Ottawa to propose new asylum rules to allow for faster deportations

2024/05/02 Leave a comment

Of note. This has been a longstanding issue for many governments, the excessive multiple processes that clog the system. Predictable and not entirely illegitimate fears by immigration lawyers but current system is neither sustainable nor fair:

The Liberal government is proposing to make changes to Canada’s asylum claim system which could speed up the deportation process for rejected applicants from the country.

The proposed amendments were quietly announced two weeks ago in the 2024 federal budget and come as Canada deals with a record number of asylum seekers.

“Budget 2024 also proposes to introduce changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to simplify and streamline the claims process in support of faster decisions and quicker removals,” it reads.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s office would not provide additional information to Global News, with his press secretary Bahoz Dara Aziz citing “parliamentary privilege.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) did not provide clarity either, instead issuing a statement that closely resembled what was in the budget.

IRCC says the new measures will “improve the efficiency of the asylum system without compromising fairness or compassion for those in need of protection

“Whenever lawyers hear the government say the word ‘streamline’ or make things more efficient, we always know that people’s rights are about to get sacrificed on the altar of administrative efficiency,” said immigration and refugee lawyer Chantal Desloges in an interview with Global News.

“The government is being very tight lipped about what they’re planning to actually change, which also makes me a little bit nervous,” Desloges added.

Since March of this year, 46,736 people have applied for asylum in Canada, according to the IRB. That is a 62 per cent increase from the same period in 2023, while the backlog stands at 186,000, according to the agency.

An increase in temporary immigration has also been linked in part to Canada’s housing crisis. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned the situation needs to be brought “under control,” saying temporary immigration has “grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb.”

As the numbers of applicants surge, so have wait times for asylum seekers.

It can take years for cases to be heard by the IRB.

How hard is it to remove people?

The Canada Border Services Agency has struggled to remove applicants whose claims have been rejected or withdrawn.

As of this February, the CBSA issued more than 28,000 “active warrants” to “failed refugee claimants.”

“We as a country need to invest in the refugee determination process so that they get a fair opportunity to have their case [and] their fear understood and a decision made,” said immigration and refugee lawyer Warren Creates.

“The ones who fail, whose cases are rejected, should be removed. I think justice requires that.”

Ottawa has pledged $743.5 million over five years to the CBSA, IRCC and the IRB to try to deal with the backlog of 186,000 asylum claims. More than 141,000 were filed last year alone.

“The IRB is resourced to handle 50,000 intaking claims a year,” Creates said. “They’re not resourced for the 140,000 that came last year. … To tread water, they need to triple their budgets and their adjudication.”

The proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are part of a series of new measures announced by Ottawa.

The immigration minister has reinstated the visa requirement for Mexican nationals, introduced a cap on international students, and more recently reduced the amount they can work to 24 hours per week.

Up to now, Miller has ruled out changing the asylum criteria which could make it more difficult for claimants to remain in Canada.

Source: Ottawa to propose new asylum rules to allow for faster deportations

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International student work in Canada: 24 hours per week

2024/05/01 Leave a comment

Better than the 30 hours floated, not as good as returning to 20 hours. Likely compromise to manage competing views:

International students will be able to work off-campus for up to 24 hours per week starting in September, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced Monday.

The Liberals temporarily waived the 20-hour cap on work hours for international students during the COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to ease labour shortages.

That waiver expires Tuesday.

“Looking at best practices and policies in other like-minded countries, most of them limit the number of working hours for international students. Canada’s rules need to be aligned or we will find our programs attracting more and more applicants whose primary intent is to work and not study,” Miller said.

“To be clear, the purpose of the international student program is to study and not to work.”

The new work limit comes as the federal government clamps down on a surge in international student enrolments across the country.

Critics have warned that allowing international students to work full-time could turn a study permit into an unofficial work visa, which would undermine its purpose.

However, the federal government is also hearing from international students who say they need to work more to pay for their studies.

Miller said his government is setting the cap at 24 hours because that seems “reasonable,” and would allow students to work three full eight-hour shifts a week.

He also noted that internal work by the department shows more than 80 per cent of international students are currently working more than 20 hours a week.

