Immigration changes doing damage

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/02/2025 (211 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On a cold Prairie morning just over a week ago at Richardson International Airport, a former graduate student of mine embraced his wife and said goodbye, unsure of when he would see her again.

Guo (not his real name) was voluntarily deporting himself. His hope was that by keeping on the right side of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the chances of his stalled application for permanent residence moving forward would improve.

Guo had completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Manitoba in a field of study that prepares people for a profession where Canada has experienced a long-term skills shortage. After graduation, Guo received a post-graduation work permit and was employed as a quality assurance specialist for a small local company and helped them grow their business.

Guo then returned to the University of Manitoba to obtain a master’s degree.

In the course of his master’s studies, Guo developed a method that is being used commercially to assure export customers that shipments of Canadian grain pose a low food safety risk. Guo then secured employment as an innovation scientist in one of Canada’s leading agribusiness companies. In October 2023, Marc Miller, minister of IRCC, introduced reforms to the post-graduation work permit program — reforms that ultimately led to Guo making the painful decision to leave his job, wife and provincial home.

Up to 2023, Canada had been a leading destination for international students such as Guo.

Post-graduation work permits and an ability to work while studying fostered an attractive environment that led to a quadrupling of international student numbers. This increase in the number of international students was then conflated with housing issues in the greater Toronto region. Miller signalled his intent to use IRCC’s powers to regulate the post-graduation work permit, and to root out what Miller characterized as “the diploma equivalent of puppy mills.”

Unfortunately, Toronto’s housing problem quickly became a problem for all post-secondary institutions right across Canada.

Guo is unlikely to be the only former international student caught up in “changes to further recalibrate international student, foreign worker and permanent resident volumes” (Miller, Sept. 18, 2024). The loss of talent associated with these “recalibrations” will impact Canada’s innovation capacity, and it will be felt more sharply by provinces already experiencing shortages in skills and talent.

Numerous organizations and corporate thought leaders have expressed concerns about Canada’s productivity and innovation capacity and what can be done to improve them.

An analysis of the location of our faculty’s alumni (who graduated in the last five years) indicates that 92 per cent of them reside in Manitoba. This is true whether these students had been originally of domestic or international origin. The creativity and industriousness of these former students now contribute to the advancement of our provincial economy. Therefore, Guo’s departure, as well as new restrictions on the entry of skilled personnel to Manitoba, represent a real talent loss for the province and for Canada.

Compounding Manitoba’s talent reduction because of Canada’s unwelcoming environment for international students is the recently announced 50 per cent reduction in the numbers of provincial nominees by Miller.

Despite Manitoba Labour and Immigration Minister Malaya Marcelino lobbying for no cuts because of Manitoba’s current skills and labour demands, Miller persisted in using his “blunt instruments” to impose equal percentage cuts in the number of provincial nominees across the country.

As Manitoba Business Council president Bram Strain remarked, this reduction will impact Manitoba’s economy disproportionately compared to provinces such as Ontario. The harm already done to the talent pool in Manitoba’s post-secondary institutions and to the province’s future innovation potential is now being inflicted on Manitoba’s present economy.

To prevent long-term innovation damage to the provincial economy, at a time when the prime minister and Canada’s premiers are appealing for an improved business climate at home, two things are required.

Clarity and stability in the rules for international students are needed from IRCC to ensure Canada reinstates itself as a welcoming environment for new talent.

Secondly, recruitment of talent to professions and regions where there are already acute talent shortages is required. Miller’s treatment of everything and everywhere equally is an inequitable treatment, and this will only inflict damage on Canada’s economy as a whole when the country can least accommodate it.

Martin Scanlon is dean of the faculty of agricultural and food sciences at the University of Manitoba.