'It's ludicrous that we could take such a macro level, singular measure and apply that across the entire country'
Two colleges in New Brunswick are pointing out flaws in the changes to the rules around work permits for international students that the federal government introduced last week.
Last week, Ottawa announced it is further reducing the number of people it welcomes into Canada by reducing its intake cap on international student study permits for the next two years. By next year, the government will issue 437,000 international student study permits, down 10% from the 2024 target of 485,000 new study permits issued.
Reducing the number of international students coming into Canada did not come as a surprise, says New Brunswick Community College (CCNB) CEO Mary Butler.
"But what was surprising this time is that they were going to link postgraduate work permits … to a set number of occupations to be determined at the national level," she said in a CBC report.
In announcing the changes last week, Ottawa said that graduates from programs at public colleges will remain eligible for a post-graduation work permit (PGWP) of up to three years if they graduate from a field of study linked to occupations in long-term shortage.
Variation in labour needs
Data from N.B. Jobs note that of 25,000 people employed in New Brunswick's construction industry in 2019, about 27 per cent were in the southeast, while 10.4 per cent were in the northeast.
"Look at the variation in labour needs just in the province of New Brunswick, let alone how that varies from coast-to-coast- to-coast-to-coast, and at a national, a regional and then a local level," says Butler.
“It's just ludicrous in my mind to think that we could take such a macro level, singular measure and apply that across the entire country.”
Eligibility for a work permit that hinges on a national, long-term shortage means certain New Brunswick sectors could be left out of the mix, says Cyrille Simard, the development vice-president at Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick and former mayor of Edmundston, in the same CBC report.
Last year, 36 per cent of NBCC's students were international, says Butler in the report. This year, 50 per cent of CCNB's population is made up of international students, says Simrad.
Simard said there are also some CCNB programs that have higher international student populations than others. For example, in Bathurst, at least 66 per cent of students are international in 22 out of the 35 programs, he says.
Ottawa allows international students to work up to 24 hours per week.
Labour supply from international students
The recent changes could also hurt the future labour supply in New Brunswick, said Simrad in the CBC report.
"If you expect a lower intake of international students in those programs, it would create a problem for Canadian students, because some of those programs might not be sustainable, and we need to close those down," he says.
"So it's an issue that's really important, not only for international students and for the market, but also for Canadian students."
Previously, a couple of groups representing universities, colleges and institutes in Canada called on the federal government to pivot from its cap on the intake of international students put in place earlier this year. The cap will cut the number of international students enrolling in Canadian institutions by about half, said both Universities Canada and Colleges and Institutes Canada.
