What’s the Controversy Around Canada’s International Student Program?

Canada’s international student program is once again under scrutiny after a new auditor general report detailed issues around the integrity of the program, including gaps in oversight and enforcement when it comes to potential fraud.

Auditor General Karen Hogan reported on March 24 that the immigration department failed to verify whether study permit holders were complying with the terms of their permits, and only conducted 4,057 investigations out of the over 153,000 cases flagged in 2023 and 2024.

The report also found that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) in 2024 approved fewer than half of the forecast number of new post-secondary study permits. This reduction in new study permits disproportionately affected smaller provinces, according to the report.

The rapid decline in new permits came after former Immigration Minister Marc Miller admitted in 2024 that temporary immigration in Canada, including that of international students, had gotten “out of control.” Ottawa had rapidly increased immigration in the preceding years, leading to stress on the country’s housing, health care, and employment.

Here’s a look at what the auditor general’s report revealed and how it has brought renewed attention to Canada’s immigration policies.

Rollback in International Students

The Canadian government rapidly increased its immigration rates in 2022, and the country’s population grew from 38 million in July 2020 to over 41.7 million by October 2024.

International students account for much of this rise, as study permit holders increased from 621,600 in 2021 to 1,040,985 in 2023. Additionally, in an effort to address labour shortages across Canada, Ottawa temporarily lifted the 20-hour-per-week cap on work hours for international students from Nov. 15, 2022, to Dec. 31, 2023.

As housing affordability worsened and support for immigration among Canadians declined, the federal government began to roll back its immigration levels in early 2024.

Then-Immigration Minister Miller announced a two-year intake cap on the number of international student applications, from 560,000 student visas issued in 2023 to roughly 360,000 for 2024. In January 2024, Miller said the 35 percent decrease in permits was meant to “stop a system that’s out of control.”

The cost-of-living requirement for international students also doubled from $10,000 per year to $20,635 in January 2024 to better reflect the increased cost of living in Canada. In September 2024, Ottawa announced it would further limit the number of international students entering Canada in 2025 by reducing the target number of new study permits issued, from 485,000 to 437,000.

IRCC also announced new regulations to address universities’ and colleges’ potential abuse of the international student program in early 2024. The regulations required them to notify the department of all foreign students enrolled and to indicate whether they were studying at the institution or transferring to another school.

Additionally, the IRCC implemented a tool to verify the authenticity of school acceptance letters submitted with study permit applications before they were processed.

Auditor General Report

The latest auditor general’s report found that the immigration department reduced the number of new study permits issued but that approved applications were below the department’s forecasts due to both lower application volumes and lower approval rates. IRCC approved 149,559 study permits in 2024 compared to a projection of 348,900, and it approved 50,370 permits in 2025 compared to a projection of 255,360.

While permit issuance was meant to be reduced the most in the provinces with large populations and the highest number of international students, the report found that all provinces experienced “greater reductions in approved new study permits than intended” but that smaller provinces were disproportionately impacted.

While decreases of 10 percent or less were expected, Manitoba saw a 62 percent drop, Prince Edward Island 68 percent, Nova Scotia 66 percent, and New Brunswick 64 percent.

The report found that while the immigration department had introduced a tool that “successfully verified” 97 percent of acceptance letters from designated learning institutions submitted with study permit applications, with the remaining 3 percent processed manually, weakness was identified in “how the department responded to suspected cases of study permit non-compliance and immigration fraud.”

In the few cases the IRCC investigated, limited action was taken to confirm non-compliance beyond contacting the student for more information, according to the report. The auditor general said around 41 percent of the investigations could not be completed because of a lack of response from the students.

The IRCC was also slow to address integrity concerns with the Student Direct Stream of the International Student Program, which expedited the processing of study permits for 14 countries. Despite risk assessment units identifying India as a “high-profile risk,” the IRCC did not take steps to address the risk, and approval rates for Indian nationals were at 98 percent in 2024.

While the Student Direct Stream was cancelled in November 2024, the report said the “disproportionately high approval rates for these permits, sustained over several years, created new risks for study permit extensions.”

The report also found the IRCC failed to follow up on 800 study permit holders suspected of misrepresenting information or using fraudulent documents in their applications. Most of these people would later apply for other immigration permits while in Canada, and around 68 percent of them were approved.

The department also did not track which international students were expected to leave Canada each year, or which ones had already left. A total of 93 percent of the 549,000 individuals whose study permits expired in 2024 were allowed to remain in Canada, according to the report.

The auditor general recommended that the IRCC work with the provinces to refine the allocations of study permits, improve its responses to identifying fraudulent documentation, and strengthen controls around permit extensions by adjusting its risk assessments.

Federal MPs Debate

After the auditor general’s report was released, Immigration Minister Lena Diab said in a statement that the department accepted the auditor general’s recommendations and thanked the office for its audit. She said that while international students benefit Canada, the system must be “sustainable, credible and well managed.”

The statement also noted that the auditor general’s report “captures only the first 18 months of a broader multi-year reform effort” that runs through 2027, and as such, “reflects an early phase of implementation.”

Diab told reporters that her department would work to improve its processes, with an emphasis on protecting “genuine students” while supporting communities and restoring “public confidence in our system.” Diab said the IRCC will streamline the investigations of individuals who are flagged and will coordinate with the Canada Border Services Agency.

“I do want to remind people, though, the vast majority of international students are good people. … We are talking about a small percentage of students who were non-compliant,” Diab added.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are calling for the removal of Diab, along with past immigration ministers Miller and Sean Fraser, who are currently serving other roles in the cabinet.

When Diab appeared before the immigration committee, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, who serves as her party’s immigration critic, questioned why the Liberal government was going to issue another 215,000 foreign work permits “even with the auditor general’s findings.”

“Why are you doing that, even though we know most of these millions of citizens won’t leave the country voluntarily? That seems kind of crazy to me,” she asked.

Rempel Garner also told reporters after the committee meeting that the government is “still bringing in very high levels of foreign student permits” despite there being over 2.9 million people in Canada who are either on expired visas or have visas that will expire this year.

Diab responded that the IRCC is aware of the number of temporary resident documents that are scheduled to expire each year. She said that while some individuals with expiring documents may hold multiple permits, “Clearly, people who have expired permits are expected to leave.”