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The complex costs of Quebec’s international student policy reforms
International students have gone from being seen as the solution to many issues to the problem.
Over the past several years, immigration policy turmoil in Canada has caused confusion and precarity for current and prospective international students, particularly in Quebec. These policies also have serious implications for both jurisdictions’ reputations as international education destinations and the higher education sector more broadly. However, the complex intersection of such federal and provincial policies is poorly understood – and the costs are continuously obscured.
Temporary resident growth across Canada and in Quebec
Current, former and accompanying family members of international students make up a large proportion of Canada’s recent dramatic population growth, the highest spike since 1957. As a result, they have become a key target of the federal government’s current efforts to reduce its temporary resident population. Over the past year, IRCC has capped study permit applications, raised international students’ cost-of-living financial requirements and restricted access to post-graduation and partner work permits. Once recruited en masse as “ideal immigrants,” a much narrower subsection of international students is permitted to enter, and remain, in Canada as of 2024.
The policy situation is even more complex in Quebec. Like the rest of Canada, Quebec’s population experienced historic – albeit smaller – growth in 2022 and 2023. However, immigration in the province has become even more politicized since the 2018 election of the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) government. The CAQ vocally linked immigration to the protection of the province’s “distinct identity” and language, positioning immigrant numbers and profiles as, paradoxically, both threats and potential solutions. Among the immigration policies adopted by the CAQ to respond to this perceived existential threat, many targeted international students.
Quebec’s unique governance of international student mobility
Immigration has long been a shared responsibility of the Canadian federal and provincial governments. Among the provinces, Quebec has the most extensive immigration powers due to the Canada–Quebec Accord negotiated in 1991. Quebec determines its own immigrant admission levels and selection criteria. This means all economic permanent resident applicants wishing to reside in Quebec must first be selected by a provincial program before applying again at the federal level. Quebec also has shared control over a significant share of temporary residents, including international students.
Therefore, prospective international students in Quebec must first be accepted by the province before applying at the federal level for a study permit. The same is true for those wanting to settle in the province after graduation; for example, many apply via a dedicated fast-track pathway to permanent residency for graduates of the province (Graduate stream of the Programme de l’expérience québéquoise, or PEQ).
Quebec’s international student landscape since the CAQ came into power
Up until the CAQ election in 2018, Canada and Quebec had relatively similar goals and selection programs for both temporary and permanent residency. However, those goals have since misaligned. International students became framed in Quebec as both threats and potential solutions for what the CAQ government described as a “French decline.” While other categories of temporary migrants were perceived similarly, international students were especially targeted by the CAQ’s contradictory policies.
As the provincial government tried to meet its – reduced – permanent residency targets amidst rising applications to the PEQ Graduates stream, it increased the PEQ eligibility requirements in 2019 and 2020 – making it harder, and longer, to qualify. Then, in 2023, the CAQ suddenly reverted to its previous selection criteria – yet with the added requirement of study in a French-language institution. These reforms signaled an apparent unpreparedness and indecisiveness about what to do with a growing international student population, with a large portion seeking to remain in Quebec after graduation.
Originally, these reforms did not explicitly aim to reduce the number of international students in Quebec – even though they might have, in practice, had such an effect. Instead, they focused merely on restricting international students’ access to permanent residency. However, in the recent context of increasing international student numbers, the link between temporary and permanent migration has become more explicit. In October 2024, the government tabled a bill to limit international student numbers in the province; the next month, it suspended the PEQ Graduates stream.
Impact on current and prospective international students in Quebec
Taken together, these provincial reforms introduced instability and uncertainty for current and prospective international students alike. They also have a disproportionate effect on certain institutions, including English-language institutions which were intentionally targeted by Quebec’s recent reform to “protect the French language”. Yet they are even further complicated by policies targeting international students at the federal level. Due to the federal study permit application cap and associated restrictions, international student numbers are likely to be reduced in Quebec, as in the rest of Canada.
For international students already in Quebec, the recent policy changes at both levels of governments are likely to produce precariousness. Increased proof-of-funds requirements will make student permit renewals more difficult, and higher eligibility requirements for accompanying partner or post-graduation work permits might lead those who cannot qualify to lose their legal status in Canada. In this context, those wishing to settle in the province and acquire permanent residency after graduation may experience challenges not just meeting permanent residency eligibility requirements, but also maintaining a valid temporary status in the process. As a result, French-speaking international students may decide to move to another province where permanent residency is being actively facilitated for French-speaking migrants.
Prospective international students wishing to settle in Quebec may ultimately consider the province too unpredictable, and thus risky, as a study destination. French-speaking international students are likely to consider other provinces which are actively responding to the federal government’s goal of attracting French-speaking migrants outside of the province. However, they may have a hard time distinguishing this call from the general measures taken against international students by the federal government and Quebec.
From solutions to problems
International students in Quebec and throughout Canada have gone from being seen as the solution to many issues (e.g., labour market shortages) to the problem. Still, both governments appear unsure how to frame this category of migrants who have apparently shifted from “ideal immigrants” to “immigrants of doubtful value,” resulting in hesitant and contradictory policies that have reduced international students to pawns who are haphazardly regulated depending on changing national needs.
It is difficult to fully grasp how prospective French-speaking international students, and current international students in Quebec, will react to these policies in the long term. What is certain, however, is that they will have a human cost – not only by making the policy landscape complex to decipher, but by producing precariousness and feelings of betrayal and exclusion for those who “played by the rules” yet face an ever-shifting policy landscape.
