Canada’s international student boom changed Brampton forever. As the program scales back dramatically, a strained community tries to adapt

2025/01/29 Leave a comment

Interesting deep dive regarding international students living in Brampton:

…Santos said the city first noticed the number of international students “growing significantly” in 2021 during the pandemic, mostly through reports of an increased number of illegal basement apartments and exponential use of food banks in the community.

At the time, the city helped organize an international student roundtable, summit and charter to discuss the challenges facing international solutions and bring together community leaders — and commit to finding solutions.

Local colleges have been supportive of the efforts, but she said the bigger issue has been all the students who live in Brampton but study elsewhere.

“One of the things we have advocated for is that student visas should be tied to their place of residence, not just their place of study,” said Santos, as it’s the local municipality that has to bear the cost of providing services for the residents, not the place where they might attend school.

The councillor has also asked the province increase the “heads and beds” levy, which sees the province pay municipalities $75 per person annually for those attending colleges and universities in lieu of property taxes to compensate for the cost of services like transit, roads, sewers, parks and recreation. Santos, in line with other municipal groups, has pushed for a doubling of that rate, and also asked that that the money be paid to the municipality where students live as opposed to where they are registered to study.

In Kaur’s case, for example, Toronto would receive the levy — even though she lives in Brampton. 

The city has also launched a residential rental licensing pilot program, aimed at targeting landlords who rent out rooms that are unsafe to students. The program allows bylaw officers to issue fines, but some landlords and critics say the licensing has made it more difficult for students to find any housing at all.

More recently, Santos said she has heard of dozens of cases of sex trafficking among students who have been forced to work as prostitutes in exchange for a place to live. But she said the data on the issue is scarce as most students are too scared to speak up, out of shame and the fear of having their student visas cancelled.

Fears of an ‘underclass’

In November, Brampton council passed a motion asking the federal and provincial governments for more support for students.

The motion asks to expand funding eligibility to allow international students to access existing regional supports, to increase the number of hours they can work in a week to 40 (from the federally mandated 24 hours a week), so students can access legal work from employers. It also asks for money to support a three-year pilot project that offers culturally responsive support around settlement, housing, employment and mental health.

Gurpreet Malhotra, the CEO of Indus Community Service, a settlement agency that supports Indo-Canadians, said the organization is working on the pilot project, and sent a proposal to federal immigration minister Marc Miller at a meeting in November. The two parties met this week.

“Our goal is to advocate with higher levels of government to ensure a better experience for these international students so they can settle and become unscarred and productive members of our community,” said Malhotra.

He said he fears it will lead to the “creation of an underclass,” if things continue as is.  

“When you are working under the table, and living under the table and don’t have access to social services, you have a built-in vulnerability to criminal and other negative activities,” he said.

Brown said while the federal and provincial governments have started to change policy in reaction to a growing backlash across the country, few are talking about how to support those who are already here.

“The question is, are those international students going to try to become permanent residents or are those students going to try to return home, and I don’t think we have clarity on that yet,” he said.

That’s why some local officials say the impact of the federal policies — particularly student caps — will be felt less in Brampton.

“Brampton will be the last place where the number of international students will go down,” said Toor, adding that many students have ties to the community and will opt to stay here.

But he’s unsure of how the city will manage in the long run. “This is not something we can absorb, as a city,” said Toor. “Just the scale of the population increase is immense for the city to handle it all — without planning for it.”

Source: Canada’s international student boom changed Brampton forever. As the program scales back dramatically, a strained community tries to adapt

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CIBC Tal on NPRs: Short-term pain, long-term gain

2025/01/29 Leave a comment

Interesting take and does have provide a logic for regularization. But the devil will be in the details: “If as a society we manage to create the conditions for better integration of NPRs in the labour market over time, we should be able to reverse the negative trajectory in productivity growth of the past few years.”

àWhat conditions, how to establish, how to enforce:

…Due to the recent government response, the pace of NPR arrivals is expected to slow down notably in the coming years, although not by as much as predicted by official numbers. For reasons we have spelled out elsewhere, policymakers and analysts cannot assume that the over one million current temporary residents in Canada with expired visas will simply leave the country over the next two years.

In other words, the demographic change of the past few years is not about to reverse. Economic theory and common sense suggest that that is a good thing. After all, an aging population is viewed as a major drag on productivity in most OECD countries. The youth dividend enjoyed by Canada is unique. Yes, clearly it has been too much of a good thing in a very short period of time.

But from a longer-term perspective, retaining and integrating current immigrants and NPRs would result in stronger potential growth and improved productivity, as more new arrivals find employment closer to their skill level or add to their skillset. If as a society we manage to create the conditions for better integration of NPRs in the labour market over time, we should be able to reverse the negative trajectory in productivity growth of the past few years.

