Marc Miller: "The equivalent of puppy mills that are just churning out diplomas"
Ontario colleges can't keep bringing in international students without supporting them
Ontario’s being too greedy
The caps on international student numbers at universities and colleges are set by the provinces. Alex Usher describes what’s been happening in Ontario, for example:
In 2022, as housing pressures in the 905 became more palpable, the Ford Government intervened to mess things up still further. It replaced its 2019 Ministerial Policy with a new one, which put a hard cap on each institution’s [public-private partnership] enrolment … at 7,500. Doesn’t matter how big the home campus is. Call it the David Bowie/Cat People approach to public policy management (i.e. Putting Out the Fire With Gasoline). And since virtually all the anglophone non-GTA schools have schools, we’re talking about max enrolment in these PPPs of something on the order of 120,000 next year, or about twice what it was in 2021-22.
As Usher describes it, Ontario’s basically being greedy, exploiting international students (especially from India) and charging them high fees to pay for the province’s post-secondary system. Ontario colleges are now receiving less money from the provincial government than from Indian students alone, and less money from both provincial funding and domestic students than from all international students.
Federal changes to reduce demand
In August, Mike Moffatt had two suggestions for the federal government to reduce demand for international study without getting into a jurisdictional fight with the provinces, before students start arriving in July 2024:
Strengthen the financial criteria for approval (basically, how much money a student needs to have, to demonstrate that you can support yourself).
Reduce the number of hours that a student can work off-campus (presumably back to 20 hours/week).
‘Enough is enough’: Ottawa hikes student visa financial onus, threatens limits. Global News, last Thursday.
“Ahead of September 2024, we are prepared to take necessary measures, including significantly limiting visas, to ensure that designated learning institutions provide adequate and sufficient student supports,” Marc Miller said on Thursday.
“It is imperative that we work together with provincial and territorial governments, learning institutions and other education stakeholders so we can ensure international students are set up for success in Canada,” Miller told reporters in Ottawa.
He added, “Enough is enough. If provinces and territories cannot do this, we will do it for them and they will not like the bluntness of the instruments that we use.”
Miller’s comments show a marked shift in tone on the matter, even as he noted, “It would be a mistake to blame international students for the housing crisis. But it also be a mistake to invite them to come to Canada with no support, including how to put a roof over their heads. That’s why we expect learning institutions to only accept numbers of students that they’re able to provide for, able to house or assist in finding off campus housing.”
Press release describing the change to the financial requirement:
Starting January 1, 2024, the cost-of-living financial requirement for study permit applicants will be raised so that international students are financially prepared for life in Canada. Moving forward, this threshold will be adjusted each year when Statistics Canada updates the low-income cut-off (LICO). LICO represents the minimum income necessary to ensure that an individual does not have to spend a greater than average portion of income on necessities.
The cost-of-living requirement for study permit applicants has not changed since the early 2000s, when it was set at $10,000 for a single applicant. As such, the financial requirement hasn't kept up with the cost of living over time, resulting in students arriving in Canada only to learn that their funds aren't adequate. For 2024, a single applicant will need to show they have $20,635, representing 75% of LICO, in addition to their first year of tuition and travel costs. This change will apply to new study permit applications received on or after January 1, 2024.
Since November 2022, international students have been allowed to work 40 hours/week off-campus instead of 20. This temporary program was scheduled to expire at the end of December 2023. Miller’s now extended it to April 2024 (presumably to line up with the school year).
CBC:
Miller signalled that the Liberals are open to increasing the cap for when the waiver expires, but he said allowing 40 working hours per week would give people reason to come to Canada and not focus on their studies.
Increasing the cap to more than 20 hours/week seems like a bad idea to me, given the need to reduce demand. People move where the jobs are.
How can the federal government limit student visas?
Alex Usher explains that if the federal government were to simply cap the number of international student visas it issues, what you get is either rationing (based on what?) or some kind of first-come-first-serve system (so anyone who applies for a visa when the supply has run out is SOL).
It seems like the immigration department is trying to set up some kind of prioritization system for post-secondary institutions (universities higher priority, colleges lower priority).
Usher thinks this isn’t going to work. Instead, he suggests that Ottawa negotiate (or impose) a province-wide cap on international student visas with Ontario, Nova Scotia, and BC, and then let each province administer it.
What it comes down to is this: the feds planning this scheme are, and I mean this quite literally, clueless when it comes to dealing with, evaluating, or judging post-secondary institutions. If a cap is needed, then the feds need to obtain some level of provincial consent and buy-in to work out rationing mechanisms.
Heck, you could even hand it all over to the provinces: tell each one of them what their cap is and then let each one work out the rationing mechanism. This would create another set of problems (on what basis do you set a per-province cap?) but might also solve another one (are caps needed at all outside Ontario, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia, given that these provinces are where the housing scarcity problem is most acute?).
In this context, Miller’s comment about federal willingness to use “blunt” policy is interesting. If Ontario isn’t willing to reduce its caps on the number of international students at each college and university in Ontario, the federal government could impose a province-wide cap on Ontario and leave it to the province to decide how it wants to ration the visas.
Of course this may lead to a major battle between the federal government and the Ontario government. But as Usher says:
Think the Ontario Conservatives will fight back? Guess again. That caucus is filled with 905-area MPPs whose constituents are screaming about rent. If the Liberals look like seizing the housing issue from the Conservatives through measures like this, you can bet the Conservatives will fall in line pretty quickly.
More
Previous posts: international students, suggested reforms, immigration and housing demand.
Alex Usher, who provides advice on strategy for post-secondary institutions, has written a lot about this issue. The bailiffs are at the door. State of Postsecondary Education in Canada 2023. A short explainer of public-private partnerships in Ontario colleges. Caps on student visas. Visa caps “lite.”
Forecast for Failure: How a broken forecasting system is at the root of the GTHA’s housing shortage and how it can be fixed. Mike Moffatt and Mohsina Atiq, January 2022. Describes the history of the international student program.
Should international students be capped? Here’s what Canada’s provinces say. Global News, September.
Tweet by Marc Miller, quoting a Canadian Press story: “There are, in provinces, the diploma equivalent of puppy mills that are just churning out diplomas, and this is not a legitimate student experience,” Miller said at a news conference.
“There is fraud and abuse and it needs to end.”
Vancouver too suffers from their presence. Other cities may as well.