Canada wants to limit the number of international students it accepts because there is a problem with housing being too expensive.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the change is to fix a system that has become too chaotic.
In 2023, almost one million students were accepted to study in Canada, the highest number ever.
In the last two years, the cost of renting a place to live in Canada went up by 22% because there aren’t enough places for people to live.
Mr Miller said he is worried about the large number of international students coming to Canada in interviews over the weekend.
Canada is thinking about putting a limit on the number of foreign students because there is a housing problem.
He said we need a limit on how many houses can be bought, but didn’t say how much the limit will be.
Mr Miller warned that just letting in fewer students to Canada won’t fix the housing problem. He said the problem is also because there aren’t enough houses, they cost too much, and interest rates are going up.
“He said in an interview with CBC, a public broadcaster in Canada, that immigrants did not cause the interest rates to go up. But the amount of people is still important and we need to pay attention to it. ”
The housing crisis is still a big problem. Many people want Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to do something about it, even his main rival Pierre Poilievre.
“MrPoilievre said that if you want more people to come, you have to build homes for them. ” “At this moment, we’re not making enough houses. ”
The problem is hard to solve because limiting the number of students admitted to Canadian colleges and universities will make it difficult for them to make money from international students who pay higher tuition fees.
In recent years, a lot more international students have been coming to study in Canada. The number has gone up by more than 193% from 2012 to 2022, according to information from Canada’s immigration ministry.
The immigration department expects the number of study permit applications to increase to 1. 4 million by 2027, up from just under a million in 2023. This information comes from documents obtained by the Globe and Mail newspaper.
Apart from those students, Canada had a goal of bringing in 1. 5 million new immigrants by 2025.
Canada has always allowed people from other countries to come and live here. This is important because Canada needs more people to work as the population gets older.
The number of people living in the country hit 40 million in 2023, mostly because of immigrants who moved there permanently or temporarily.
At the same time, it’s getting harder for a lot of people to afford housing. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, a national housing agency, says that Canada needs 3. 5 million more homes by 2030 to make them more affordable.
Canada has tried to solve the problem in different ways. In 2023, Canada made a rule that stops some people from other countries from buying homes in Canada for two years.
It also promised to give $1 billion over three years to help with affordable housing projects all over the country.