Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2025

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

What we heard was that, to get into Quebec, these criminals, many of them between 20 and 30 years of age, dupe the authorities and the federal immigration department. The vast majority of them obtain study permits for universities outside of major centres. According to the detective sergeant who orchestrated the arrest of Mamadou Berthe, these fraudsters have found a loophole in the system to gain entry as students. She says word gets around.

Do you agree that there's a loophole somewhere in your department?

[Aiesha Zafar]

We do work very closely with our enforcement partners as well as police services across the country. When we are made aware of criminal activity or fraud trends that link to immigration, or that potentially link to foreign nationals coming into Canada, we're able to assess and determine whether or not we can identify those trends in future applications.

We do have measures in place now. My colleague mentioned the letter of acceptance verification. Since it's been in place, it has identified over 14,000 potentially fraudulent letters of acceptance. We were able to then refuse applicants who were not genuine students coming into Canada. We also rely on our post-secondary institutions or our provinces to tell us when students are not complying and not attending school.

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

Does IRCC have some kind of mechanism or tool that enables universities to notify it that a student isn't showing up for classes? Does IRCC have a tool that alerts you if that happens? If so, what is it?

[Aiesha Zafar]

Yes.

Absolutely. We have a student compliance regime that has been in place since 2016. In 2024 it was made mandatory. All of the provinces are on board right now. We are working with the Province of Quebec to onboard. Twice a year, all of the designated learning institutions must let us know whether or not an individual who has entered Canada on a student permit has actually registered and is attending school. They will send us that information back, so that we can determine whether or not students are in compliance.

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

Once your department gets that alert from a university, does it have a way to react quickly and find the international students who aren't showing up for classes?

What we have is a gang moving more than half a billion dollars through auto theft, identity theft, romance scams, drug trafficking and so on, but you're telling us this tool is working. I kind of get the impression it isn't.

[Aiesha Zafar]

The vast majority of people who enter Canada as foreign nationals as students are compliant and are students, according to our spring assessment. We do the verification with the designated learning institutions twice a year. We do it in the spring and fall. According to our spring data, 91% of the students who were reported on were compliant—registered and in school—and 8% were potentially non-compliant. That means there are further activities we need to do, such as looking into whether there could be an administrative error. IRCC also conducts 2,000 investigations a year for students who are potentially non-compliant.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Duceppe. We're way over time. We're at about seven minutes.

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

If people take an extra 15 seconds to start their answer every time I ask a question, it goes a lot slower than exchanges in English. We need to find a solution to this problem.

Things were moving along quickly between Mr. Redekopp and the witnesses, but I've had to wait quite a while for answers to every one of my questions. I don't mind waiting to give people enough time to answer, but if I don't get extra time, that won't work. If you like, I can start keeping track of how much time I spend speaking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

We gave you about an extra minute, and I will keep on accommodating you.

Thank you, Monsieur Brunelle-Duceppe.

We're going into our second round, and our first questioner is Mr. Paul-Hus.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My Bloc Québécois colleague asked you about this earlier. I gather you didn't see the Radio-Canada report on TV. The reporter went to Africa, specifically to Ivory Coast, to see what was going on, make connections and paint a full picture of a crime ring. I'm here today to talk about that criminal activity and the impact of the department's handling of international student files, specifically those who aren't genuine.

Ms. Zafar, you talked about the process and the second assessment. How did these processes fail to detect these criminals, who were undoubtedly already involved in criminal activity in their country of origin?

[Aiesha Zafar]

Thank you for the question.

The officer who is making the decision for admissibility into Canada is making that decision based on the information that's been provided to them. First, they will look at the application and collect biometrics—fingerprints—to identify that the individual is who they say they are. We do information sharing as well with our international partners to see if there's any derogatory information on that applicant. If there are any indicators of elevated risk—potentially, it could be criminal activity or national security concerns—that file will be referred to our public safety partners at the Canada Border Services Agency and CSIS.

The officers are doing everything in their power to make sure they are satisfied that an individual, when they're applying, is not criminally or otherwise inadmissible to Canada. Once they're in Canada, it is challenging to predict their behaviour, however.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

How many people in Canada right now have a study permit and have been found guilty of fraud? Does the department know how many such people there are, and has their permit been revoked? What is happening with those people at this point?

