Advocates concerned international student cap causing harm, confusion

The announcement on Feb. 21, 2024 that New Brunswick will receive 5,600 spots for international students is spreading more confusion than calm, service providers and advocates say.

This is after a recent federal government move to reduce the number of study permits next year, a decision taken, ostensibly, to prevent rents from rising even further in Canada.

In New Brunswick, however, the NB Coalition for Tenants Rights and the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre say the federal government’s measures against international students is effectively scapegoating a vulnerable group instead of addressing the real perpetrators of the housing crisis.

“International students are not the ones buying up rental properties and increasing rents,” said Nomaan X, a spokesperson for the Coalition.

New Brunswick saw the highest rental inflation in Canada between October 2020 and October 2023 at 28 per cent. It is one of just two other provinces without rental control protections.

“This decision is entirely the result of a government desperate to be seen doing something,” said X.

The NB Coalition for Tenants Rights has been drawing attention to investor strategies of forced appreciation in real estate for the last three years.

“If more students moved to New Brunswick from Nova Scotia or Ontario, I doubt very much we would be trying to limit the number because of housing,” said Matthew Hayes, a spokesperson for the Coalition.

International students are also frustrated about the decision. “Migrant workers that we work with, including international students, are victims of the housing crisis, not perpetrators of it,” said Aditya Rao, a spokesperson for the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre.

New Brunswick added almost 5,000 housing units each of the last two years—more than enough to absorb the full international student population.

“The housing market is not building new rental apartments that are affordable for most students, let alone international students. And investors are buying up more affordable rentals and repositioning them,” said Hayes. “The alternative here would be to protect affordability through rent control, and return short-term rentals to the long-term rental market.”

The Coalition has also called for more funding to build co-op and non-profit housing to address affordability, which are not sufficiently funded through the federal government’s National Housing Strategy.

“It is incredibly alarming that elected officials in Canada are blaming immigrants for a housing crisis that is 40 years in the making. It is especially alarming that this political strategy is rolling out at a time when fascism, racism and xenophobia are being mobilized in new ways across the Global North” said Tobin LeBlanc Haley, a spokesperson for the Coalition.

“The sole focus on supply and demand completely misses how large corporations are reorganizing housing,” Haley continued. “Focusing on temporary foreign workers and international students is a complete misunderstanding of this issue and will only perpetuate hate.”

“It is not international students who are taking our affordable housing,” said Rao. “It is investors, and conservative governments who refuse to do anything to protect us from them.”