Granting an ever-growing number of student visas to people we know will struggle to find housing is unethical at best and fraudulent at worst.
We need to dramatically cut the number of student visas, especially for private colleges, some of which are offering a quality of education that is less than desirable. We then need to tie student visas to housing availability – that is, a university shouldn’t be allowed to take on more international students than it can house in that community, for the duration of that person’s time studying in Canada.
Why is Canada trying to attract so many international students? Because it’s easier than properly funding post secondary institutions:
international students are cash cows. Tuition fees for domestic students are regulated by provincial governments. Not so for their international counterparts, which makes bringing in foreign learners incredibly lucrative for perpetually cash-strapped schools and universities. (The real growth is increasingly not just from universities, but also from private colleges.)
The housing crisis has a bunch of causes, from Airbnb, to shitty taxation policies, to NIMBYs, to regressive zoning. Tying student visas to available, reasonably priced housing would be a simple first step to reducing prices.
The suggestion is to tie visas to housing available in the institutions’ community. It would ensure that there’s enough housing for international students. It would give schools a reason to build and manage student housing.
Many post-secondary institutions are accepting students who will have nowhere to live. That’s shitty for the students, it’s shitty for the communities that don’t have enough housing.
International students are still welcome.
And as stated in other comments, we should fund our schools directly, rather than relying on international students.