Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I thought I would make some high-level comments on international students and immigration programs, which is sort of my area of research.
As I'm sure everyone knows, international students can represent a large win for a country like Canada, with a very high-quality post-secondary education sector and a high standard of living. The tuition gained by universities and colleges can be significant, allowing them to put on high-quality programs that benefit both international students and domestic students. Things like the rental income that international students pay to Canadian landlords can also be significant, an important part of the Canadian economy.
Where I think the situation becomes more complicated is if we have a two-step immigration system where temporary residence as a temporary foreign worker, or international student in this case, leads to preferred access to admission under the permanent immigration system. I think this type of two-step system is appealing in that we often learn a great deal about particular international students through their performance and their studies in Canada. That's all good. It also helps avoid problems of foreign credential recognition for immigrants to Canada, which have been significant for many years.
Let me quickly say what I think are the risks of this type of program with international students in particular. First, a large international student population can create pressure to greatly expand the immigration system beyond what is likely optimal. In my research with colleagues on this, we find that one would want immigrants arriving under the economic categories to be raising the average skill level of all residents in Canada. I think it's reasonable to expect that if a person is doing a university degree, that will be the case. Their earnings after they enter the labour market and get established will be higher than the average. It's raising the average skill level. It becomes less clear at the public college level that this would be true, and especially at the private college level.
My suggestion would be to prioritize international student visas such that they only go to programs where the graduates have expected labour market earnings after graduation that are likely to be above average in Canada, at least within a reasonable time frame of, say, five to 10 years or something like that.
I think this would not be difficult to do, as we have a lot of data in Canada and analysis on earnings of graduates from Canadian programs and universities. To my mind, this is feasible to do. This criterion for the allocation of international student visas would likely eliminate all private colleges in Canada. Whether it would eliminate public community colleges might depend on the academic program, but I think this should be ultimately an empirical question for any academic program, whether it be university or college. One could address it in a scientific way, using available data rather than having universities and colleges lobby government for these visas.
As I see it, the other problem with a large international student program, as we've seen in Canada in recent years, relates to what traditionally has been called absorptive capacity. The idea here is that there's concern that a large number of new immigrants arriving in the country each year could be so high that this distorts wages, prices or access to key government services. We should be cautious in setting targets or limits on the number of international students, given that we do not want the number to be so high as to lead to large-scale rental increases or reductions in access to such services as public health care. I believe the expansion of the non-permanent resident population in Canada from roughly 786,000, or 2.18% of the population, in 2016 to over three million, or 7.27% of the population, in 2024 was likely to far surpass what the Canadian economy was able to absorb. The limits that the federal government has put in place on the different international migration programs, but in particular the international student programs, I think are justified, if perhaps happening much later than they should have.
Finally, the reports that an increasing number of international students facing the end of their visas may be lodging false refugee claims are very concerning. This would be very costly for the Canadian economy and greatly limit our capacity to control the size of the population. One way to minimize this risk is to use the earnings criterion that we grant student visas only in cases where the person's earnings are likely to be so high, or high enough, after graduation that they would qualify for admission as a permanent resident under the economic category. If this were the case, it is unclear why a person would ever file a false refugee claim.
In summary, the recent reforms to the international student program represent a good first step in terms of regaining control of a program that has been growing at an alarming rate.
Recognizing that international students typically wish to gain permanent residency after graduation means that we can have a successful international student program that benefits Canadians. To do this, we need to focus the allocation of student visas to students entering academic programs that are likely to make them both highly successful in the Canadian labour market and eligible for admission as economic permanent residents to Canada.
Thank you again. I would be happy to answer any questions.