About 50,000 foreign students have taken advantage of the eighteen-month extension of stay that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government offered them last year. A measure presented as a means of“helping more graduates meet urgent needs” in certain sectors of activity and to allow them to acquire the essential professional experience to immigrate permanently to Canada.
But a year and a half later, some of these students are disillusioned. After the expiry of their residence permit, they find themselves without legal status and unable to work. A situation that seriously compromises their chances of obtaining permanent residence one day, underlines Bloomberg.
“I spend my time sitting at home and living on my savings. I don’t know how long I’ll have to go on like this, explains Daniel D’Souza, an accountant and former student at Seneca College near Toronto. I regret having chosen Canada to study and live there. this country should value foreign students more and not just use them as cheap labour.”
Without a job, without income or social benefits…
Daniel D’Souza’s career is now “on hold” and his future uncertain. Like him, many of these ex-students had to leave their jobs when their work permits expired. “In the best-case scenario, their application for permanent residence will eventually be accepted. But in the meantime, they are living through months of uncertainty, without jobs, income or social benefits,” Explain Bloomberg.
Many of these international graduates hoped that extending their residence permits would improve their work experience there and boost their scores in Canada’s points-based immigration system. But the Covid epidemic has caused such a delay in the processing of immigration files that they now find themselves in competition with candidates who are more qualified than them.
For its part, the Ministry of Immigration points out that in 2021 40% of new permanent residents were former international students – a record – and that the backlog in processing files is being caught up. Since July 2022, 26,250 invitations to apply for permanent residence have been issued, including 10,212 to foreign students. Figures which alone are not enough to reassure students who are still waiting to be fixed on their fate.