Canada's New Rules for International Students: What You Need to Know

Canada's immigration ministry has proposed a series of regulatory changes to the international student program. The new rules, open for a 30-day review and comment period, require increased compliance reporting from Canadian institutions and schools. The key changes include:

• Providing the ministry with the authority to suspend study permit processing for non-compliant institutions.
• Requiring students to apply for a new study permit when transferring to a new institution.
• Expanding the limit on off-campus work during study from 20 hours per week to 24 hours per week.

The main highlight is the new compliance reporting and suspension authority extended to the ministry. This intersects with the division of federal-provincial jurisdiction within Canada.

The administration of the International Student Programme (ISP) is a shared responsibility between the ministry and Provinces and Territories (PTs). The ministry is responsible for setting policy regarding the entry of international students, establishing the conditions study permit holders must meet while in Canada, and deciding whether a study permit should be issued to an applicant.

For DLIs (Designated Learning Institutions) to receive international students, they must be designated by the province or territory based on a set of standards mutually agreed upon by the province or territory and the ministry. PTs also set their own standards that DLIs must meet to be designated by their jurisdiction.

PTs inform the ministry when institutions need to be added or removed from the public DLI list, which enumerates the institutions allowed to receive students within a given province or territory.

Under the proposed regulations, the ministry is effectively assuming a greater role for DLI oversight (and sanctioning) than previously. The ministry frames the move as a matter of program integrity, designed to address the following three issues:

1) The federal Government does not have the regulatory authority to compel reporting from DLIs as part of the compliance program and letter of acceptance verification system. Where DLIs are not reporting, the ministry cannot effectively detect fraudulent letters of acceptance.

2) The ministry cannot impose conditions on a non-compliant DLI, such as the suspension of study permit processing. This means that the ministry must issue study permits for students attending the DLI even when the DLI is not reporting on student enrollment status or participating in the letter of acceptance verification system.

3) The ministry cannot compel international students to notify the Department if they change DLIs. As a result, the ministry cannot confirm student attendance and study permit compliance when a student changes DLIs, risking the circumvention of the study permit cap.

The regulations prescribe mandatory reporting requirements for post-secondary DLIs and empower the ministry to suspend study permit processing for a non-compliant DLI for up to 12 consecutive months.

The ministry concludes that the regulatory amendments would allow it to effectively respond to integrity challenges and address common occurrences of unethical behaviors that undermine the integrity of the program. The enhanced LOA verification system would allow the ministry to verify each LOA submitted with study permit applications before they are processed.

Codifying the requirement to submit biannual compliance reports would close the compliance gap that exists in the current regime. Requiring international students to obtain a new study permit when transferring to a new DLI would ensure accurate assessment and tracking of student compliance with permit conditions.

The proposed rule changes follow significant policy changes in Canada, including the introduction of a cap on foreign enrollment and changes to post-study work rights. They also follow substantial growth in Canada's international student numbers, which exceeded a million foreign students at the end of 2023, a nearly two-thirds increase over the previous five years.