Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2025

[Soyoung Park]

Yes.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Can I just confirm one thing that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

We're at six minutes and 30 seconds.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

This is more of a point of order.

Can I ask that things the committee requests be submitted within 28 calendar days, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

The request can be made, and I think they'll do their best to do that within that time frame.

Thank you, Mr. Redekopp.

Thank you, Ms. Park.

We'll go to our next questioner, who is Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, thank you very much.

Thank you, officials, for the work you're doing and for being here today.

My question will be on numbers, first of all. Where are we in terms of international students who have entered Canada in 2025 compared to 2024 and 2023?

[Soyoung Park]

We've actually just posted some of this information on our website. I can tell you, as I said in my opening remarks, that we've had, for students, just over 98,000 fewer arrivals this year, which means from January to July 31 of this year.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

This is the first of three meetings that we're embarking on here today on the international student program. For context, can you remind this committee of the key reforms that were put in place—under the previous government, granted—that led to the significant decreases we are seeing?

[Soyoung Park]

Yes, absolutely.

In recognition of some of the issues that were present in the past program, we introduced several measures.

The first was to address unsustainable volumes, and that's the intake cap that everyone's familiar with. That was introduced in January 2024. Subsequently, as part of levels planning, for the first time ever we introduced new arrival targets for temporary resident admission to coincide or to complement the intake cap.

Second, to make sure that the international student program responded better to the economic needs of Canada, which, of course, will change, we aligned the postgraduate work permit eligibility to meet those longer-term structural labour market needs and introduced a minimum level of language proficiency, because we know that language proficiency is a strong factor for success in Canada.

We also strengthened integrity by raising the financial requirement. It had not been raised in a very long time. Therefore, we raised it in January from $10,000 and doubled it to over $20,000. We made a yearly commitment to update it according to Stats Canada data; therefore, it was just recently updated in September to $22,895.

Then, of course, the letter-of-verification system was also introduced at the end of 2023.

Finally, the regulatory measures that I spoke of that were brought in at the end of November 2024 were really to ensure that there is a way to deal with non-compliant educational institutions. They also instituted the 24-hour work limit.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Can you reiterate for this committee the important “by 2027” and “no more than 5% of the population” provisions?

[Soyoung Park]

As I said, all of these measures are going to lead to part of the 5%. Of course, students are just one part of the temporary residents. There are other measures as well, but we can say that these measures are starting to have an impact on the quality of the students who are coming and on the numbers, as I've already mentioned.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Thank you very much. That's very clear and encouraging.

A lot of the abuses that have unfortunately been experienced by international students relate to designated learning institutions or learning institutions that, frankly, haven't met a very good standard. As we understand it, that is in the provincial purview. A lot of this is in the provincial purview.

What is the relationship between IRCC and provincial governments with respect to the DLIs and ensuring that there is a better standard being met? There's only about a minute and a half left. What's one key measure that would point to a change that has happened to ensure a better system?

[Soyoung Park]

In order to respect the fact that the provinces and territories have jurisdiction over education and the fact that the federal government has jurisdiction over our borders, it is a joint system and we work very closely with our partners. We set the overall cap, but it is up to each province to decide how it's going to distribute those allocations. Of course, it's then up to the institutions to decide which students are going to be welcome to submit an application to study in Canada.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Obviously, the provinces have a major role to play. They are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that the designated learning institutions—the colleges and universities—are meeting a standard to ensure that abuses are halted entirely, we hope. They're minimized in the beginning, and we see a better outcome.

[Soyoung Park]

Absolutely. Provinces and territories are the ones with the authority to designate or dedesignate institutions, so we must work very closely with them as partners.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being with us today.

When the department grants study permits to international students who have obtained a Québec Acceptance Certificate, which level of government is responsible for ensuring that those students undergo a medical examination and obtain a police certificate? That should be an easy question.

[Pemi Gill, Assistant Deputy Minister, Service Delivery, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you for the question.

Can I get a bit of clarification? Would it be an international student currently in Quebec who's applying for a work permit?

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I hope it won't go on like this. I don't have a lot of time.

When you grant a study permit to an international student, which level of government is responsible for asking that student for a medical certificate or a police certificate? Who has that authority?

I don't want to waste a lot of time on this, so here's the answer: the federal government. Can we therefore agree that neither the provinces nor universities are responsible for this?

[Pemi Gill]

Yes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Perfect, because what I just heard is that, once again, the provinces and universities are to blame for any abuses that occur.

I would imagine your department saw last week's Enquête episode about how an international criminal organization is using loopholes in the study permit system. Did you see it?

[Pemi Gill]

Yes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay. I hope I won't keep losing time like this.

IRCC's response to the report was surprising. One might even call it catastrophic. The department says provincial governments and universities are to blame, but the federal government is in charge of this permit system. At worst, someone is lying; at best, they're acting in bad faith. Which do you think it is?

[Aiesha Zafar]

Thank you for the question.

The IRCC is responsible for assessing the eligibility and admissibility of workers, students and other foreign nationals who want to travel to Canada. We do that in accordance with the legislated requirements for eligibility and admissibility. With the information that is available to us at the time, the officer assesses to ensure that they are not a threat to the security of Canada and the health of Canadians, and that they have no criminal background in terms of the information that's provided to us. After an assessment, the officer determines that the individual is not inadmissible.

In terms of the activities of the foreign national after arriving into Canada, compliance with the student permit or work permit is a responsibility of IRCC and a joint responsibility with ESDC with regard to work permits, but any other activity, criminal or otherwise, would be under the purview of our enforcement partners, such as CBSA or RCMP.