International student cap won’t solve Canada’s housing crisis: students, experts

Some students and housing experts in Vancouver disagree with the federal government’s idea to set a limit on the number of international students in order to ease the housing crisis.

Earlier this week, Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser expressed his concerns about the government inviting international students into the country without putting any thought into where they will live.

Three international students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) say the blame for Canada’s housing crisis can’t be placed solely on them.

“It’s not just coming from international students right, we have foreign workers, and a lot of people coming to the big cities, so we can’t just blame it on international students,” said Jackie Wei.

“It is a band-aid solution because it doesn’t solve the housing crisis right away for those who are here. Also, it is very sad for those aspiring international students,” said June Agpalo.

“The housing is one of the major issues that we come across, apart from the high tuition fees that we of course pay,” Tanya Arora added.

In a statement, UBC Director of University Affairs Matthew Ramsey says “International students are an important part of contributing to the university’s academic mission, talent recruitment and retention.”

“The university, in discussions with IRCC — Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada — has been clear that we do not support a cap on international students.”

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Ramsey says the school has the most university student housing in Canada with over 15,000 beds on its two campuses — 13,000 in Vancouver and 2,000 at UBC Okanagan.”

UBC Director of Housing Penny Gurstein says the school would not run the same without international students.

“UBC and other institutions of higher learning unfortunately depend very much upon international student tuition so I mean they would have to be looking for other sources of revenue and it is very difficult to get other sources of revenue, given that their major sources come from the government,” she said.

Simon Fraser University is taking a similar stance on the issue.

“International students are an integral part of our campus community, and the university would have concerns about putting limitations in place,” a spokesperson for the university said in a statement.