Liberal Housing Minister Sean Fraser said that Ottawa isn’t ruling out capping foreign student visas as the country struggles to contain an affordability and housing crisis while also letting in a record number of international students.
According to Bloomberg, Fraser, who formerly held the immigration file prior to the latest cabinet shuffle, said that a cap on international students was “one of the options” worth considering to deal with Canada’s housing woes.
“I think that’s one of the options that we ought to consider,” Fraser said on Monday.
“But I think we should start by trying to partner with institutions to understand what role they may play to reduce the pressure on the communities that they’re operating within.”
Fraser’s comments seem to contradict his own statements in July after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s latest cabinet shuffle.
At the time, Fraser said that closing the door to newcomers was not the solution to address Canada’s housing situation.
“I would urge caution to anyone who believes the answer to our housing challenges is to close the door on newcomers,” said Fraser.
“When I talked to developers, in my capacity as a minister of immigration before today, one of the chief obstacles to completing the projects that they want to get done is having access to the labour force to build the houses that they need.”
Canada has no cap on the number of foreign student visas it approves each year.
Last year, while Fraser was still the minister of immigration, there were 807,750 foreign students with active permits in Canada – a 31% growth when compared to the 617,000 approved the year prior.
It is unclear whether current Immigration Minister Marc Miller would entertain a student visa cap.
Miller told reporters earlier this month that lowering Canada’s record immigration targets was out of the question and that he might even increase the rate above the current 500,000 per year target for permanent residents.
“I don’t see a world in which we lower it, the need is too great,” said Miller.
“Whether we revise them upwards or not is something that I have to look at. But certainly I don’t think we’re in any position of wanting to lower them by any stretch of the imagination.”
Federal immigration targets do not include the number of foreign student visas signed each year.
