A report from the federal Auditor General this week paints a picture of an immigration system that continues to spiral out of control. The report revealed that the immigration department identified 153,324 international students between 2023 and 2024 who were potentially not complying with study permit conditions.
But the department only investigated 4,057 cases, citing limited funding. The measures were largely limited to contacting the students for more information. Just 50 students were confirmed to be non-compliant, in part because of the department’s lack of followup. In 1,654 cases, students did not respond to inquiries, and the department took no further action. And then there are the more than 149,000 cases not investigated at all.
The report also shows how staff at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada determined that 800 people approved for international study permits between 2018 and 2023 used fraudulent documentation or misrepresented information. Many claimed to have attended overseas educational institutions later determined to be non-existent or selling qualifications.
The Sunday Editorial: What Ottawa isn’t saying about immigration
However, no action was taken. Even worse, 351 were later approved for study permit extensions or other temporary permits, 105 received permanent residency and 110 submitted asylum claims. Another 63 had no known location and no immigration status.
These jarring examples show the immigration department isn’t doing much to enforce the basic rules of the system. The Liberal government needs to do more to ensure that study permits are only issued to genuine students, and not used as backdoor work visas.
The numbers of new international students entering the country rose dramatically during the Trudeau years, contributing to a steep rise in temporary residents. Looser restrictions on working while studying, particularly a change waiving the cap on work hours, turned student visas into de facto work permits and a side-door to permanent residency. New restrictions in the last couple of years have caused a big drop in new study permits, but more scrutiny needs to be applied to extensions issued to people already in the country.
In particular, the Auditor-General Karen Hogan found that the department was slow to act on problems on the expedited Student Direct Stream, which was “being targeted by non‑genuine students seeking entry to Canada.” The stream was eventually shut down, but that didn’t prevent officials from extending permits that were already issued, under the faulty assumption that these individuals were low risk as they had been screened upon initial entry to Canada.
The department did take some steps to verify that acceptance letters from post-secondary institutions were genuine and to obtain compliance reports. However, 50 institutions failed to supply information on their students, and so far, they haven’t had any consequences imposed, such as suspensions on accepting new international students.
Editorial: The two Tory mindsets on immigration
Another concern is that the department doesn’t know if students are leaving Canada after their permits expire. While most people with expired permits found another means to legally remain in Canada, the report identified around 40,000 who should have left the country. Only in 40 per cent of cases could the Canada Border Services Agency confirm that the students required to leave the country had done so.
Lena Metlege Diab, the immigration minister, has said she accepts the Auditor-General’s recommendations. She needs to clearly articulate a path to return the international student program to its original purpose – not as a ticket to citizenship, but to allow foreigners to study here temporarily.
Canada shouldn’t promote study permits as a pathway to permanent residency, and it should restrict the hours students can work off-campus. While the lax issuing of student visas in recent years has been useful to employers seeking low-cost labour, and post-secondary institutions keen to fill budget holes, it has distorted the program.
The immigration department needs to be able to quickly root out cases of misuse and fraud to ensure the system’s integrity. This requires closer scrutiny of renewals of people already in the country and better coordination with the CBSA.
After years of mismanagement of the immigration file, the Liberals have lost any benefit of the doubt. Immigration is an essential ingredient in Canada’s success, but it can’t be run on the honour system.