Nearly all free food service users at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay are international students
High tuition prices, housing crisis are making it hard for peers to get by, say students
This is one of two stories in the series Making Their Mark, which explores the experiences of international students living in Thunder Bay, Ont. The series highlights the challenges they face but also how they're building community and making a positive mark on the city. You can read the other story in the series here.
A rising number of students are relying on free food programs at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., and the overwhelming majority of them are from abroad.
The Lakehead University Student Union (LUSU) runs a Food Resource Centre on campus that provides an emergency grocery pickup program and free meals to students in need, as many struggle with food insecurity — meaning they lack access to sufficient, adequate food to meet their basic needs.
Among those who have been using the emergency grocery pickup program are Pooja Patel and her twin sister, both first-year nursing students who arrived in Canada from India.
"I work at McDonald's, too, so sometimes I'm super busy so I cannot prepare my meals as well," Patel said. "When I come here for grocery pickup, [they] have so many items that are usually helpful there and easy to prepare when I'm running out of time."
About 90 per cent of the grocery program's clients are international students, a trend Faraz Khorsandi says has become increasingly concerning as Canada prepares to welcome more than 900,000 students from other countries this year.
"International [students] are paying way [higher] tuition fees compared to domestic students, and they come from different countries that have different exchange rates and all of that, so it's even more expensive for them," said Khorsandi, Lakehead's international student assistant.
International undergraduate tuition in Ontario has skyrocketed by 96 per cent over the past decade. In comparison, domestic undergraduate tuition has risen by roughly 13 per cent in the same period, according to Statistics Canada data.
In 2021, about 75 per cent of international students were food insecure, according to a national survey by Meal Exchange. The combination of increased tuition, the rising cost of living and the housing crisis has left many international students scraping by in a country where they felt they would gain economic prosperity.
"It's all nationwide. We can see it all over Canada, not only Thunder Bay," said Khorsandi, who moved to the northwestern Ontario city from Iran last year.
'A symptom of poverty'
The numbers are adding up in the form of longer lines at Lakehead's Food Resource Centre.
"Last September, our emergency grocery pickup program saw about 160 unique individuals," said the centre's director of food security, Sierra Garofalo. "This September, it has increased to 217 and we've seen an increase in students who are coming to our other free meal programs as well.
"I think it's important to address the problem as what it really is, which is poverty. Food insecurity is a symptom of poverty, and so we do have to start looking at it as that."
The Food Resource Centre has also started to collect data on homelessness among its clients. Last month, from those who accessed the emergency grocery pickup program:
- About 20 per cent were at risk of homelessness.
- About 12 per cent were experiencing homelessness.
- About five per cent were chronically homeless.
Garofalo, who completed her thesis on food insecurity among post-secondary students, has found more students overall struggling to find accommodation this year compared to last year, and many of them have been staying in Airbnbs for a month or more.
"Tuition rates, cost of living and cost of food are all issues that students bring forward to us, and so we really need to look at how we can address these problems on a provincial level and across Canada," she said.
Why so many students are coming to Canada
Anil Varughese, an associate professor at the school of public policy and administration at Carleton University in Ottawa, said that over the last 12 years, the number of international students in Canada has essentially quadrupled — from more than 200,000 students in 2010 to over 800,000 last year.
He pointed to three key factors that have contributed to the jump:
- A decline in domestic student enrolment, alongside cuts to provincial grants to post-secondary institutions, has pushed schools to meet the budget shortfalls elsewhere. One international student pays the same amount of tuition as roughly four domestic students. In Canada, about 68 per cent of tuition revenue from colleges and 40 per cent from universities came from international students in 2021.
- The study-work-immigrate pathway, which has made immigration much more accessible than the traditional Federal Skilled Worker program, aims to bring in 500,000 immigrants per year by 2025.
- The high quality of the education system in Canada and its reputation as a stable, tolerant country.
But when students arrive, they're met with difficulties, including finding work — they're not eligible for opportunities such as the Canada Summer Jobs program, for instance — a housing crisis that has led to bed sharing in cramped spaces, and social and cultural isolation, particularly in more remote communities, he said.
Varughese would like to see a more co-ordinated approach across provincial and federal governments, post-secondary institutions and private actors to ensure international students' needs are being met before, during and after their arrival.
"Universities and colleges are beginning to disaggregate this and are beginning to pay attention to how we can better support international students in each phase, but at the policy level, we haven't seen this approach," Varughese said.
"We just need the political will to recognize that this problem exists and address [it] in co-ordination with these other actors."
A key focus should be placed on the education consultants who recruit these students in the first place, he added, so students aren't sold a vision of Canada that doesn't meet their expectations.
As he explained, college and university recruiters earn commission based on how many international students they help enrol.
"The profit motive comes into play in terms of how students are advised," Varughese said. "We don't hear a lot in Canada about how much commission was paid to overseas education consultants and whether or not this kind of arrangement actually contradicts Canadian law.
"Based on immigration law, we know that anybody who is not qualified by the Canadian system providing immigration advice is not allowed."
Students call for action
At Lakehead, Garofalo and Khorsandi are bringing their peers' concerns to Lakehead administration to advocate for change.
Khorsandi said he's pushing for city transit to extend its hours to better accommodate students who work part-time jobs late at night. He also wants to see more done to address the rise of rental scams.
"We have to take care of [international students] because at the end of the day, [their] basic human needs should be met here because this is a developed country and they are expecting that," Khorsandi said.
In addition to the emergency grocery pickup program, the Food Resource Centre offers:
- A breakfast program Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:30 a.m. until 1 p.m.
- Lunch with The Outpost on Tuesdays at noon.
- Free Soup Fridays sponsored by Aramark at noon.
Non-perishable food donations can be dropped off at the donation box in the foyer beside Lakehead's security office. Donation drop-offs can also be arranged by contacting the LUSU Food Resource Centre at FRC@lusu.ca.
Items most in need include canned meats, canned beans, dried chickpeas and lentils, rice, canned vegetables, breakfast foods, and shelf-stable almond and oat milk.
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