Ottawa says it opened the door to more than a million foreign students working in Canada without ever examining how the move would affect young Canadians trying to find jobs. Blacklocks' Reporter says the immigration department now acknowledges it relied on a single survey sent only to foreign students, even as unemployment for Canadian students climbed above 16% in several provinces.According to an Inquiry of Ministry tabled in the Commons, the department confirmed the lone piece of federal research was a 2023 questionnaire emailed to international students eligible to work unlimited hours. Immigration officials said the goal was to gauge the effects of the temporary policy change. At the time, Canada had 1,040,985 foreign students, and the department said 81% were working. Of that group, 38% were putting in more than 30 hours a week off campus..The figures were disclosed after Conservative MP Costas Menegakis (Aurora–Oak Ridges, Ont.) pressed the government on whether it had conducted any analysis since 2016 on how expanded work eligibility for foreign students affected youth unemployment. For years, regulations under the Immigration And Refugee Protection Act capped off-campus hours at 20 per week, but former immigration minister Sean Fraser suspended the cap in 2022, calling it good news for the economy.Statistics Canada data later showed unemployment for postsecondary-age Canadians rising sharply, hitting 17% in Newfoundland and Labrador and 16% in Alberta, Ontario and New Brunswick.Cabinet reinstated a 24-hour weekly limit in 2024, but only during winter months. .Immigration officials insisted their policy changes were not responsible for rising youth joblessness, arguing that many factors shape the unemployment rate and noting that the number of temporary residents in younger age brackets had fallen.A June 12 labour department briefing note said young Canadians continued to face “economic shocks” and rising unemployment but did not reference the foreign-student work rules. Internal data cited in the same note warned that 30% of student-age jobseekers were struggling to make ends meet.In a separate Inquiry of Ministry, the immigration department admitted it also conducted no research on whether a million foreign students affected local housing, food banks, transit systems or other municipal services. When Conservative MP Ned Kuruk (Hamilton East–Stoney Creek, Ont.) asked for Ottawa’s estimate of the total cost borne by municipalities, the department responded that it “does not possess the data.”
