching for the legitimacy of the institution.

Only Quebec has an existing process for producing such letters, and the higher education associations ask for the attestation requirement to be delayed “until at least 31 March or until the provinces establish an effective process”.

“Additionally, we request urgent consultations with the sector to modify the cap policy, clarify the many outstanding questions and mitigate the negative impacts,” the associations say.

Canada is one of the world’s leading destinations for college students from abroad, with about 900,000 international students who are charged several multiples of the tuition rates paid by domestic students.

Mr Miller had been warning for several months that he would take drastic action if the provinces did not crack down on exploitative post-secondary institutions. His concerns were amplified by the discovery last year of cases where hundreds of people from India had been granted student visas despite questionable qualifications.

His policy announcement already has prompted British Columbia to impose a two-year ban on international student enrolment at new post-secondary institutions.

Universities Canada and Colleges and Institutes Canada tell Mr Miller that international students contribute more than C$22 billion (£13 billion) a year to the country, and that he is creating uncertainty among overseas students that risks them choosing other countries.

“The global reputation of Canada as a top education destination is at stake,” they say, “and careful consideration is crucial to prevent lasting consequences.”

Mr Miller, in response to the complaints from academia, suggested a limited willingness to be more flexible. “Conversations are ongoing with provinces and territories” over implementation of the visa cap, including its province-by-province allocations, his office said in a written response to a request for comment on the protest letter.

The minister also reiterated the immediate implementation of the attestation requirement, although he noted it did not apply for graduate-level students, those at the K-12 level, or anyone seeking an extension of their current student visa eligibility.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com