International Students of Today, Canadian Residents of Tomorrow

"The volume of non-compliance should not really be a surprise to anyone. Most international students at the community college level are edu-immigration clients. If they can avoid school and gain immigration status through work opportunities, that's what all of them would do."
"Having a study permit offers direct access to employers for this purpose." 
"Students had no idea what 'actively pursue' meant or what the consequences were until these program delivery instructions occurred six years after the compliance regime was put in place."
Earl Blaney, immigration consultant, London, Ontario

"Sometimes people have valid reasons to be non-compliant with the conditions in their study permits."
"Maybe they have to go home for a family emergency."
"The integrity of the international student program is very important. It's a top priority for us and our members to ensure all students access to quality education in Canada."
"Nobody benefits from students not showing up in class."
Denise Amyot, CEO, president, Colleges and Institutes Canada

"She [international student Kaur Gursimran] changed schools and programs, moving from business programs into a general arts and science program in spite of her permit specifying that she is to study business or commerce."
"Additionally, she took off two semesters in three years, and failed more courses than she has passed."
" Kaur's absences alone are sufficient to demonstrate that she did not comply with the ... requirement that she actively pursue her studies."
Justice Ann Marie McDonald, federal court decision leading to expulsion 

"I would love to know more about those non-compliant cases. Where do they come from? Which institutions? Is it colleges? Is it universities? Is it private [institutions]? Is it public? This would shed some lights and would steer policies one way or another."
"We have a huge body of international students. They contribute a lot to our teaching and learning in the classroom. There are a few non-compliant cases. When we introduce any new policy, we need to make sure we don't complicate life for everybody in the process."
Amira El Masri, international education policies, York University

Anase El Kamel was issued a student visa for the Universite de Moncton in New Brunswick but the young man from Morocco attended not one class at the university, nor did he ever live in New Brunswick. When he arrived in Canada he went directly to Montreal in 2017, took a job with a parking management company, and made the claim that he was too ill to attend school. Eventually he was tracked by immigration officials who ordered  him to leave Canada since he failed to "actively" study, reflecting his visa's requirement.

"The [education] program he was to complete in Canada was not of great concern to him. He simply wanted to quickly complete a program so that he could then apply for permanent residence in Canada", a Federal Court decision found, whereupon he was extradited for failure to live within the expectations of the visa issued to him for the specific purpose of pursuing his further education in Canada, a gateway to eventual residence and citizenship.

According to a report from Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada, about ten percent of international students who enrolled in post-secondary institutions do not "potentially:" comply with study permit conditions. There is no formal monitoring and investigation of international students to determine whether they conform to rules. An honour system of reporting by the hundreds of academic institutions in the detection of "non-genuine students" is what the Immigration Department relies upon.

The program is reliant on school administrators reporting on the status of international student enrolment following an explosion of such enrolment after 2014 when policy changes eased the way for international students at publicly funded institutions to work and apply for permanent residency.
At present 572,000 international students study across Canada, representing a 73 percent increase in the past five years. And of the 655 accredited schools, 90 percent (587 schools) duly submitted enrolment data.

In 2018, school administrators identified nine percent (28,049 of 316,631 study permit holders as "potentially non-compliant", while failing to report the status of another 15 percent (51,041 international students). Additionally, since 2018, officials scrutinized school acceptance letters used to apply for study permits, referring over 10,000 such letters for verification, and finding 1,240 to be fraudulent.

Provinces accredit schools in their jurisdiction to accept international students; the schools in turn must meet standards and monitor student enrolment. The list of recognized schools in Ontario alone has grown from 298 in 2014 to 420 currently. The breaching of employment restrictions by international students, an issue raised by immigration officials in a 2015 report, found many enrolled in Canadian schools linked to the easy access to jobs, where many of the students end up in low-skilled, low-paid work.

Any of the students caught breaking rules face consequences such as losing their permits and being deported. In the first two months of 2019, 1,048 study permits were cancelled. Jobandeep Singh Sandhu, 22, attending Canadore College took employment as a long-haul truck driver. Stopped by Ontario Provincial Police on a routine inspection in 2017, his driver log book revealed he had worked greater hours than his student permit allowed, resulting in his deportation.

In the United States, as an example, eligibility for a postgraduate work permit is tied to employment in the field of study of an international student, who may work off-campus only during school breaks, explained Colorado-based Rahul Coudaha, an international education consultant.

"[Canada already has a] rigorous [study permit application process to screen ineligible students out at the front end]."
"The goal of these mechanisms is to ensure the integrity of the system, but it is also important for Canada to attract and retain these international students."
"There are always those who try to game the system, but you don't want the 90 percent of genuine students being affected."
Rahul Choudaha, international education consultant, researcher, Colorado

"Some educational institutions in Canada offer low-quality education programs with minimal entry requirements and adjust their programs to allow international students to maximize the duration of their postgraduate work permit."
"The current program design ... increases the motivation to create low-quality education programs facilitating long-term work opportunities."
Price of Admission, investigative report