It’s clear that the minister responsible was warned there would be unintended consequences to messing with the student program’s integrity
Some days you’re the dog and some days you’re the tree.
Housing minister Sean Fraser must have had that arboreal feeling as he read a Canadian Press story that said as immigration minister he ignored warnings from his department that allowing foreign students to work more than 20 hours a week could lead to “program integrity” concerns.
In other words, there was a concern among officials that hundreds of thousands of foreign students could arrive in Canada to work in low-skilled jobs and do a little studying on the side while, in the meantime, driving up housing costs.
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Fraser would have known that he was due for a roasting at the House finance committee Tuesday and played for sympathy.
Students are challenged to find places to live they can afford and aren’t a long commute away or are overcrowded, he said.
But the Conservatives were not in the mood to offer comfort, clearly blaming the minister for his own folly.
Jasraj Singh Hallan, the Opposition finance critic, asked Fraser about the warning from his former department, and who made the decision to ignore it. “Was it you or were you told to ignore that warning?”
Bedlam ensued and it was some minutes before order was restored and the minister was able to come up with a response that was more mea than culpa. “No one ignored any warnings. The part of the story you may not be familiar with is the warnings around what would happen to our health care system; the warnings from homebuilders that we would not be able to build homes if they didn’t have access to talent; the warning from the business community about massive closures that would take place…”
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Fraser was cut off by more opposition interruptions and never did return to the matter at hand.
But the explanation was clear. In the second quarter of 2022, job vacancies in Canada rose to over 990,000. By Fraser’s account, the economy was on the verge of seizing up, so the Liberals set up a parallel immigration system, bringing in hundreds of thousands of non-residents through the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program to fill non-skilled jobs.
Not only that, they set up a parallel Temporary Foreign Workers program in the form of the International Students Program.
The TFW requires a Labour Market Impact Assessment to show that no Canadians are available to do a particular job. But the student visa program does not, and by allowing students to work more than 20 hours a week, the government created a new pool of cheap labour (Immigration Department figures suggest 80 per cent of international students are currently working more than 20 hours a week).
The department warned Fraser that while waiving the work cap could alleviate some labour shortages, it might have unintended consequences — namely, it could detract from the primary goal of study and circumvent the TFW program.
But the concerns of businesses and educational institutions hungry for foreign student fees prevailed.
The government was presumably not unmoved by the fact that international education accounts for $22 billion in economic activity, according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education, which also says that 60 per cent of international students intend to seek permanent residency in Canada.
The Liberals gave generously in that regard too, announcing their intention to create “greater pathways” to permanent residency for temporary workers and students.
And where has that left us? In the words of the new Immigration Minister Marc Miller: “It’s a bit of a mess.”
More than 900,000 foreign students had visas to study in Canada last year — more than three times the number from a decade ago.
Many were here for what Miller described as “sham” degrees.
That level was close to double the intake of permanent residents coming in through the front door, who are chosen based on a points-ranking system of education, skills, language ability and work experience.
The job vacancy level has fallen for five straight quarters, meaning the demand for vast pools of unskilled labour is much diminished.
And, of course, the spike in population has driven up the cost of housing, a fact the Bank of Canada recognized when it recently said rental costs have gone up eight per cent since last year. (In fact, because the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia are rent-controlled, rentals to new tenants are often up 20 per cent).
Miller has since reduced the number of international student visas by 35 per cent to around 364,000 and plans to limit the number of hours they can legally work to around 20. But that is the response of a government taking action after finding the stable empty and the horse long gone.
If Miller really wants to fix the problem, he should block students from working at all off campus and should make clear to everyone that there is only one route to permanent residency: that is, through the comprehensive ranking system that awards points based on skills, education, language ability and work experience. That way Canada will get the best and brightest through the front door.
To be clear, foreign workers and students are not to blame for all the housing market’s woes. Land costs and development charges have risen tenfold in the past two decades. Mortgage interest costs were up 30 per cent last year. All of these things operate independently of what is going on with the arrival of non-residents.
But as has been noted by innumerable experts, you can’t add a million-and-a-half people and only build 300,000 new homes.
It’s clear that the minister responsible was warned there would be unintended consequences to messing with the student program’s integrity — and there were.
There is a reason why Pierre Poilievre owns the housing issue, even after the Liberals have purloined some of his ideas.
That is because the Liberals are viewed as being culpable for creating the mess we’re in. Judging by Fraser’s testimony, they deserve the discredit.
jivison@criffel.ca
Twitter.com/IvisonJ
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