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“It's the biggest thing we can do immediately to address the housing crisis,” said Mike Moffat, senior policy director at the Smart Prosperity Institute and Trudeau's former economic adviser from 2013 to 2015. Pressure on the rental market. But what we'll also see is an investor overnight saying, you know, the student market doesn't look as attractive as it once did.
Miller's announcement comes after months of pressure on the Trudeau government to take stronger action against colleges he believes are exploiting foreign students, who charge fees on average five times those of Canadians. Provinces and territories will be responsible for distributing allocated permits between institutions, meaning they will face an additional incentive to prioritize high-quality schools.
Post-secondary institutions have increasingly relied on tuition as provincial funding as a share of revenue has fallen from 42 per cent in 2001 to 35 per cent last year.
Ontario, Canada's most populous province, has also frozen tuition fees that can be charged to Canadians for the past three years. From 2019 to 2020, foreigners paid 37 per cent of tuition fees at Canadian universities, while in 2021 these students paid an estimated 68 per cent of tuition fees at Ontario colleges.
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Miller has already pledged to create an institution-specific framework that would prioritize visas for post-secondary schools that provide high-quality education and adequate support, including housing, which would go into effect this fall. He also doubled the financial requirements for new study permit applicants.
International education contributes more than 22 billion Canadian dollars ($24.8 billion) to the Canadian economy annually and supports more than 200,000 jobs, according to Miller's office. But the influx of foreign students has exacerbated the housing shortage, leaving many without suitable housing and leading to a backlash against high immigration rates in a country that is usually friendly to newcomers.
“To be completely clear, these actions are not against individual international students,” Miller said. “They need to ensure that when future students arrive in Canada, they receive the quality of education they enroll in and the hope they are provided in their home country.
“Allowing bad actors to continue their operations would be a disservice to all good institutions that pride themselves on providing a first-class academic experience.”
