Travel News

(Bloomberg) -- Canada will consider measures to cap the number of international students in the coming months as the country wrestles with a housing shortage. 

“That volume is disconcerting,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in a pre-taped interview with CTV News on Sunday, referring to the rise of foreign student visas in Canada. “It’s really a system that has gotten out of control.”

Miller said the federal government will have “conversations” with the provinces in the first half of this year “to make sure that the provinces that have not been doing their jobs actually rein in those numbers on a pure volume basis.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has faced criticism for welcoming more immigrants — both permanent and temporary — during an affordability crisis that has caused the cost of housing to spike and curtailed supply. 

The number of foreign students in Canada has nearly tripled in the past decade, reaching more than 800,000 last year. International students pay about five times more tuition as Canadians.

Miller’s comments expand on earlier plans to consider limiting foreign-student visas.