Changing immigration policies leave international students in Brampton ‘uncertain and anxious’

By: Mzwandile Poncana, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Mississauga.com

Puneet Johal — who has been in Canada for six years — has a dream to work for Canada’s Space Agency, but changing immigration rules may crush those aspirations.

“It’s been very anxiety-inducing,” she said.

As an international student from India, she arrived in 2018 to study chemical engineering technology at Sheridan College.

After graduating in 2021, she worked for two years, hoping to gain enough work experience to earn permanent residency, however, that hasn’t yet happened.

Now, pursuing her next degree in B. Tech Manufacturing Engineering at McMaster, her future in the country remains uncertain.

Last month, the Liberal government announced it will slash the number of international student permits it issues by 10 per cent. In 2025, 437,000 study permits will be issued compared to the 485,000 issued in 2024.

Ottawa also tightened eligibility requirements of postgraduate work permits (PGWP) and announced the government is considering changing the number of permanent residents permitted into the country — leaving many current and former international students in Brampton uncertain about their futures.

Recent cuts to study permits follow a larger trend that has seen the federal government shifting its approach to immigration. The government had already cut the number of study permits by 35 per cent for this year.

 

International students have been holding an encampment protest near Highway 401 for the past 49 days — they are calling on the government to extend post graduate work permits that would be expiring in 2024 and 2025.

 

In 2023, the government also made changes to its criteria for permanent resident selection under the Express Entry system — a score-based application process that determines eligibility for permanent residency. It began prioritizing individuals in specific fields and those who spoke French. Immigration minister Marc Miller has said he is considering even more “significant” changes to permanent resident levels.

Novjot Salaria worked in the IT and tech industry in India before coming to Canada — social and political divides within her home country pushed her to emigrate, she said.

“I felt suffocated. I was often on the side that went against the country’s establishment,” she said.

She researched online and learned many people saw Canada as offering both a great education and a friendly population, so she decided to move. She arrived in 2021 and studied Digital Marketing and Content Marketing at York University, graduating in 2022.

Though she has a stable job, her work permit expires in August 2025 and she now faces the potential of returning to India next year — which she said would be “heartbreaking.”

“I was really looking forward to call Canada my home. I like Canada as a country and that’s why I want to stay here,” she said.

Salaria is part of an international student encampment protest near Brampton’s Highway 410 — they have been protesting for 49 days, and are calling on the government to extend postgraduate work permits that would be expiring in 2024 and 2025.

The Naujawan Support Network, a labour advocacy organization supporting the protest, estimates that due to recent changes approximately 70,000 postgraduate work permit holders will not obtain permanent residency before their visas expire this year.

When cuts to study permits were announced, the immigration minister said they were necessary to better manage a dramatic increase in international students entering the country.

Gurpreet Malhotra — CEO of Indus Services, a community organization that provides services to international students in Peel — said he is pleased by the cuts, as they will likely lead to greater supports for international students. He said unchecked immigration has led to exploitation by colleges.

“A lot of the time, the students have been brought here and have not been provided the supports they need to do well here,” he said. “They’ve been seen as a cash cow, and not as a human resource that needs to be well-supported.”

 

Gurpreet Malhotra — CEO of Indus Services, a community organization providing services to international students in Peel — said cuts to the numbers of study permits will lead to greater supports of international students.

 

He mentions this exploitation has particularly been rampant in Mississauga and Brampton, where there is a large population of international students. One positive outcome about the cuts to international students, he said, will be that institutions that survive the cuts will now better steward the students that arrive here.

“Colleges are meant to provide access to safe housing, and the provincial government has not held them to that standard, so we’ve got many of them living in substandard housing,” he said.

Recent data from Statistics Canada showed that, in the top 10 municipalities in Canada with the highest number of international students, the rates of living in unsuitable housing ranged from 25 per cent to 63 per cent for international students — which was about 13 to 45 percentage points higher than that of Canadian-born students aged 18 to 24.

