Canada issued significantly fewer study permits to Indian students in the latter part of last year according to a top Canadian official who spoke to Reuters. It was a result of India expelling Canadian diplomats who were responsible for processing the permits and a diplomatic spat over the death of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada.
In an interview, Immigration Minister Marc Miller stated that he thinks it is unlikely that the number of study permits issued to Indians will increase anytime soon. After Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed in June that there was evidence linking Indian government agents to the death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia, diplomatic tensions broke out.
According to Miller, the tensions will probably continue to affect the numbers in the future.
“Our relationship with India has really halved our ability to process a lot of applications from India,” Miller stated.
On directives from New Delhi, Canada was compelled to remove 41 diplomats, or two-thirds of its workforce, from India in October.
Furthermore, a minister’s spokeswoman stated that the disagreement has led Indian students to look into studying abroad.
Indian international students were reportedly considering other options outside of Canada because of “concerns, in the recent past, regarding lack of residential and adequate teaching facilities” at some Canadian institutions, according to C. Gurusubramanian, counselor for the High Commission of India in Ottawa.
Indians now make up the largest group of foreign students studying in Canada; in 2022, over 41% of all permits, or 225,835 students, went to Indians.
“I can’t tell you about how the diplomatic relationship will evolve, particularly if police were to lay charges,” Miller stated. “It’s not something that I see any light at the end of the tunnel on.”
According to official data that have not been previously released, these factors caused an 86% decrease in the number of study permits granted to Indians in the fourth quarter of last year compared to the previous quarter, from 108,940 to 14,910.
For Canadian universities, international students are a money maker, bringing in roughly C$22 billion ($16.4 billion) a year. A slowdown would be devastating to these establishments.
In June, Canada declared that “credible” claims had been made that Nijjar’s death in a suburban Vancouver was the result of Indian spies. It is an accusation that India has denied. No one has been charged by Canadian authorities for the killing as of yet.
The US Justice Department accused a 52-year-old man who had collaborated with an Indian government official of planning to kill a supporter of a Sikh sovereign state in northern India who lived in New York City last year.
