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Canada is further reducing the number of study permits it will grant to foreign students and tightening eligibility for work permits in a bid to cut down on the number of temporary residents in the country, the government said on Wednesday.
The announcement comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, trailing in the public opinion polls and coming off a major by-election loss this week, seeks to reduce the number of temporary residents – including international students and foreign workers – in the country.
We’re granting 35% fewer international student permits this year. And next year, that number’s going down by another 10%. Immigration is an advantage for our economy — but when bad actors abuse the system and take advantage of students, we crack down,” Trudeau said in a post on social media platform X.
The issue has become one of the most contentious in Canadian politics with a federal election due no later than October, 2025. The changes announced on Wednesday would reduce the number of international study permits issued to 437,000 in 2025. Canada approved 509,390 in 2023, according to immigration department data, and 175,920 in the first seven months of 2024.
Canada’s temporary foreign worker program has come under fire for being, in the words of a damning United Nations report, “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery” – language Miller called “inflammatory.” “The Ministers made no mention not even once about workers’ rights, instead continuing to obsess about numbers and cuts,” Syed Hussan, executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said in a statement.
The changes would also limit work permit eligibility for spouses of some students and temporary foreign workers. As Canada sees a spike in the number of refugee claimants, the government said Wednesday it planned to review measures to strengthen visa integrity and was “reviewing visa decision-making so that our highly trained officers have the right tools to detect fraud and reduce the number of non-genuine visitors.”
“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,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in a statement. The government has already pledged to reduce the number of temporary residents to 5% of the total population. It was 6.8% in April.
