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The two-year cap was announced last week by Immigration Minister Marc Miller, who said the foreign student program was in a \u201cbit of a mess\u201d due to some unethical institutions with \u201csham\u201d commerce degree programs that students didn\u2019t even attend.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got two years to actually get the ship in order \u2026 those institutions need to be shut down,\u201d he said last week.<\/p>\n
Although about 575,000 study permits were issued last year, there were some 970,000 people in the country with such permits as of October 2023. This is because people can have multiple study permits or even decide against coming to Canada after getting a permit approved.<\/p>\n
Claire Fan, an economist from the Royal Bank of Canada, said that even if one were to equate each permit to an individual and consider a potential decrease of 215,000 students annually \u2014 as per the cap \u2014 that would represent just 0.5 per cent of the current Canadian population.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat figure gives you an idea,\u201d she said. \u201cDo we really expect a material change from a macro-perspective, when it comes to inflation, consumer demand and interest rates? I would say it\u2019s very negligible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n