The work hours limit will return to 20 hours per week until September, when the government can implement a permanent change to make it 24 hours.

There are no limits on the number of hours international students can work when they’re not actively enrolled in class, such as during the summer.

The Canadian Press reported earlier this year that officials in Miller’s department warned the government in 2022 that the temporary waiver could distract students from their studies and undermine the objective of temporary foreign worker programs.

Miller previously floated the idea of setting the cap permanently at 30 hours a week. However, on Monday, the immigration minister said that would be too close to full-time hours.

“We know from studies as well that when you start working in and around 30-hour levels, there is a material impact on the quality of your studies,” he said.

Miller extended the waiver on work hours in December because he didn’t want the change to affect students during the school year itself.

Source: International student work in Canada: 24 hours per week

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Human-rights groups outraged at plan to detain immigrants in federal prison

2024/04/19 Leave a comment

Expected:

Human-rights groups are expressing outrage at government plans to lock up immigrants who have not been convicted of a crime in federal prisons.

Tuesday’s federal budget proposes changes to the law to allow people facing deportation deemed to be high risk – including posing a potential flight risk or a threat to public safety – to be incarcerated in federal prison.

The move follows the decision by provinces to end immigration-detention agreements with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to house immigrants in their jails this year…

Source: Human-rights groups outraged at plan to detain immigrants in federal prison

And the Minister’s response:

Immigration Minister Marc Miller confirmed to Radio-Canada that the federal government will be using its penitentiaries to hold some foreign nationals for immigration purposes.

He said those detainees will be separated from the prison population, but that both groups could be sharing services.

“It would be separate housing and it would not be in the general population, because they are not criminals,” Miller said, following Radio-Canada’s story on the government’s proposal buried at the bottom of the federal budget tabled Tuesday.

The Trudeau government wrote it wants to “enable the use of federal correctional facilities for the purpose of high-risk immigration detention.”

The statement has angered human rights organizations, some calling the plan “completely unacceptable,” as reported by Radio-Canada Wednesday.

Source: Immigration minister responds to critics over plan to detain migrants in penitentiaries

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Wells: Immigration Minister Marc Miller

2024/04/05 Leave a comment

Well worth listening to the intv:

All the time I’ve been covering politics I’ve had a category in my mind for politicians who just sound like people when they talk to me. I don’t put all that much stock in it. There are lots of ways to be good at your work, or less good, and talking’s only part of it. But just on a human level, it’s hard not to like people who don’t robot up as soon as I walk into a room.

Marc Miller is one such. He’s in a tough portfolio these days, not for the first time. Thirteen months ago he was on the pod as minister of Crown-Indigenous Affairs. Now of course he’s at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. He’s a careful talker, and like a lot of people who mistrust communications advice, he’s low on pat slogans, so at no point in our interview did he sound like he had a bunch of ready answers. But I’ve always had the impression I’m basically talking to Marc Miller, not to some homunculus version of him that he’s interposed between me and the real item. 

His job since last June is to introduce a note of caution, or a symphony, into what had been the most pro-immigration government in generations. Symphonies of caution are all the rage these days; even the prime minister has started to notice there’s something amiss. (I don’t think the text of the linked tweet quite summarizes what Justin Trudeau said, but the clip is worth hearing.)

Since the flow of new Canadians has implications for housing, federalism, and the fortunes of the official opposition, just for starters, it’s become clear that Miller has a mandate to change some policies. Which he’s done, capping international student permits and planning for a gradual cut in temporary residents. We talked about both in our interview.

We also caught up on the ambitious reform to the department’s organization that his former deputy minister, Christiane Fox, undertook last year — before she was shuffled yet again in January. (She’s now Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council.) 

