Minister, advocates say they fear international students will be blamed for housing crisis

Immigration Minister Marc Miller and student advocates across the country say they worry about immigrants and international students being singled out for blame because of the housing crisis.

"It's one of my fears," Miller said in a recent interview with CBC News. "I do worry about the stigmatization of particularly people of diversity that come to this country to make it better, and that includes international students."

Miller told CBC Radio's The House last week that Canada is on track to host around 900,000 international students this year. In 2011, that figure was just shy of 240,000.

Housing Minister Sean Fraser last month floated the idea of capping the number of international students Canada brings in.

Miller told CBC News Canadians' concerns about the number of international students go beyond housing to questions about the public's confidence in the "integrity" of the immigration system itself.

Advocates for students and immigrants say they fear that talk of an admission cap could lead to vulnerable communities being targeted unfairly.

"Even if that's not how it was meant, we at the College Student Alliance realized straight away that that's how people would translate it and it would give people the opportunity to stigmatize this already at-risk population," said Azi Afousi, president of the College Student Alliance.

Afousi, whose organization represents 50,000 college students in Ontario, insists international students are not causing the housing crisis.

"It did not start with them. It is ongoing. It is about planning. It's not just a single-issue concern," she said. 

She said post-secondary institutions in Canada would not be able to offer the programs they do to Canadian students if they couldn't collect the high fees international students pay to study here.

Miller said international students pump $20 to $30 billion into universities and colleges every year through tuition and other fees, and their contributions are "big for the economy."

WATCH: Minister considering a cap on international students 

Wasiimah Joomun, executive director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, said "there's no real data that shows that international students are causing this issue."

"If we are able to get data that says, 'This amount of international students are taking up this amount of housing, that's why we need to decrease the number,' we'll be happy to look around and see," she said. "But I don't think there is much factual data."

Syed Hussan, executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said there is "absolutely no connection between migration and housing."

"We know that," said Hussan, whose organization represents roughly 30,000 current and former migrant students, "because in 2020 Canada closed its borders. So there were no newcomers coming into the country and yet housing prices went up.

"When you create a simplistic supply and demand argument ... to say, 'More people are coming, there's not enough housing, and that's the problem,' it overlooks the role of investors, profiteers, the fact that there are no limits on how much you raise rental prices in most parts of the country."

Blaming newcomers is nothing new: Hussan

The MSA is a part of the Migrants Rights Network, which advocates for temporary foreign workers employed on farms, in fisheries and as caregivers and health care workers.

Hussan said blaming immigrants and migrants for low wages or shortages in health care or housing is nothing new. 

"When wages are low, people blame foreign workers ... This is the same story and international students are effectively migrant workers," he said.

Hussan said most international students take on low-wage jobs in the service, construction or health-care sectors to help pay for their education.

Gauri Sreenivasan, co-executive director of the Canada Council for Refugees (CCR), said international students already face racism when trying to find housing.

"The CCR is deeply concerned that the current blame game will only expose these populations to more harm, and lets those with power in this situation, including industry and financial actors, off the hook," she said.

Build more dorms, student housing: advocates

Damanpreet Singh, the international students' commissioner for the Canadian Federation of Students, said that despite Fraser's "very shameful" statement, he doesn't think international students will be scared away.

"Canada is flexible and welcoming," he said, adding that governments need to fund the construction of more purpose-built housing for students and provide rent vouchers in the meantime so students can afford rising rents.

Joomun said she has spoken with a number of universities that report they have space for more student residences but lack the money to build them.

Student advocates say providing universities and colleges with funding for housing construction would allow universities to pull Canadian and international students into campus settings, where housing is cheaper and simpler to build.

"When you build student housing ... they do not have to have the same amenities that a luxury condo does," Afousi said.

Miller told CBC News international students and immigrants are no more responsible for the housing crunch than they are for rising interest rates — but the rapidly rising number of international students is a problem.

He said the fact that international students pay tuition fees three to four times higher than those paid by domestic students creates "perverse incentives" to attract them to Canada.

Part of that issue can be addressed, he said, by having a discussion "with provinces about the systemic underfunding of higher education" that has led institutions to rely on higher fees from international students.