Indian international students who are graduating and ineligible for work permits are protesting in PEI, demanding provincial and federal governments let them stay in Canada. In July 2023, PEI passed legislation that states only students with construction/home-building and healthcare qualifications may obtain a postgraduate work permit, putting an abrupt end to international students staying in Canada to work as service workers at low-skill jobs. .Similar events unfolded in Manitoba earlier this year. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals eventually caved and granted postgraduate work permits a two-year extension. On Friday, Immigration Minister Mark Miller told reporters a solution to the surge of temporary residents in Canada would be to grant each of them permanent residency. .Video footage obtained by True North shows large groups of Indian protestors marching through city streets and residential neighbourhoods. The publication also reported the Canadian Armed Forces had set up a recruitment booth at the protest. .“We fight back,” protestors can be heard chanting, shouting they demand “fairness.” “We need to be grandfathered,” they shouted. “Unfair rules, no discrimination.” A member of the Revolutionary Communist Party attended the protest, urging islanders to join the cause. “We’re calling the workers to come support this!” a woman who in the video introduced herself as Eden yelled into the microphone. .“They changed it (policy) overnight. They called us here, now they want us to leave,” protest leader Rupender Singh told the CBC, adding without the throng of Indian graduates, people will have to “wait 20 minutes” for their coffee at Tim Hortons. “We only get a once in a lifetime chance. We came to PEI because they made these rules that we can apply for PR after six months, one year. Yes they will be affected, but the people of PEI will also be affected, because now they’ll have to wait 20 minutes for a cup of coffee.”
