Driven by liberal international student policies, the number of Indian immigrants in Canada quadrupled between 2013 and 2023, while the number of Indian students increased by nearly 6,000% between 2000 and 2021.

According to a new report, the number of Indians coming to Canada yearly rose from 38,828 to 139,715 (an increase of 326%) between 2013 and 2023, fueled primarily by Canada’s liberal international student policies, which provide an easier path to temporary and eventually permanent residency compared to the US.

And while the number of international students in general has increased across Canada (from 62,233 in 2000 to 400,521 in 2021), this is especially true for Indian students.

From 2000 to 2021, the number of Indian students attending Canadian universities rose from 2,181 to 128,928—an increase of 5,911%—going from making up just 3.5% of the total number of international students to 32.2%.

For the sake of comparison, leading up to the start of COVID in 2019, immigration from India boomed in Canada while dwindling in the US. In the US, the number of Indian international students attending American universities declined from 129,135 to 111,951 between 2016 and 2019, while, at the same time, the total number of Indian students more than doubled in Canada (from 41,724 to 177,600).

This surge has primarily been driven by PM Justin Trudeau’s Express Entry program, launched just after taking office in 2015, which favours international students and paves the way towards permanent residency.

Stagnant wages and housing shortages rock Canada

This has, however, backfired economically, as Canada has been overwhelmed by the number of temporary workers and international students in the housing and rental markets, leading to significant shortages and, thus, spikes in prices across the country, all of which is exacerbated by a reduction in wages as employers favour more low-wage temporary workers.

As Trudeau admitted just weeks ago, “Over the past few years, we’ve seen a massive spike in temporary immigration, whether it’s temporary foreign workers or whether it’s international students in particular that have grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb.

“To give an example, in 2017, two per cent of Canada’s population was made up of temporary immigrants. Now we’re at 7.5 per cent of our population comprised of temporary immigrants.

“That’s something that we need to get back under control,” he continued, adding, “increasingly more and more businesses [are] relying on temporary foreign workers in a way that is driving down wages in some sectors.”

Due to the increasingly harsh economic conditions that have resulted from the surge in both temporary workers and international students, the Liberals recently announced a temporary cap on international student permits; however, this is expected to have little effect in the long run as it doesn’t cover those in graduate courses and other policies have extended their ability to work in the country by three years.