And I took the opportunity to run a peculiar theory past Miller: that the recent substantial increase in immigration rates was essentially orchestrated by the McKinsey consulting firm and its former top executive, Dominic Barton. I don’t put much stock in the notion, and Miller gives it even less credence, but it led the nightly French-language national news at Radio-Canada for days on end last year, beginning with this story (the linked version of the story is in English). In the first years of this government, Barton led an advisory council on economic growththat recommended much higher immigration. Later he helped found the Century Initiative, an NGO that advocates for much higher immigration. (Barton’s name has disappeared from the group’s website since Radio-Canada started reporting.) And McKinsey has been getting far more contracts from the Liberal government than its Conservative predecessor. My Rad-Can colleagues suggested all these things are connected. I’ve now spent more time explaining the hypothesis to you than I wanted, but at least now you’ll know what I’m on about when I ask Miller about it.

I don’t endorse everything Miller says here. He’s got this thing where he pre-emptively blames Pierre Poilievre for stuff he thinks Poilievre mightsay eventually, which strikes me as a stretch. But I know few effective politicians who aren’t also ardent partisans. Anyway, give it all a listen. 

Source: Immigration Minister Marc Miller

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Douglas Todd: Canada’s tough-talking immigration minister makes headlines, but how much is spin?

2024/04/03 Leave a comment

More than spin IMO given his actions to cap international students, reduce the number of Temporary Foreign Workers, and cap at 500,000 Permanent Residents in 2025 (albeit after the election).

Not far or fast enough, but the first Liberal minister of immigration to tackle some of the problems his predecessors created and make life somewhat easier for a possible Conservative successor:

It’s rare when a politician criticizes the record of his own party, but that’s the approach Immigration Minister Marc Miller has been adopting.

The teenage friend of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has become quotable as he goes after the “perverse effects” and “lack of integrity” in the migration system that his Liberal predecessors — John McCallum, Ahmed Hussen, Marco Mendocino and Sean Fraser — built up upon gaining power nine years ago.

When Trudeau appointed Miller in June 2023 he started off sounding like every other Liberal immigration minister — trotting out well-worn cliches about how record levels of permanent and non-permanent residents would replace retiring baby boomers and deliver economic opportunity for all.

But Miller’s tune suddenly changed last fall, along with polling results. They showed a huge shift to the federal Conservatives, a switch pundits attribute almost entirely to the rapidly increasing cost of living, especially in housing and rents, which economists say links to unparalleled population growth.

“There should be an honest conversation about what the rise in international migration means for Canada as we plan ahead,” Miller said last month.

His call for national frankness seemed a refreshing change from the Liberal habit of reinforcing English Canada’s historical taboo against debating migration policy.

At the same time he promised to decrease the number of temporary residents to five per cent of the population, from 6.5 per cent. The target for new permanent residents, meanwhile, would remain 500,000, almost double that of the Stephen Harper era.

Miller also had something blunt to say in regard to the way his own party increased the number of foreign students in Canada — hiking totals to 1.028 million last year from 352,000 in 2015.

Before promising to cap new undergraduate study permits for next year at 360,000, which he maintained is a 35 per cent reduction from the year before, Miller had admitted reluctance to reduce Canada’s “very lucrative” foreign student scheme.

Yet he conceded it “comes with some perverse effects, some fraud in the system, some people taking advantage of what is seen to be a backdoor entry into Canada.”

Miller also said he would curb the country’s dependence on the “cheap labour” supplied by guest workers, which includes international students, most of whom, unlike in most countries, are permitted to work while aiming to become citizens.

Miller appears to be taking heed that bank economists have pronounced that Canada’s migration-fuelled population expansion of 3.2 per cent last year is killing productivity rates, lowering real wages, and hiking the cost of rents and housing.

A pace of growth above three per cent has “never been seen in any developed country” since the 1950s, says Frederic Payeur, a demographer at Quebec’s provincial statistics agency.

Economists increasingly complain the unnecessary reliance on temporary foreign labour leads to lower wages in Canada, which are falling far behind other nations.

“The volumes (of non-permanent resident admissions) are a byproduct of a lack of integrity in the system,” Miller said.

He also talks of “punishing the bad actors,” including employers, immigration consultants and temporary workers who exploit Canada’s welcome.

“We want to attack the fraud in Labour Market Impact Assessments, which in some places I think is rampant,” he said, referring to the way some bosses falsely claim (sometimes after taking kickbacks) that they must hire a foreign national because no Canadian is available to do the job.

