Integrity of immigration system at risk as international student numbers balloon, minister says

Immigration Minister Marc Miller says the concern around the skyrocketing number of international students entering Canada is not just about housing, but Canadians' confidence in the "integrity" of the immigration system itself.

Canada is on track to welcome around 900,000 international students this year, Miller said in an interview that aired Saturday on CBC's The House. That's more than at any point in Canada's history and roughly triple the number of students who entered the country a decade ago.

That rapidly increasing number of international students gained increased attention this week when the country's new housing minister, Sean Fraser, floated the idea of a possible cap on the number of students Canada brings in.

Fraser framed a cap on international students as "one of the options that we ought to consider" during a cabinet retreat earlier this week in Prince Edward Island.

Miller, who took over from Fraser at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, told guest host Evan Dyer that the rising number of students was a concern for housing, though he says it is important not to overstate that challenge.

"It is an ecosystem in Canada that is very lucrative and it's come with some perverse effects: some fraud in the system, some people taking advantage of what is seen as a backdoor entry into Canada, but also pressure in a number of areas — one of those is housing," he said.

But Miller shied away from committing to the idea of a hard cap on the number of students entering Canada.

"Just putting a hard cap, which got a lot of public play over the last few days, is not the only solution to this," he said.

"Core to this is actually trying to figure out what the problem is we're trying to solve for. It isn't entirely housing, it's more appropriately the integrity of the system that has mushroomed, ballooned in the past couple of years."

Miller said there were a number of "illegitimate actors" who were trying to exploit the system, which was eventually having a negative effect on people trying to come to Canada for legitimate reasons. Miller referred to one high-profile instance last month of an international student found sleeping under a bridge.

He said he would not get involved with "naming and shaming," but said his focus was on some private colleges. Work would need to be done to tighten up the system, he said, to make sure institutions actually had space and suitable housing for people who are being admitted. Miller also said closer collaboration with provinces was key to solving the problem.

In a statement to The House, the National Association of Career Colleges said "regulated career colleges provide efficient, high-quality, industry-driven training for domestic and international students to produce the skilled workers Canada most desperately needs." That includes workers in the construction trades that build housing, they said.

Philip Landon, interim president and CEO at Universities Canada, also pushed back on the idea of a cap, seeking to position major universities as part of the solution to the problem.

"I think we can say that the housing situation is a crisis for Canadians broadly," Landon said in a separate interview with The House. "I do not think that the blaming newcomers or international students … is the right way to go."