Evidence of meeting #37 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was u15.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
The actions you're taking are directly impacting those youth who are looking for jobs.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I would say that this is a very complex issue, and immigration has a role to play in this. That is why there has been sustained effort to bring down those numbers over time. Yes, there are exemptions to the cap, but the numbers around students in general have decreased significantly over the past year.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
The number of students is still higher than the number of unemployed youth in Canada, which is a problem.
I want to go to the Auditor General's report. She flagged weaknesses in IRCC's response to the study permit fraud and to non-compliance. With this program, you've removed a key control—that is, the provincial attestation letters aren't required for these grad students.
Plus, you're committing to process these files in 14 days. My office has files that take months and years to process from IRCC. What shortcuts are being taken by the department to get the processing down to 14 days?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
In terms of the integrity measures that are being taken, there still is integrity associated with these applications. We have a letter of acceptance and a compliance mechanism where that needs to be validated. That still happens.
Conservative
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
There are security checks, yes, with all applications.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Just on that, you can do a security check in 14 days, when it takes months or years to do one for other files. How does that work?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'm not an expert on the security validation elements of these particular applications, so again, I'll refrain from misleading the committee by—
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Fair enough, but you're a senior person of this department working on these programs. Were these questions not asked? To me, this seems like an obvious question that would be discussed.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Again, I'm sorry that I don't have that answer. I have been in this role for three months, and I'm still going on a learning curve related to the student program in particular.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Could you maybe table with the committee the information on how you've integrated security screening into this 14-day process?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I would be happy to do that, of course.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
All right.
How do you ensure that rapid approvals don't compromise security screening or genuine academic intent, especially when the lobbying registry shows heavy pressure from education stakeholders who benefit from volume?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Could you repeat that question? I'm sorry. I'm deaf in my left ear, and I missed that first part.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Let me ask you a different question.
A lot of the costs for education come from the provinces. When you implemented this no-cap system on grad students, did you discuss that with the provinces ahead of time?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
There were engagements done at the time to discuss the no-cap situation, yes. I wasn't there, so I couldn't tell you exactly what that engagement entailed.
Conservative
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, I believe we can.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Mr. Redekopp.
Thank you, Ms. Graham.
Next, we proceed to Mr. Fragiskatos for five minutes.
Your five minutes begins now.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
Chair, thank you very much.
Thank you, Ms. Graham and Ms. McQueen, for being here.
Ms. Graham, you've touched on this a few times in your testimony, but I wonder if you can offer to the committee what the numbers are with respect to international students. There has been a decline. Do you have information on that? I think it's quite relevant for the discussion.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Let me just take a peek and see if I can find a statistic exactly for you in this space. I do have one here. I can say that in January 2026, the number of arrivals of people with student permits was down 37% compared to January 2025. That's just a month-to-month comparison, one year apart. That is a significant decrease in terms of the number of arrivals.
As you know, in terms of the utilization rates of the allocations within provinces, even though there is a cap, this is not being fully utilized. Last year, 44% was being used, which means there's still a significant number more that universities and provinces would have available to them to fill those spots.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
This is another point that I hope you can elaborate on. Here, too, you've also touched on it. That is the point about the post-secondary system in general. I believe we can do both things. We can attract talent because doing so is fundamentally important for the economy, but supporting domestic students, Canadian students, is also fundamentally important for the economy. Beyond that, it's just the right thing to do.
Can you elaborate on that point?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
International students have always been an important part of the system. They provide different perspectives as well. They contribute different types of knowledge, not only from an economic perspective but also from a social perspective. The way the programs are designed is to have a focus on this idea of a quality student, ensuring that they come in and then are offered opportunities, potentially, to stay, as long as they're in compliance with all of the rules and regulations, in jobs that are aligned with our labour market needs.
Once they have those experiences in our labour market, temporarily, they have an opportunity to apply through express entry. Not everybody who comes to Canada temporarily is intended to stay. Not everybody wants to stay. Not every international student wants to stay, even, but this is part of how the system is designed to enable that continuum from student to permanent resident when there is that alignment of skills and experience that will contribute to our labour market over the long term.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
Okay.
You also spoke about the fact that many international students, while spots have been made available, aren't taking these up. You offered that either in the opening testimony or in response to one of the questions. Can you expand on that?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The federal government sets a national cap, and then each of the provinces is allowed an allocation. They are the ones that determine where those allocations go in terms of which designated learning institutions and the numbers. What we're seeing is that those allocations aren't all being used, which means that universities are not recruiting the full number they have within that allocation.