There are more such stark Millerisms out there. And they sound vital. But could they be hollow?

More than a few wonder if Miller and his party could be indulging in a new strategy of political spin. Of saying one thing and doing another.

It’s quite plausible. Britain’s long-standing Conservative government is being accused of just that. It held onto power in 2019 by promising to reduce migration levels. But last year net migration to the U.K., population 67 million, soared to an all-time record of 745,000.

But it’s also possible that Miller — who attended College Jean-de-Brebeuf with Trudeau and travelled with him on adventures to Africa and beyond — has delivered the unpleasant news to Trudeau that his one-dimensional strategy to rescue our sputtering economy by pumping up population growth is doing Canadians and newcomers more harm than good.

Whatever the motivation for Miller’s change of tone, there are reasons to be skeptical. For instance, historically, the government is promising only a modest proposal to reduce temporary resident numbers. And the Quebec MP is delaying bringing in the needed legislation to the fall.

As well, when Miller said he would take three years to trim numbers to a level that would still be much higher than before the Liberals came to power, it opens up a lot of political wiggle room. The end date for the cut would be at least 18 months after the next election, which is scheduled for October 2025.

In the meantime, it’s hard for even Miller to keep up with the catapulting numbers. Two weeks ago he said there were 2.5 million temporary residents in Canada. But, last Wednesday, Statistics Canada said the country actually had 2.7 million such guest workers, asylum seekers and foreign students.

We will have to wait and see if Miller’s self-critical rhetoric provides his party with a bump in the polls.

The harsh reality is the Liberals have strayed far from the numerical “sweet spot” that Scotia Bank says is necessary “when it comes to economic immigration — where everyone is better off over time.” Canada, population 41 million, has already blown past such a sweet spot “by multiples,” says the bank.

With so many Canadians, especially young adults, facing stagnant wages and housing distress, National Bank economists Stéfane Marion and Alexandra Ducharme have gone so far as to actually suggest a sweet spot.

“At this point,” they say, “we believe our country’s annual total population growth should not exceed 300,000 to 500,000.”

That is a far cry from what StatCan reported last week: that in 2023 the country’s surging population increased by 1.3 million, 98 per cent of it from international migration.

Is Miller willing to make a serious dent in such totals? If so, that could offer newcomers and Canadians more hope, especially in regard to the cost of shelter, but also as an antidote to sluggish wages.

The minister can say all he wants but, as with all of us, he will ultimately be judged by whether his words correspond to his actions.

Source: Douglas Todd: Canada’s tough-talking immigration minister makes headlines, but how much is spin?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Regg Cohn: Justin Trudeau’s point man says he’s ‘not naive’ as he tackles Canada’s surging immigration numbers

2024/03/27 Leave a comment

Good profile and assessment:

Marc Miller is doing what no other immigration minister has done in recent history.

He’s letting fewer temporary residents come to Canada in the short term. While planning for more immigrants in future.

Barely a year after taking over the immigration and refugee portfolio, Miller is steering a controversial course correction to avert an unplanned and unmanageable surge in temporary residents. By capping overseas student visas, and dialing down foreign work permits, he is reasserting control over uncontrolled trend lines.

Miller says Ottawa will set temporary resident targets

Immigration Minister Marc Miller announces that for the first time, Canada will set targets for the number of new temporary resident arrivals to the country. The federal government plans to decrease the number of temporary residents to five per cent of the population over the next three years, down from the current 6.2 per cent. (March 21, 2024)

Inaction is no solution, Miller told the Democracy Forum at Toronto Metropolitan University.

If he hadn’t stepped in, the country faced “exponential” growth and “exploitative” conditions for vulnerable foreigners, while exacerbating the affordability fallout from a crowded housing market.

“It’s undeniable that the volume has caused an impact on affordability,” he told me and our co-host, Anna Triandafyllidou, the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at TMU (Disclosure: I’m also a senior fellow at TMU’s Dais, which sponsors the Democracy Forum).

Miller is mindful of business becoming “addicted” to the “pitfalls” of cheap foreign labour. He is also wary of post-secondary campuses becoming addled and distorted by foreign students who pay extortionary tuitions for substandard educations in partnership with private “puppy mills” — his preferred ministerial malapropism for so-called diploma mills.

