Some Region of Waterloo food banks and soup kitchens are overwhelmed due to a massive spike in international students flocking to the region.
City officials were presented with the 2024 Immigration Profile which showed a massive increase. Some areas like Cambridge saw a 138% increase in permanent residency.
According to Councillor Doug Craig, the situation is especially dire given the fact that Conestoga College admitted over 30,000 international students last year.
The unprecedented number of international students, mostly from India, has strained some food banks and other community services to the brink with students seeking to fetch a free meal.
Craig said the region was “not coping well.”
“Some of the community services are being overwhelmed by this factor,” said Craig of international students.
“I think we have to deal with that somehow, through Conestoga College, or whatever it may be, and start talking about that and resolving it.”
Earlier this week Feed Ontario CEO Carolyn Stewart revealed that people accessing food banks in the province has reached an “all-time high.”
“That’s one million people in Ontario not having enough food to eat, one million people having to make impossible choices between paying rent or choosing groceries for their family. And one million people unable to keep their heads above water and in need of help,” said Stewart.
In the Waterloo Region, one in ten households has resorted to accessing the community service for food.
Last year the figure was 1 in 14 households and in 2022 it was one in 20.
At the end of 2023, there were over 1,000,000 international students present in Canada according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education.
Earlier this year the Liberal government pledged to crack down on the number of international student permits, with Immigration Minister Marc Miller saying that such students shouldn’t expect their visas to be a “cheap way” to obtain permanent residency.
