Manitoba schools say Ottawa's international student cap missing the mark

Some Manitoba schools say they're disappointed about the federal government's decision to slash the number of international students entering the province by 10 per cent.

Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced Friday the number of international study permits each province will get in 2024 as Canada moves forward with a national cap of international students announced in late January.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in a release it's expecting to approve 291,914 permits nationwide — 28 per cent fewer than the 404,668 issued in 2023. Manitoba is projected to see numbers drop from 10,155 last year to 9,140.

Mark Frison, president and CEO of Assiniboine Community College, said he's happy the government has released the information, but feels that Manitoba may have been unfairly targeted.

"It's unfortunate that this situation got to the point where the Government of Canada felt it necessary to use a blunt instrument across the entire country," he said. 

"Certainly, the challenges that we see and saw in places like Ontario have been complicated and I know really required the Government of Canada to intervene. But things were working very well here."

The federal government is projecting study permits issued in Ontario will drop a whopping 41 per cent under the cap — far more than other provinces. But Frison said the government should have exclusively focused their efforts there.

Elsewhere in Canada, the projected rates range from an 18 per cent drop in B.C. to 10 per cent increases in Saskatchewan, Quebec and Alberta.

While the federal government sets the cap, it's up to the province to determine the number of students each designated institution in their jurisdiction will receive.

The federal government has largely blamed the private sector for a spike in the number of international students, though data obtained by CBC News shows public institutions account for the largest share of the growth.

Frison said his school is still waiting on the Manitoba government to finalize its distribution plan, but believes they're "certainly trying to prioritize public institutions."

"They've … given us some permits in order to keep things going so that we're prepared in the fall," he said. "[With] this latest announcement …there'll be an opportunity for them to look at how they finalize those allocations."

But some private institutions say they're poised to lose all their international students because of the cap.

Gary Gervais has been running the Heartland International English School for more than two decades.