The cap on international students won't solve our housing crisis

Amid Canada's housing crisis, the cap on international students will fail to address it and only comes at the cost of their education and futures

News flash: Canada is suffering from a housing crisis! What a surprise.

The lack of housing, and affordable housing at that, has been a chronic issue affecting off-campus students. In recent years, renting costs have dramatically increased..

Partly in response to the lack of affordable housing, the Canadian government implemented a two-year cap on the number of international students to be admitted into the country. They also implemented rules limiting these students from receiving work permits and buying homes in Canada.

According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the temporary cap would help to regulate the number of students in the country and reduce demand on the housing market.

Specifically, it limits the enrollment of international students to approximately 360,000 individuals, a 35% decrease from last year's statistics.

Each province or territory is receiving a cap that is proportional to their population. Each province and territory will receive a specified cap based on its population size and provinces are able to decide how they want to allocate their cap across their universities.

For example, Ontario is estimated to have a cap of 236,373 international students for this academic year, while Alberta will have a cap of 71,149 international students. Although these may seem like drastic differences, the amount of international students Ontario plans to admit is down 133,404 from last year while Alberta could experience an increase of 36,243 international students.

The international student cap will not solve the housing crisis because they are by no means the cause. More significantly, the cap will perpetuate unfair blame targeted towards these students, unrightfully holding them partly responsible for the state of the Canadian economy.

The idea that international students are a big contributor to the housing crisis is incorrect. Considering the deep and interconnected economic issues that have produced the current housing crisis, it should not be expected that cap will have any meaningful positive effect on the issue.

Unaffordable housing and rent costs, increasing inflation, the cost of building materials and difficulties within the labour market are some of the major contributors to the housing crisis. The slight contribution to our population that international students make is not the problem we face.

The government can take much more meaningful and needed action to combat the housing crisis, as well as the other crises we are facing that all contribute to the overall cost of living crisis.

Expanding initiatives and grants to build affordable social housing and implementing vacancy taxes on landlords who own vacant properties are just two examples of action the government could take to address the housing crisis at its roots. Creating programs that ensure grocery prices stay low and incentivizing businesses to pay a living wage are all steps that could be taken to address the current cost of living crisis.

By enacting the cap on international students, the government wrongly reinforces the idea that international students are the problem. Sadly, this could contribute to fostering contempt for and prejudice towards international students. Many citizens may feel resentment towards these students and create a negative environment for them to live in.

Although Justin Trudeau has stated that international students aren't the problem numerous times, the implementation of the cap contradicts this.

The cap can also prevent family members from being with each other. For example, a current international student may have a sibling who wants to attend university with them. However, because of the restriction, it may now be impossible for that international student to attend university with their sibling abroad. This can contribute to increase the isolation international students feel from being away from family.

Although the government has proposed many benefits to the cap on international students, it not only falsely blames international students for the housing crisis, it will also fail to provide any meaningful relief to the crisis. As such, the move by the federal government is a two-fold blunder that does not effectively serve its own citizens and reinforces a xenophobic narrative. Domestic and international students and Canadian citizens as a whole deserve much better from the government.