Ottawa: Some Indian students in Canada are accusing the country of using them as a cheap source of labour and discarding them after they are no longer required. In light of the severe labour shortages in Canada and the high unemployment rate, which dropped to 5.2% in September, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser proposed a new temporary solution.
PM Justin Trudeau's government had introduced the permit extension move to over 5,00,000 international students already in Canada to potentially work more hours and stay for 18 months after graduation to seek employment.
With 183,000 Indian students pursuing education at various levels in the country, Canada is the second most popular destination for Indians pursuing academic degrees abroad. About 35% of the study permits in Canada have been availed by Indian students.
"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 the media outlet.
Indian grads who believed 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.
The report said that 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.
International students contribute more than C$21 billion ($15.3 billion) annually to the Canadian economy, according to the government data. 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.
