Canadian Govt To Cut Int’l Student, Foreign Worker Permits

The Canadian government has said it will be slashing international student permits from next year, and tightened the foreign worker rules in a bid to further bring down the number of temporary residents in the country.

The move comes after several rounds of restrictions aimed at taming record immigration levels that pushed Canada’s population past 41 million earlier this year.

The Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau who made this disclosure on Wednesday pointed to the high immigration as straining the country’s housing sector, jobs market, and social services.

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“It is a privilege to come to Canada. It is not a right,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told a news conference.

In 2025, Ottawa plans to issue 437,000 study permits to international students, down from 485,000 this year and more than 500,000 in 2023.

It is also putting new limits on work permits for spouses of some international students and foreign workers. And it will be stepping up checks before issuing travel visas to stem a spike in fraudulent or rejected asylum claims.

Ottawa has already said it would reduce the number of temporary residents to five percent of the population, down from 6.8 percent in April.