In a report this week, auditor Karen Hogan criticised Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), including the way it imposed a cap on the number of students starting in January 2024.
“We conclude that the department was not effectively implementing reforms to the International Student Program,” she said.
In Canada, immigration is a federal responsibility while the provinces run colleges and universities. This means that the two levels of government need to cooperate on files like international students.
However, Hogan said this hasn’t happened since the federal government announced that it would allocate the number of study permits available to each province.
“We surveyed provincial governments, which expressed general dissatisfaction with the level of consultation on program reforms,” she reported. When the provinces were asked for their views, IRCC “provided no feedback on how their input was considered.”
Even with restrictions on the number of study permits, many student spaces went unfilled. “In 2024, the department approved fewer than half of the forecasted number of new study permits,” the study found. “This continued in 2025 with just over 50,000 of the 255,000 forecasted number of new study permits approved by September.”
The auditor general lamented that IRCC did not know why approval rates were lower than expected.
Higher education consultant Ken Steele believes he has the answer. He blames IRCC for signalling that international students are not welcome in Canada. “Based on this report, IRCC managed to quash 83% of global interest in Canada as a study destination in just 20 months,” he told The PIE News.
This auditor general’s report illuminates the chaos and clumsiness that prevailed
Ken Steele, higher education consultant
“It’s obvious that IRCC should have made much more gradual adjustments to fine-tune the flow of international students,” Steele argues. “This auditor general’s report illuminates the chaos and clumsiness that prevailed instead.”
International students are voting with their feet, Steele says. While Canada once had a thriving international education sector, students are turning to more inviting countries, such as Ireland and Japan.
The auditor found that smaller provinces were particularly struck by low approval rates, including Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. “All were hit by a 59% or greater decrease in approvals in 2024 compared to 2023,” Hogan said.
The study found that 153,000 students may not have been attending school during 2023/24. However, IRCC only had the resources to look into one% of these cases. Even these investigations were superficial. About 40% could not be completed because students did not respond to requests for more information. IRCC officials simply dropped the probes.
Designated Learning Institutions (DLIs) are required to submit student enrolment reports to the department. While the vast majority complied, 50 failed to file in 2025. These represented 10,000 students. The auditor general pointed out that IRCC did not impose any consequences on the delinquent DLIs.
While acknowledging some of the auditor-general’s concerns, IRCC Minister Lena Metlege Diab asserted in a statement: “The measures are working, but more can be done.”