The minister is unusually candid for a politician caught in the middle of competing interests and conflicting impulses, navigating the recent ups and downs of immigration policy. In his previous portfolio, Miller served as the prime minister’s point person on Indigenous issues; now as before, he helms a ministry of complexity that requires humanity — from the campuses of Ontario to the refugee camps of the world, while navigating rival political camps in Ottawa.

If he hadn’t acted, “uncapped, we were seeing potential increases of the student numbers … to 1.4 million next year.”

But these distortions didn’t come out of nowhere. He blames “systemic underfunding, particularly in Ontario, of post-secondary education.”

The fallout isn’t just affordability but asylum problems. When foreign students are squeezed for high tuition, living in cramped quarters and getting sometimes “crappy” degrees, they increasingly resort to refugee claims — 10,000 over the last three years.

“We were in the process of creating our own home-generated asylum crisis, largely within the responsibility of the provinces,” Miller argued. It was time, “after a number of warnings, for provinces to act, to take responsibility over their education system.”

Why did it take so long?

Ottawa will “step in if the provinces don’t assume that jurisdiction and clean up some of the mess in their own kitchen,” he warned.

The federal minister is clearly frustrated by Ontario’s inattention and inaction. And he is irritated by “garbage” suggestions from Ontario that it was blindsided by his two-year cap on new international permits.

“It simply isn’t accurate,” he shot back. “There were a number of warnings that were issued quite publicly by me, but also … privately through our officials.”

While balancing federal-provincial jurisdictions on student visas, Miller must juggle the demands of business interests to tackle labour shortages, while also navigating the roadblocks to resettlement of foreign refugees. Refugee and immigration policy, like Canada’s foreign policy, is often driven by domestic and diaspora interests.

Miller acknowledges a program to help Palestinians fleeing the fighting in Gaza has been a “failure” by numbers — barely 14 have made it out, compared to fully 300,000 Ukrainian refugees now in Canada. But he says it’s unfair to compare the barriers erected at a border crossing — controlled by both Israel and Egypt — with the open channel from Ukraine’s western borders.

He’s not surprised that some are “pissed off” by the program’s “very limited success.” Yet no other country has gone as far as Canada in trying to help Gazans relocate.

“I don’t think there’s any just middle in any of those debates — there’s a lot of trauma, there’s a lot of hurt.”

But he remains optimistic that Canadians can strike a balance between competing interests at home and abroad, without falling into the polarized politics that now plague the U.S. and Europe. Canada’s major political parties, like most voters, understand that an aging population benefits from regular immigration targets rising to 500,000 people a year.

“I can’t deny the winds that are blowing against immigration,” he mused. “But we’ve generally been good as parties in avoiding a huge xenophobic debate on immigration.

“Frustration can be whipped up in many ways. Politicians do have responsibilities, and it would be terrible to have an election on the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in the world, but also some of the most vulnerable people in Canada. But I’m not naive to think that it can’t happen.”

Source: Justin Trudeau’s point man says he’s ‘not naive’ as he tackles Canada’s surging immigration numbers

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Federal cap on international students shouldn’t affect universities, colleges that have been ‘good actors,’ Miller says

2024/03/25 Leave a comment

Real test will be at the provincial level, particularly Ontario:

Colleges and universities that didn’t contribute to the over-enrollment of international students should not be impacted by the federal government’s clampdown, said Immigration Minister Marc Miller, also warning that Ottawa may step in if provinces allow that to happen.

Miller, speaking at the Democracy Forum at Toronto Metropolitan University on Friday, said in addition to limiting numbers Ottawa also wants “to make sure that we are separating the wheat from the chaff, rewarding those institutions that have the ability to welcome and attract the top talent for which the international visa student program was designed for in the first place.”

Ottawa has put a two-year cap on international study permits, with a plan to reduce the number by 35 per cent, to 364,000, in part to also address a housing crunch in many of the communities with large numbers of foreign students. The cap does not apply to master’s or doctoral students or those in elementary or secondary schools.