Source: NPRs: Short-term pain, long-term gain

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HESA: Taking Donald Trump Seriously and What it Means for Canadian Higher Education

2025/01/29 Leave a comment

The article on Indian H1-B workers and family concerns regarding their children born in the USA could provide an example of a Canadian advantage along with a more accessible immigration system but uncertain:

…It would of course be nice if we could run the clock back to 2017. Back then, we talked bravely about how Canada might benefit from Trump, what with all the people clamoring to get out because of racism, interference in science, etc. There was, in short, an upside to chaos south of the border. But none of that is going to happen this time. The combination of an underpowered economy, overheated housing markets, and a general disinterest in funding science and education mean that there is little public license to seek a rise in immigration even for the most highly skilled. This is the price we pay for our generalized political complacency: when lemons strike, we can’t make lemonade.

That said, there should be opportunities, mainly research-based, in the maelstrom of change to come. The question is: which universities will be nimble enough to take advantage of them?

Source: Taking Donald Trump Seriously and What it Means for Canadian Higher Education

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Worswick: If Ottawa botches the economy now, Canada might break apart [immigration aspects]

2025/01/28 Leave a comment

Of note:

…Immigration has followed a roller coaster over the past seven years, expanding dramatically and then being cut back to historical levels. Renewing our focus on high-skilled immigration rather than filling lower-wage jobs will help raise our average skill level and standard of living, positioning Canada to manage external shocks such as the proposed U.S. tariffs. Also, we need to rethink our international student policy. We should prioritize students in academic programs likely to have higher income jobs after graduation since many of these students will want to remain as economic immigrants. Given that immigration is a shared federal and provincial jurisdiction, we will need co-operation from both levels of government to achieve an economic immigration program that benefits Canada to the greatest extent possible.

Canadian housing affordability has declined in recent years as we seem unable to build housing fast enough to match our population growth. If this continues, more young Canadians will become disillusioned with Canada and may be attracted to alternatives such as Quebec sovereignty or Western separatism. We must make it a national priority to ensure that housing expands with population growth so that we can gain the important economic benefits from skilled immigration while also ensuring that all Canadians can afford housing.

We should see our national unity issues as opportunities to rally support for addressing these significant policy challenges. If provincial governments recognize that a united Canada is not guaranteed, they will be more flexible in terms of finding policy solutions to our economic challenges rather than risk a further deterioration in our national unity. Also, if the federal government can work constructively with the provinces on these questions, this could go a long way to convince Canadians that we have a future together.

Source: If Ottawa botches the economy now, Canada might break apart

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Canada’s ‘smuggler’s paradise’ under renewed scrutiny amid Trump threats

2025/01/27 Leave a comment

Of interest:

…Akwesasne is part of what law enforcement agencies call the Swanton Sector, a vast stretch of eastern Ontario, Quebec, New York State, Vermont and New Hampshire. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, this is where the majority of illegal crossings happen from Canada – and it’s been on a dramatic rise in the past two years. The agency said it had made 19,300 apprehensions of illegal immigrants in the past fiscal year, up from the average of around 1,000 just a few years ago.

Canadian border officials also say the number of people coming the other direction illegally is on the rise. Last year, CBSA officers caught almost 34,000 foreign nationals along all land crossings with the U.S. who they believed were “inadmissible,” an increase of about 30 per cent from 2023. This is in addition to the more than 1,183 asylum seekers the RCMP caught last year trying to cross into Canada by land. In response to questions from The Globe, Canadian authorities said they couldn’t immediately isolate figures for the Swanton Sector.

On Jan. 7, investigators trailed the men after receiving evidence they say warranted a traffic stop under the Excise Act, which is typically used to prevent tobacco or cannabis smuggling. Akwesasne has a long history as a funnel for both. Tax-exempt cannabis and smoke shops are everywhere on the reserve, and old tobacco factories still stand here, from the era when cigarette companies used the territory to avoid paying taxes on their products….

Source: Canada’s ‘smuggler’s paradise’ under renewed scrutiny amid Trump threats

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Ottawa planning processing centre for asylum seekers in Quebec near U.S. border

2025/01/27 Leave a comment

Of note:

Canadian authorities are planning to open a processing centre for asylum seekers near the United States border in Quebec in case there is a sharp rise in the number of would-be refugees entering Canada.

Earlier this week, the federal government published a notice seeking office space it could lease to accommodate reception and meal distribution areas as well as a waiting room for up to 200 people at a time.

In an e-mail, the Canada Border Services Agency says the planned processing centre is part of its contingency plans “in the event of an influx of asylum seekers.”

The notice from Public Services and Procurement Canada says the building must be located within a 15-kilometre radius of the official border crossing area in St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., south of Montreal.

The notice follows Ottawa’s $1.3-billion announcement in December to beef up border security in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to impose steep tariffs unless Canada reduces the flow of migrants and drugs across the border….

Source: Ottawa planning processing centre for asylum seekers in Quebec near U.S. border

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Ottawa’s immigration cuts will chop 1.7% off GDP in 3 years: PBO [but improve GDP per capita]

2025/01/25 Leave a comment

As expected. But part of addressing decline in GDP per capita:

…Canada’s plan to reduce the number of immigrants over the next three years will result in a 1.7 per cent drop in the country’s gross domestic product  (GDP) by 2027, according to the federal fiscal watchdog.

