…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.”
Multicultural Meanderings 