Fresh from India, students are lugging their bags and knocking on doors in residential areas of Ontario, Canada, looking for rooms to rent from complete strangers. The desperate move by the students, without a roof over their heads, isn’t welcomed by most residents. About 30 students, mostly from India, who joined the Canadore College in North Bay, Ontario, protested outside its campus in the first week of September as they were left without a place to live.
For Indians, primarily students in their 20s, the Canadian ideal is transforming into an unfathomable nightmare. This is a result of the housing crisis and the dearth of part-time jobs that students depend on to make ends meet while living thousands of kilometers from their homes and families.
In addition to a record 900,000 foreign students, Canada is on track to accept 500,000 permanent residents in 2023. In order to promote economic growth and resilience, immigration is one of the main reasons the Canadian government does so.
However, the initiative comes while Canada is going through a housing crisis. Abysmally few homes are being built, and record-high borrowing rates have pushed new housing units out of the price range of most Canadians and recent immigrants.
Government statistics show that there is a shortage of at least 3,45,000 housing units across Canada.
Students are being forced into crowded basement arrangements where their safety is jeopardized by house rent increases as well.
Education is not the reason why so many students travel to Canada every year. It’s because the student visa offers what is regarded as a simple method to enter Canada and later a road to citizenship. One of the primary routes for foreign nationals to immigrate to Canada is via a student visa.The majority of international students studying in Canada are Indian.
According to figures from the Canadian government, 2.26 lakh of the 5.5 lakh international students in 2022, or 40% of all students, were from India. Additionally, 3.2 lakh Indians had student visas and were residing in Canada.