Ontario announces new measures for international students to protect ‘integrity’ of education system

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Ontario introduced new measures for international students to protect the integrity of the province’s postsecondary education system, including more oversight of the approval process, requiring all institutions to guarantee housing and strengthening enforcement of investigations into private career colleges.

The suite of measures, announced Friday by Minister of Colleges and Universities Jill Dunlop, also include a moratorium on new public-private college partnerships, which occur when private colleges team up with public colleges through curriculum licensing agreements.

The provincial changes, expected to take effect within the coming weeks, were revealed days after the federal government announced a two-year cap on foreign student admissions in a bid to tackle skyrocketing growth and ease the pressure on services such as housing and health care.

“The challenges stemming from the recent spike in students coming to Canada, including predatory practices by bad-actor recruiters, misinformation regarding citizenship and permanent residency, false promises of guaranteed employment, and inadequate housing for students, require immediate attention and collaborative action,” Ms. Dunlop said in a news release.

Ontario colleges accuse Ottawa of creating ‘chaos’ for international students with new cap

The Ontario government also said it will work with the postsecondary sector and Ottawa to further crack down on recruiters who take advantage of international students.

Julie Lafortune, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, said the federal government continues to work with provinces and territories on visa allocations.

“The Government of Canada expects designated learning institutions to only accept the number of students that they can reasonably support, including providing housing options for them,” she said in a statement. “However, it is clear that the number of students arriving in Canada has become unsustainable.”

Publicly funded colleges and universities have pushed back against Ottawa’s changes, saying the federal government has created chaos for prospective international students, and that the permit cap will create financial risks for postsecondary schools.

Ontario’s public colleges play host to a large proportion of Canada’s international students. Many of these schools rely on the fees foreign students pay, which are much higher than domestic tuition.

The provincial government said Friday that it will institute more oversight of the approval process for international student programs to ensure quality standards and that programs meet the needs of the labour market. It will also require all colleges and universities to have a housing guarantee to ensure adequate spaces are available for incoming international students.

Ontario also said it will “integrate enforcement efforts” across ministries to strengthen oversight of private career colleges, including through compliance investigations. The National Association of Career Colleges has said that only about 10 per cent of international study permit applications are for registered career colleges.

Michael Sangster, CEO of the association, said Friday he applauds the government’s plan. “We welcome regulation and oversight that will validate the contributions our members make to Ontario’s economy,” he said in a statement.

What to know about Ottawa’s two-year cap on international student visas, and other measures

Immigration Minister Marc Miller, who unveiled Ottawa’s changes on Monday, also announced that beginning in September, international students who start a program at a school operating under a public-private partnership model will no longer be eligible for a postgraduation work permit.

However, Ontario is expected to ask the federal government to explore ways to allow those in fields that are in high demand, such as skilled trades and health care, to remain in Canada postgraduation.

The federal government, in addition, is requiring provinces to provide new letters of attestation before study permit applications can be processed. But no province outside of Quebec has such a system in place. Ontario’s new measures don’t address this requirement.

The opposition Ontario NDP criticized the Ford government’s changes as “half measures” that fail to address the need for investments in public postsecondary institutions or to support international students.

A blue-ribbon panel on postsecondary finances has recommended that the Ontario government lift its four-year freeze on domestic tuition prices and boost its grant to institutions by 10 per cent. Ontario said Friday it is continuing to review the recommendations and will announce further details at the end of February.

Steve Orsini, president of the Council of Ontario Universities, said he welcomes the new measures, which are consistent with what universities are already doing, and urgently called on the province to implement the recommendations of the blue-ribbon panel as quickly as possible. He said the panel’s measures would ensure financial sustainability and provide $1.9-billion over the next three years for universities.

Marketa Evans, president of Colleges Ontario, an association of the province’s 24 public colleges, also said she strongly supports Ontario’s new measures. She said Colleges Ontario recently instituted new standards for international education, and the association has begun work on an auditing process to ensure colleges are meeting the standards.

Ottawa’s cap on international students will be applied equally across provinces on a per capita basis. Because some provinces accept disproportionately more foreign students than others, it is expected that Ontario will have to cut intake by about 50 per cent.

The international student program has nearly tripled in size under the Liberal government, to more than one million by the end of 2023. As of 2022, there were 411,985 international students in Ontario alone, according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education.