Brampton had the highest share of international students living in unsuitable housing conditions in the country — 63 per cent. The data also showed international students were more likely to live in unsuitable housing compared with Canadian-born students across all municipalities. Brampton saw the largest difference, with international students being 43 per cent more likely to live in unsuitable conditions than their Canadian-born counterparts within the municipality.

While Johal agrees with the cuts to study permits, she said they were long overdue and could’ve been handled better.

“The government just let it get out of hand and let it run like this for too long. And then when it was really really bad, and the situation just got worse, they brought in some really strict policies,” she said.

 

Brampton resident and Sheridan College alumni Puneet Johal said recent immigration policy changes are creating “a climate of fear, anxiety and uncertainty.”

 

Speaking for herself and other students she’s had conversations with, she said “every month or so there have been new policies — be it changes to the international student program, be it changes to the PGWP … This creates a climate of fear, anxiety and uncertainty”.

Johal said this also adds to poorer mental health outcomes for students, who have invested time and resources into permanently staying in Canada, suddenly being confronted with potentially losing what they’ve spent years working toward.

“There has been a lot of emphasis from the government and from the ministry on taking care of the mental health of students and taking care of the stress, but this adds to the stress,” she said.

Simrat Kaur, who is a part of a committee that organized the permanent encampment protest, has a work permit that expires next month. So, she will apply for a visitor visa to stay in the country. However, she will not be able to work and make an income on that visa.

She mentioned that many international students like herself — who have worked after graduating — find work within their specific field in Canada, and would find it challenging to transfer those same skills to a field in their origin country when they return.

“As someone who works in the banking sector, I can tell you that the banking sector in India looks very different to the banking sector in Canada. And I’d have to start from scratch,” she said.

If she had to return to India, she said she would feel very disappointed.

“The dream that I had to settle down in this country would be gone. So many of us don’t even want to face that we could leave,” she said adding she feels “that is why the suicides are happening.”

There are no official figures of how many international students die by suicide each year. However, according to recent statistics gathered by Punjabi Community Health Services and Lotus Funeral Homes, an average of five international students die each month — these deaths being mostly attributed to “heart attack, suicide, overdose, and accidents.”

Johal adds that she worries that blaming international students for pressures on health care and employment results in a lot of unfair negativity directed towards international students — adding that she notices a slew of negative online comments under news articles about international students.

“It’s just hard to deal with — to come into a country and be blamed for everything,” she said.

Garv Makkar, a 20-year-old Sheridan student, said he would love to immigrate to Canada permanently, but the increasing racism towards Indians he sees here has made him second-guess that idea.

“There’s a lot of false news being spread about Indians that’s causing a lot of people to discriminate against us,” he said.

However, he still said he has always had a dream to build his own startup in Canada. He plans to apply for a post graduate work permit after he eventually graduates, and eventually for permanent residency. Potential cuts in permanent residency leave him disheartened.

 

Some international students who live and study in Brampton — including those at Sheridan college — say they would be “heartbroken” if they had to leave Canada.

 

“If the government doesn’t allow me to stay here permanently, it would break my heart,” he said.

Some students, however, have no intention of staying.

Milan Josh, a student from Nepal studying computer engineering at Sheridan, said once he has graduated, he hopes to return to Nepal with the Canadian education and help to build up the computer engineering industry in the country.

“I like how the education I’m receiving here focuses on practical knowledge — and gives me hands-on experience in the lab — rather than purely theoretical knowledge,” he said.

However, as someone who was once in their shoes, he does feel sad for the students, who dream to come here, and will lose their chance at gaining a study permit because of recent cuts.

“We spend a lot of money on the visa process, and have big dreams of attaining a Canadian education,” he said. “When (people’s) visa applications get rejected, their morale will be down.”

Brampton Guardian reached out to multiple colleges and universities with campuses in the Peel Region to gain their reaction on the federal government’s recent policy changes. Sheridan College was the institution to respond in time for publication.

Sheridan did not explicitly state whether or not it agreed with the cuts, but mentioned that international students “enhance the social and cultural diversity of our campuses and communities”, adding they “fill key needs across sectors” and “contribute over $22 billion per year to the Canadian economy.”