Permits will be allotted based on population, leaving it to the provinces to divvy them up. Ontario will be among the hardest hit, given it has taken in 51 per cent of Canada’s international students. 

While acknowledging that the changes being rolled out may make for a “turbulent year,” Miller said the clampdown may need to be further tailored “depending on what we see as the results or the impacts that the corresponding effects and actions that the province take in order to adjust for this.

“If they (the provinces) start to punish the good actors, that’s an unfortunate consequence that I may have to have a say over — but obviously we have to give the chance to the provinces” to fix the problems, Miller said. 

Starting in May, no post-graduation work permits will be issued to international students who studied in a program run by public-private college partnerships, which have been blamed for the explosion in Ontario’s numbers. 

Miller has been highly critical of the quality of such programs, some of them run out of strip malls. 

Both colleges and universities charge international students much higher tuition fees — sometimes up to five times — and have been using them to boost revenues because of systemic underfunding by the Ontario government, Miller said.

“I don’t necessarily fault them entirely for that, but I think that has to be done responsibly,” he said at Friday’s forum, co-hosted by the Star’s Martin Regg Cohn and TMU professor Anna Triandafyllidou.

“Had we not capped this, we would have seen exponential growth over the next one or two years with very, very, very negative carry-on effects in a number of areas.”

Ontario colleges and universities are now awaiting word from the Ford government, which has to release its plan for allocating permits and the newly required verification letters by the end of the month.

“We know some bad actors are taking advantage of (international) students with false promises of guaranteed employment, residency and Canadian citizenship,” Ontario Colleges and Universities Minister Jill Dunlop has said. “We’ve been engaging with the federal government on ways to crack down on these practices, like predatory recruitment.”

Source: Federal cap on international students shouldn’t affect universities, colleges that have been ‘good actors,’ Miller says

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Ottawa pourra contourner les seuils de Québec en réunification familiale [Ottawa says it will bypass Quebec’s immigration cap to speed up family reunification]

2024/03/06 Leave a comment

Provocative move but understandable given the impasse:

Impatient devant les retards en réunification familiale, le fédéral menace maintenant de contourner les seuils imposés par Québec. Un « affront direct » à la nation québécoise et à l’Accord Canada-Québec sur l’immigration, rétorque le gouvernement de François Legault.

Le ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, Marc Miller, a envoyé dimanche une lettre à son homologue québécoise, Christine Fréchette, pour l’avertir de ses intentions. Affirmant avoir « le devoir moral de trouver une solution à cet enjeu », il écrit que les fonctionnaires d’Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC) auront désormais l’autorisation de traiter les demandes en réunification familiale, même si le plafond de 10 400 personnes appliqué par Québec pour 2024 est dépassé.

« J’aurais idéalement souhaité trouver une solution en collaboration avec votre gouvernement », souligne l’élu libéral dans sa missive. « Cependant, étant donné que nous n’avons pas trouvé un terrain d’entente à la suite de votre refus de revoir vos seuils à la hausse pour réunir les familles plus rapidement, […] j’ai décidé de donner l’instruction à mon ministère de traiter les demandes de résidence permanente des demandeurs du regroupement familial ayant reçu un CSQ [certificat de sélection du Québec] émis par votre ministère. »

Environ 20 500 personnes correspondent actuellement à cette description. Marc Miller assure pouvoir traiter leurs dossiers en concordance avec les quotas de Québec, mais seulement si le gouvernement Legault n’augmente pas le fardeau du fédéral en émettant de nouveaux CSQ….

Source: Ottawa pourra contourner les seuils de Québec en réunification familiale, Ottawa says it will bypass Quebec’s immigration cap to speed up family reunification

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ICYMI: Federal minister calls ‘garbage’ on Ontario’s complaints it was blindsided by international student cap

2024/03/04 Leave a comment

Not diplomatic but he is a relatively direct speaking politician and largely correct on this and some of this other comments like “puppy mill” colleges:

Immigration Minister Marc Miller said his government gave provinces ample notice that international student numbers would be capped and any suggestion otherwise is “complete garbage.”

