‘Overcrowded’ Canadian provinces could face overseas students cap

The Trudeau administration is stepping up its threats to limit international student enrolment in Canada, suggesting a process by which it is identifying specific provinces that are admitting more students than they can reasonably house.

Just a month after doubling the wealth requirement for incoming overseas students, the federal immigration ministry is reported to have identified three provinces – Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia – that look most likely to face caps on their education visas.

While not directly commenting on the status of its review process, the immigration ministry said it “is currently looking at a number of options, and will continue to work closely with provinces and territories, educational institutions and other key partners to address the ongoing challenges faced by international students”.

Canada has made itself a leading global destination for higher education, with some 900,000 foreign students in the country who heavily subsidise their domestic classmates by paying almost six times their tuition fee rates.

But those boom times might be waning, as local communities in many parts of the country strain under the burden of finding housing for them all. The federal government’s immigration minister, Marc Miller, has grown especially terse in his description of the need to act quickly, warning in recent weeks that provincial leaders “will not like the bluntness of the instruments that we use” if they were not to better match their international student enrolment to their capacity to host them.

The nation’s universities have made clear they understand the problem and said they hoped the Trudeau administration would carefully calibrate its actions. “Any policy changes to the international student programme should avoid unintended consequences that will adversely affect universities who have demonstrated responsible and sustainable growth,” said Universities Canada, the nation’s main higher education association

The Trudeau government is also acting on a separate front to put clearer limits on university practices overseas. It published a list of more than 100 research organisations – mostly in China, but also in Russia and Iran – that Canadian researchers should avoid and a list of specific sensitive technology research areas that should be especially protected.

The two lists “will be reviewed at regular intervals to ensure Canada continues to address risks to our national security”, federal officials said in announcing them.

Universities Canada offered encouragement for the move. “Universities welcome the clarity provided by today’s announcement, as it complements universities’ existing measures to protect Canadian research,” the university association said.

The possibility of Mr Miller putting limits on international students going to Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia was reported by CBC’s Radio-Canada. It was attributed to a senior government source who said the federal government had been having difficulty in negotiations aimed at creating voluntary limits tied to individual institutions in denser population areas.

Federal government leaders are described as facing growing warnings from their own experts that the country’s high rates of immigration are having persistent negative effects on housing and healthcare services. While foreign students in Canada pay far more than their domestic counterparts, their tuition rates are still considered highly competitive on a global basis, and are accompanied by relatively generous rights in areas that include working while studying.

Mr Miller last month announced the doubling of the wealth requirement for Canada’s incoming international students – the nation’s first hike in two decades – saying he wanted to help make sure they could support themselves.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com