Number of international student visas issued locally under scrutiny

It’s a measure that should have been taken a long time ago.

That’s the reaction from one of Canada’s leading housing researchers to Monday’s announcement that the federal government is temporarily capping the number of new study permits it issues over the next two years.

About 360,000 study permits will be approved this year, down 35 per cent from 2023. The limit for 2025 will be decided by the end of this year.

Economist Mike Moffat, the senior director at the Smart Prosperity Institute, singled out Fanshawe College in London as having one of the fastest growing international student populations in the country.

“Fanshawe has issued not just more international student visas than Western, but about six times as many. So a lot of the growth is coming in the London area is coming from Fanshawe,” explained Moffat.

According to Moffat, in the 16 months from January 2022 to April 2023, Fanshawe College approved 12,055 international student visas, ranking sixth highest out of 105 colleges and universities across Canada. Lambton College in Sarnia ranked fifth highest with 13,246, while Western University, a Canadian research institution, approved 1,846, for at rank of 62 out of 105.

Moffat said some institutions have increased their enrolment far too quickly for housing to keep pace.

“When you have a lot of renters coming into a market, and renters are competing with each other, we’ve seen this in the London area, double digit rent increases year over year. But what you also see is investors start to buy up large numbers of single family homes and turn them into student rentals. So it affects both the ownership and the rental market,” explained Moffat.

The situation has international students on the defensive.

Bhava Jain, a student from India studying mechanical engineering at Fanshawe College, said students like him are just looking for opportunity.

“It’s not that good to put a ban for the students like that. For the coming students it will be an opportunity also for them to come here and study,” he said.

“Housing is very bad in Canada right now,” added Fanshawe College accounting student Dushei Chauhan, also from India. “You cannot blame it on students because even if you reduce the number of immigrants coming to Canada, a housing crisis will be inevitable because you are not building enough new homes,” said Chauhan.

CTV News requested an interview with someone from Fanshawe College. A spokesperson replied that the college is taking some time to review the announcement and its potential impact.