sabrina maddeaux: international students are suffering. the liberals need to take action
the recent minor change to study permits is not nearly enough to save students from abhorrent living conditions and exploitation
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soaring rents and grocery bills are putting international students at risk of abhorrent living conditions, food insecurity and sexual exploitation, writes sabrina maddeaux.
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the federal liberals appear to be slowly waking up to the disastrous results of neglecting canada’s immigration programs beyond infinitely expanding them. last week, immigration minister marc miller, who has spent the past several months hemming and hawing about “competing policy priorities” and an alleged “labour gap,” finally announced minor changes to international student requirements.
in 2024, the liberals will double the amount of money foreign students must have in order to qualify for a study permit, raising it to $20,635. the amount is meant to ensure students have enough money to live on once in canada, and is in addition to tuition funds. while certainly an improvement on the current $10,000 requirement, the reality is, given the current cost of living in major student centres, the new figure will do little to prevent the rapidly rising poverty and exploitation experienced by international students who too often aren’t prepared for soaring rents and grocery bills.
take, for example, an international student landing in the greater toronto area (gta). if that full $20,635 were to only pay for rent alone, a student could afford to pay $1,719 per month. the average rent for a one-bedroom in toronto is currently over $2,600. in brampton, home to many of the most egregious diploma mills that prey on young foreigners, the average one-bedroom rent is $2,195. notably, brampton food banks have recently resorted to turning away a growing tide of international students.
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the new figure isn’t enough to cover cost-of-living for most students unless they also work significant hours outside of class — a harsh truth canada’s low-wage employers have long relied upon. conveniently for them, the liberals will also extend an exemption that allows international students to work more than 20 hours a week off-campus until at least april 2024.
while miller finally acknowledged, “there are, in provinces, the diploma equivalent of puppy mills that are just churning out diplomas, and this is not a legitimate student experience,” he didn’t go beyond merely warning these institutions — they are not schools in any sense of the word — to get their act together, or else.
it’s unclear what the liberals need to see beyond the recent surge in fraud, abhorrent living conditions, sexual exploitation and suicides to act on “or else.” their unwillingness to clamp down on proven bad actors to protect vulnerable young people once again reveals a yawning gap between their moralistic rhetoric and actual policy that caters to and enriches elites and corporations.
there’s also a continued reluctance to make the direct link between uncapped international student and temporary foreign worker visas and the country’s housing crisis. the impact has been particularly acute on rents in college towns and urban centres where most international students cluster.
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”it would be a mistake to blame international students for the housing crisis. but it (would) also be a mistake to invite them to come to canada with no support, including how to put a roof over their heads,” said miller, even though practically no one is actually blaming international students for the housing crisis. the opposite, rather. it’s widely acknowledged that foreign students are victims of the crisis, for which blame squarely falls on eight years of liberal governance that didn’t include plans to match record immigration with sorely needed infrastructure.
in an early december speech to the windsor-essex regional chamber of commerce, bank of canada deputy governor toni gravelle underscored this point. “shortly after immigration began ramping up in 2015, canada’s vacancy rate — a measure of how many apartments and houses there are available to rent or buy — started to fall,” he said. “the construction of new housing was not keeping pace with population growth. then, when newcomer arrivals picked up sharply in early 2022, that steady decline in the vacancy rate became a cliff.”
he also acknowledged, “most newcomers rent when they first arrive in canada, which pushes up demand for rental housing and can lead to short-term pressure on rent inflation.”
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this failure to match historic immigration, especially of non-permanent residents, with housing supply is, according to gravelle, the key explanation for why rent inflation continues to rise in canada as it slows across the border in the u.s. it’s why rents can differ so drastically between american and canadian cities that are just several miles apart.
miller’s recent announcement doesn’t go nearly far enough to deal with the scale or severity of the problem. the liberals must get serious about retooling immigration targets in the near-term if they want immigration to be successful for immigrants and canadians alike in the long term. with so much damage already inflicted, this isn’t an endeavour that can be pushed out until late 2024 or 2025.
miller is at least beginning to say some of the right things, but he and the liberals are still far off from doing the right thing when it comes to international students.
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