The report from the parliamentary budget officer (PBO), Yves Giroux, on Thursday also said that new immigration targets released by the federal government last fall will slash the country’s population by 3.2 per cent or 1.4 million people over the next three years.

The PBO report comes days after Statistics Canada reported this week that Canada’s population could reach up to 80 million in 50 years, with migratory increase a “key driver of population growth.”

The PBO report said that the federal government’s new target to reduce immigration levels would lead to 1.3 billion fewer hours worked in 2027, resulting in the drop in the real GDP.

“However, given the sizeable population shock, real GDP per capita would be 1.4 per cent higher in 2027 under the 2025-2027 [Immigration Levels Plan],” the report said….

Source: Ottawa’s immigration cuts will chop 1.7% off GDP in 3 years: PBO

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Gertler: Lessons from Canada’s Nobel Prize win, and why capping graduate students will harm our economy

2025/01/25 Leave a comment

Smart to advocate for graduate students:

…What broader lessons can we learn from this experience? First, the importance of investing in curiosity-driven research over the long haul. In the 1980s, Dr. Hinton’s research was considered highly speculative and unproven. Only after decades of perseverance in developing the core models and following the advent of very large datasets and sufficiently powerful computing, did the full potential of his work become apparent.

Second, the importance of welcoming talented newcomers to Canada. Many of the protagonists in this story came from abroad. They were drawn here by research opportunities and funding. Many were also attracted by Canada’s openness and its inclusive society and cities. For example, Dr. Urtasun has spoken openly of her “love for and pride in” Canada as one of the key motivations to establish and grow Waabi in Toronto.

Moreover, as Dr. Hinton has recently emphasized, leading scholars must attract the best and brightest graduate students and postdocs to advance their research enterprise. In this light, the decision to limit the recruitment of international PhD and masters students will have profoundly damaging consequences for Canada’s long-run economic prospects.

As Canada contemplates its chronic productivity challenges and its distinctive place in an increasingly turbulent world, we would do well to learn from these lessons. Long-term investments in curiosity-driven research, an open society that welcomes newcomers and smart immigration policy that accentuates rather than depletes Canada’s talent advantage are key to our future prosperity.

Source: Lessons from Canada’s Nobel Prize win, and why capping graduate students will harm our economy

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Provinces warn Ottawa slashing immigration program in half will hurt economy

2025/01/25 Leave a comment

As noted in many of my posts, the provinces were complicit with the federal government, business and colleges and universities in the excessive growth of permanent and temporary residents without considering the practicalities of housing, healthcare and infrastructure:

The federal government has told most provinces and territories they must cut their allotted spaces for economic immigration programs by half this year, triggering concerns about drastic impacts on labour and the economy.

The provincial nominee programs (PNPs) are used by all provinces and territories except Quebec and Nunavut. All 11 jurisdictions with PNP slots have been told they will receive a 50 per cent reduction for 2025.

“We are quite reliant on that program. Our employers are quite reliant on the program,” Drew Wilby, Saskatchewan’s deputy immigration minister, told CBC News. “Obviously it’s our key driver of economic immigration.”

Saskatchewan’s share of the program will be cut to 3,625 spots, its lowest number since 2009. Wilby says the province wasn’t consulted about the cuts before they were announced.

The move is part of an overall cut to immigration targets. Ottawa announced in October it would cut the projected number of new permanent residents to 395,000 in 2025, down from 485,000. It’s planning further cuts to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027.

The PNPs target workers who have the skills to contribute to the economy of a specific province or territory and want to become permanent residents in Canada. Each province and territory has its own streams and requirements.

In a statement sent to CBC News, a spokesperson for Ontario’s Immigration Department said the reductions undermine “the province’s ability to meet employer demands and support economic growth.”…

Source: Provinces warn Ottawa slashing immigration program in half will hurt economy

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Has Canada overshot its mark in cutting international student enrolment? What the latest study permit data shows

2025/01/24 Leave a comment

But actual study permits finalized (new and renewals/extensions) shows a decline of 36 percent from 2023 full year to November 2024, or on target. So not overshooting if one includes all study permits, both new and renewals/extensions:

Ottawa issued 45 per cent fewer new study permits in 2024 according to the latest immigration data, a much steeper cut than it had planned when it unleashed policy changes a year ago to reduce international students in Canada.

The government’s measures were meant to primarily target post-secondary international students in what Immigration Minister Marc Miller has called “diploma mill” colleges, but the changes and messaging around its study permit scheme have had spillover impacts on all levels of studies.

Based on study permit processing and approval data from January through October 2024 — the peak of student intake — a new report by ApplyBoard projected Canada’s yearly study permit approvals would decline by 45 per cent from 2023, resulting in a maximum of just 280,000 admissions across all study levels from K-12 to postgraduate studies….

Source: Has Canada overshot its mark in cutting international student enrolment? What the latest study permit data shows

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