According to a media report on Tuesday, several Indian students in Canada claim their country uses them as a cheap labour force and discards them after they are no longer required.
A Bloomberg report highlighted that Immigration Minister Sean Fraser proposed a new temporary measure targeted at easing Canada's chronic labour shortages amid a labour shortfall and high unemployment rate, which reduced to 5.2% this September.
The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reportedly introduced the permit extension move to more than 5,000,00 international students already studying in Canada, allowing them to stay for an additional 18 months after graduation to look for jobs.
But after more than a year, some of these candidates for permanent residence have been left without the ability to find employment or stay in the nation.
"I'm basically sitting at home and living off of my savings... Canada should appreciate foreign students more, not just use them as a form of cheap labour," Daniel D'Souza, an accountant and former student at Seneca College near Toronto, told Bloomberg.
Canada is the second most popular location for Indians seeking academic degrees abroad, with 1.83 lakh students from India studying there at various levels.
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said that Canada has received more than 4.52 lakh study visa applications since January, a 23 percent increase from the 3.67 lakh applications filed during the same period previous year.
In 2021, Canada had over 6.20 lakh of which one-third were from India.
Many graduates who were enrolled in the 2021 programme were forced to quit their jobs when their work permits ran out with no assurance that they will be granted permanent status.
Even if their applications are eventually successful, students face months in limbo with no job, income, or health and social benefits, Bloomberg reported.
"When they needed us, they exploited us. But when we need their help or support, nobody shows up," Anshdeep Bindra, a former consultant at Ernst & Young in Toronto, told Bloomberg.
Indian grads who believed that the visa extension would provide them more time to get Canadian work experience became bogged down in a backlog of applications that caused the system to be shut down for ten months while the government processed them.
Once the system was activated, the students found themselves competing with pools of immigrants with much higher-than-normal scores, reducing their chances of gaining permanent residency, the report stated.
According to the government data, international students contribute more than C$21 billion ($15.3 billion) annually to the Canadian economy.
Canada is a popular choice among students moving abroad due to its quality education, friendly visa and immigration rules, and better life prospects.
Most Indian students are interested in remaining in Canada as permanent residents after completing their studies.
According to Statistics Canada, international students who get permanent residence tend to integrate quickly into the Canadian labour market due to their previous experience of living in the country on visas.
MEA data show that in the first six months of 2022, as many as 64,667 Indians going abroad for education named the USA as their destination, followed closely by Canada (60,258).
As per the MEA, before the pandemic, in 2019, 1,32,620 Indian students had chosen Canada. In 2020, after Covid-19 broke out, the number dipped to 43,624, before rising sharply to 1,02,688 in 2021.
Inputs from IANS
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