Canada to cut international student intake by 10% in 2025 amid immigration pressures

In a release, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) stated that the cap for issuing study permits will be at 437,000, down from the target of 485,000 for this year. The “stabilising” 2025 figure will also apply for 2026.

It also announced further restrictions in other categories including temporary foreign workers and asylum claims. These measures came even as a cost-of-living crisis, shelter affordability problems and stress on health and transport infrastructure are being partly attributed to the influx of newcomers.

“The reality is that not everyone who wants to come to Canada will be able to—just like not everyone who wants to stay in Canada will be able to. We are taking action to strengthen our temporary residence programmes and roll out a more comprehensive immigration plan to meet the demands of today’s changing landscape,” Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller said.

That announcement will be unwelcome news to stakeholders like Canadian higher education institutions. The outlet Global News reported earlier this month that Universities Canada, the industry group, predicted a 45 per cent fall in the number of international students arriving in the country for the new term beginning in September.

“There’s every possibility that it’s going to be even worse than we fear,” he told the outlet, adding, “But it’s important to note that we’re already in territory that no one anticipated and that needs to set off a big alarm bell in Ottawa that we need to start turning this around right away.”

The IRCC decision is the opposite of what it sought and driven by the electoral fortunes of the ruling Liberal Party which appears to be in free fall after losing two Federal by-elections in strongholds in the cities of Toronto and Montreal within the space of three months.

The Conservative Party also has a lead of nearly 20 points over the incumbents in all recent surveys, and its leader, and prospective Prime Minister, Pierre Poilievre has bene clear his Government, if formed, will scale back immigration.

The numbers that matter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government are those thrown up by a recent poll by the agency Angus Reid Institute or ARI, which noted that nearly half or 48 per cent of those sampled “believe it would be a ‘good thing’ if Canada closed its borders to immigrants.”

For the time being, the various announcements from Ottawa with regard to international students haven’t appeared to have made a real dent in their numbers. According to the latest IRCC data, the number of study permits issued between January and June this year rose to 246580 from 238640, for the same period in 2023.

For India-specific permits, the numbers again rose for that six-month period from 96080 to 100355. Before the Trudeau government started crafting immigration policy, the total study permits issued in 2015 was at 219035 and Indians accounted for just 31920.

Canadian officials have warned that the results of the decisions taken will become evident later this year. That may be reflecting in the data, as the figures for study permits issued between April and June this year dropped to 125020 from 148140 in 2023. For India, the decrease was from 70340 to 55940. But that number is still nearly double to the total intake for 2015.