Unable to obtain permanent residency, they camp along a highway

For more than a month, dozens of foreign students and temporary workers have been camped near a highway in the Toronto area to denounce recent changes to Canada’s immigration policy.

Unable to obtain permanent residence after paying tens of thousands of dollars to obtain a Canadian diploma, they accuse Ottawa and certain Ontario colleges of having held out to them a Canadian dream to which they will never achieve.

The wind at the intersection of Queen East and Rutherford Streets, in Brampton, north of Toronto, is a reminder that fall is well established. On a small piece of land at the junction of Highway 410, three tents have been erected for around forty days.

Inside one of them, a dozen temporary workers are warming themselves under blankets, while the thermometer only shows around ten degrees.

Normally we would sit outside for people to see us, but today it’s windy and too coldSimrat Kaur, 30, explains to me.

The young Indian woman has been demonstrating in the camp for more than a month with dozens of her compatriots to demand an extension of her post-graduation work permit (PTPD).

The PTPDissued for a period of 8 months to 3 years, allows foreign students who have obtained a degree from a Canadian college or university to work in Canada for a few years after their studies.

Without this reprieve and without access to permanent residence, Simrat Kaur could soon have to return to India. A possibility that she refuses to consider after paying approximately $35,000 in tuition fees for a two-year program at an Ontario college.

Many of us came to Canada in our early twenties. […] We gave the best years of our lives [au Canada]. If we go back to India, we’ll have to start all over again

Faced with inflation and the housing crisis, the Minister of Education, Marc Miller, recently indicated that he wanted to reduce the proportion of temporary residents in the population from 6.2% to 5%. Canadian by 2027.

Ottawa also announced new measures aimed at reducing the number of temporary foreign workers in low-wage jobs.

These measures, coupled with the fact that international students must compete against an increasingly large and qualified pool of applicants for permanent residence, significantly reduce the chances of students like Simrat Kaur obtaining permanent residence, according to the lawyer specialized in immigration, Lev Abramovich.

According to the Canadian government, in 2022, the country had more than 132,000 new holders of PTPD.

The same year, only 12% of all foreigners who obtained permanent residence had previously held a PTPD.

Tens of thousands of post-graduation work permit holders could therefore be forced to leave Canada once their permit expires, due to lack of access to permanent residence.

Professor of labor economics at the University of Waterloo, Mikal Skuterud, estimates that 131,000 PTPD could expire this year.

Study, work and stay in Canada

Simrat Kaur affirms that she is nevertheless one of the tens of thousands of foreigners to whom the Canadian government, immigration consultants and representatives of Canadian colleges have dangled the dream of Canadian permanent residence.

Indeed, for years, the Canadian government has promoted its program for foreign students as a way to access permanent residence, notably through its slogan: Study, work, stay in Canada.

In 2021, the former Minister of Immigration, Marco Mendicino even declared (New window) : Our message to international students and graduates is simple: we not only want you to study here, we also want you to stay here.

It was written on their website: “Study, work and stay in Canada”. We are told that one of the ways to settle in Canada is to study there and that you can then work and stay as a permanent resident This is how Canada is sold to us.narrates Simrat Kaur.

Approached by the representative of an Ontario college at an education fair in India, she did not hesitate to invest tens of thousands of dollars for the chance to establish herself in Canada.

Years later, however, his dream is about to go up in smoke.

A predatory system

According to the Canadian Bureau for International Education, in 2023, Canada had more than one million foreign students, all levels of study combined.

This is a 63% increase over the previous 5 years and 200% growth over the last decade.

These students represent a substantial windfall of money for colleges and Canada.

The Canadian government reports that total annual spending by international students, including that of their visiting families and friends, contributed $37.3 billion to Canada’s economic activity in 2022.

A report published in September 2023 by the consulting firm Higher Education Strategy Associates reveals for its part that international students from India alone contributed two billion dollars to the operating revenue of Ontario post-secondary institutions last year.

For Lev Abramovich, there is no doubt that these sources of income as well as the need for labor motivated the massive recruitment of foreign students.

They provide a short-term infusion of money and low-skilled labor since they study in colleges and not universities. Immigration consultants sell them a dream, then they arrive in droves. Restrictions are then imposed, putting many people at risk of deportation, despite their significant economic contributiondeplores the lawyer.

It’s a predatory system

Canada to closed your eyes

Immigration lawyer Ravi Jain accuses the government of having turned a blind eye to the massive influx of foreign students.

The federal government failed by not paying attention to the number of people arriving. He should have known that these people would want to obtain permanent residencehe said.

Immigration consultant Kubeir Kamal agrees.

How could they not know? Don’t they process all study visa applications?he asks himself.

While these experts concede that the Canadian government has never promised permanent residency to international students, they argue that students have been misled and believe the Canadian government should be more transparent.

The federal government and Colleges Ontario, the spokesperson for the province’s 24 colleges, had not responded to our request for comment at the time of publishing this article.

If we want to take a cynical approach of exploitation and money infusion in the short term, we should be clear, as are the Gulf countries. There are a lot of immigrants there and they know they will never get citizenshipsays Lev Abramovich.

Simrat Kaur recently applied for a tourist visa to save time. She maintains that some of her compatriots are considering applying for refugee status in the hope of remaining in Canada.

We have given so much to this country. During the pandemic […] we were the frontline workers when people were afraid to leave their homes. We contribute so much to Canada’s economy. We only ask for what is rightshe said.