The Canadian government has recently updated some of its immigration policies, including limiting the number of study permits.
This has sparked disappointment among thousands of foreign students, who are protesting across Canada amid fears of deportation, VisaGuide.World reports.
Through these changes, the government aims to reduce the number of permanent residency nominations by 25 percent and limit study permits, as NDTV World explains.
These policies come after the country recorded a fast population increase over the last few years. According to Federal data, immigration has driven approximately 97 percent of last year’s population increase.
Government Has Taken Advantage of Us, Former Student Says
Some representatives from the student advocacy group Naujawan Support Network cautioned that foreign graduates risk deportation when their work permits expire at the end of 2024.
Mehakdeep Singh, a former foreign student in Canada, claims to have taken many risks when moving to Canada. He also said he had spent his family’s savings on college tuition fees, hoping to obtain permanent residency eventually.
I spent the most crucial six years of my life taking many risks to come to Canada. For the past six years, I studied, I worked, I paid taxes, I earned enough CRS (Comprehensive Ranking System) points but the government has just taken advantage of us.
According to a report by OMNI News, students are calling on the government to prolong the post-graduate work permits, provide steady and transparent routes to permanent residency, and tackle the issues that have led to their exploitation.
Number of Temporary Foreign Worker Permits to Be Reduced by 65,000
In addition to study permits, Canada is planning to reduce the number of temporary foreign work permits by nearly 65,000.
The scheme, projected to tackle labor shortages, has been criticized for suppressing salaries and exposing foreign workers to potential exploitations due to employer-tied permits.
Employers in Canada have a responsibility to invest in the full range of workers available in this country, such as young people, newcomers, and persons with disabilities, who are too often an untapped economic resource in Canada. They must also invest in retraining or upskilling to ensure that those they currently employ can adapt to the economy of the future.
In 2023, the Canadian government granted about 183,820 temporary work permits, an 88 percent rise from 2019. On the other hand, the unemployment rate in Canada has surged to 6.4 percent over the past two months, with nearly 1.4 million unemployed people.
New policies, set to enter into force on September 26, 2024, aim to tackle this situation.