[Aiesha Zafar]

Thank you for the question.

That's a challenging question to answer. It depends on the type of fraud we're looking at.

If the question is about fraud in the student program—that is, if they were misrepresenting themselves as students and were then found to be non-genuine students—we have that data. I don't have it in front of me right now. If there's criminal fraud, that would be a matter for which we have to rely on our police partners.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

How many non-genuine students are there? Do you have a number?

[Aiesha Zafar]

We have numbers from 2023. If I recall correctly, there were about 1,500 students who were potentially implicated in fraud. Those investigations were undertaken by the CBSA. Not all of them were eventually found to have committed fraud, but it was under the....

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

The report really focused on what Radio-Canada called the “African mafia”. I actually asked a question about this in the House of Commons today, and the Minister of Public Safety accused me of being racist because I said “African mafia” even though it's an official public safety term. This mafia exists.

We know this mafia is causing a problem, especially in Quebec because of the language. People from Ivory Coast come to Quebec, supposedly to study, but they're actually criminals. Do you have any more information to share with us about problems caused by Ivorian crime rings in Canada and specifically in Quebec?

[Aiesha Zafar]

I don't know if there are other areas where it occurs as frequently as you're reporting.

However, we have what we call indicator packages that our officers use. They're provided by our public safety partners. These indicator packages are specific to different regions of the world or different cohorts, and they will identify specific indicators for our officers to look for when we get applications related to that region or cohort. When we receive this type of information from our police and law enforcement partners, we update those packages for our officers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

You have one minute, Monsieur Paul-Hus.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Ms. Gill, the Radio-Canada report talked about victims who tried to report fraud but got no response. I imagine step one would be to contact police. After that, is there communication that happens so Immigration and Citizenship Canada people can answer questions or make those connections? In many cases, nobody pays attention and nothing happens.

[Aiesha Zafar]

Generally speaking, we do have a tip line. We do have information that is provided to IRCC from either anonymized individuals or people who are bringing information forward. All of those tips are investigated. We also get information from our police partners and law enforcement partners. We take every tip or incident seriously, and we will look into that to the best of our ability.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Paul‑Hus.

Our next questioner will be for the Liberals.

Ms. Zahid.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

We know that the international student program is a shared responsibility, with the federal government managing the study permits and the provinces overseeing the designated learning institutions.

In recent years, international student enrolment has grown rapidly, especially in Ontario, raising concerns about student well-being and the integrity of the program. Based on the data that I was able to get, in 2023 Ontario hosted roughly 54% of Canada's 833,920 post-secondary international students.

I would like to focus on how the federal government raised these concerns with Ontario and why federal action became necessary when the Province of Ontario did not act.

My first question for the officials is, can you tell the committee when IRCC first raised concerns with the Government of Ontario about the pace of growth in international student enrolment and what specific risks were flagged at that time?

[Soyoung Park]

I wouldn't be able to say specifically when it was raised with Ontario. We meet with our partners on a regular basis to exchange information and to make sure the system is functioning well.

I would say that there have been a lot of meetings related to how we can make everything better. We are starting to see progress. One of the things we have seen is that the rental markets are cooling down. That's one of the objectives we had when we started the reforms, in order to make sure that international students were not a burden on the housing system.

For example, the recent CMHC report showed that rental price growth slowed from 8.9% to 3.2% in Kitchener-Waterloo, and similarly in Hamilton, from 12.8% to 2.4%. They stated that it was due to lower international student numbers.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON]

What efforts did the IRCC make to engage the Government of Ontario in strengthening the oversight of the designated learning institutions? Also, what responses did you receive from the Province of Ontario?

[Soyoung Park]

Ontario, naturally, given its size and population, is a province that we engage with regularly. We just recently had a meeting with all of our provincial partners to give them an update on all of the changes and what kinds of results we're seeing.

We also engaged in consultations related to the PGWP, because we know that is also something that PTs—provinces and territories—are concerned about, and we welcome their feedback.

That was part of the express entry category-based selection. They are aware that we use that information, particularly from provinces and territories, in order to inform our opinion going forward.