This after Ontario’s College and Universities Minister Jill Dunlop told the London Free Press Monday she was “very disappointed” with what she said was the federal government’s “unilateral decision, without any consultation” to limit international students.

“This was dropped on us,” Dunlop said.

Miller announced a cap on international student numbers earlier this year. Universities and colleges across the country have brought in increasing numbers of international students in recent years, rising to nearly 900,000 this year.

On Tuesday, Miller rejected any suggestion provinces weren’t fully informed.

“That’s complete garbage,” he said. “We said quite clearly they need to get their houses in order. We spoke specifically about Ontario that has the largest number of international students. They should have known it. They’ve had auditor general reports. We’ve spoken quite publicly about it.”

Miller said his government invited provincial counterparts to meetings that they did not attend.

“It’s beneath me to share text messages with journalists, but the reality is that there was communication that just was never followed up on,” he told reporters….

Source: Federal minister calls ‘garbage’ on Ontario’s complaints it was blindsided by international student cap

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Minister was warned lifting international student work limit could undermine program

2024/02/14 Leave a comment

More on the warning and former Minister Fraser’s policy failure:

Allowing international students to work more than 20 hours a week could distract from their studies and undermine the objective of temporary foreign worker programs, public servants warned the federal government in 2022.

The caution came in documents prepared for former immigration minister Sean Fraser as Ottawa looked at waiving the restriction on the number of hours international students could work off-campus — a policy the Liberals eventually implemented.

The Canadian Press obtained the internal documents with an access-to-information request.

Waiving the cap could help alleviate labour shortages, a memorandum for the minister conceded, but it could also have other unintended consequences.

“While a temporary increase in the number of hours international students can work off-campus could help address these shortages, this could detract from the primary study goal of international students to a greater emphasis on work, circumvent the temporary foreign worker programs and give rise to further program integrity concerns with the international student program,” the memo said.

Canada’s bloated international student program has been heavily scrutinized in recent months as part of a larger critique of Liberal immigration policies that have fuelled rapid population growth and contributed to the country’s housing crunch.

That scrutiny led the federal government to introduce a cap on study permits over the next two years, as it tries to get a handle on the program.

More than 900,000 foreign students had visas to study in Canada last year, which is more than three times the number 10 years ago.

Critics have questioned the dramatic spike in international student enrolments at shady post-secondary institutions and have flagged concerns about the program being a backdoor to permanent residency.

The memo said removing the limit for off-campus work would be in “stark contrast” to the temporary foreign worker programs, which requires employers to prove that they need a migrant worker and that no Canadian or permanent resident is available to do the job.

Fraser ultimately announced in October 2022 that the federal government would waive the restriction until the end of 2023 to ease labour shortages across the country.

The waiver only applied to students currently in the country or those who had already applied, in order to not incentivize foreign nationals to obtain a study permit only to work in Canada.

In December, Immigration Minister Marc Miller extended the policy until April 30, 2024 and floated the idea of setting the cap at 30 hours a week thereafter.

In an interview with The Canadian Press on Monday, Miller said he extended the waiver because he didn’t want to interfere with students’ work arrangements in the middle of an academic year.

“What I really didn’t want to do is impact students in a current year that have made their financial calculations about how they will sustain themselves and how they will be able to pay for the tuition and rent and food,” Miller said.

Miller said internal work by the department shows more than 80 per cent of international students are currently working more than 20 hours a week.

Waiving the number of hours international students could work was the right call given the labour shortages Canada was facing, but the policy was never meant to be permanent, he said.

Job vacancies soared to more than a million in the second quarter of 2022, but have steadily decreased since then as the economy slows.

Miller said he’s now considering making a permanent change to the cap that would set it somewhere between 20 and 40 hours a week.

“It’s not credible that someone can work 40 hours and do a proper program,” Miller said.

He said the goal is to come up with a cap that gives students the ability to get good work experience and help them pay the bills, all while not undermining their studies.

“So what does a reasonable number of hours look like for someone here studying, knowing that they are paying three to four times, sometimes five times the price of a domestic student?” Miller said.

“I think that’s above 20 hours.”

Source: Minister was warned lifting international student work limit could undermine program

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