Auditor General Flags Concerns with IRCC’s International Student Reforms

The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) is a government office that checks how well federal programs work and gives advice to Parliament. This report looks at Canada’s International Student Program and reviews changes made between 2023 and 2025. 

Key findings  

• Study permit approval rates are lower than intended, and IRCC doesn’t know why  
• Smaller provinces have been affected the most by the drop in approved study permits. 
• IRCC is not doing enough to investigate possible fraud in study permit applications. 

The overall findings of the OAG report were not in IRCC’s favour. It found that some things, such as the letter of verification system are working but in general, not enough was done to consider how the study permit caps would impact Canada’s provinces. It shows where IRCC can improve in future and notes areas where more could have been done at the time the measures were introduced to fix issues that have since come to light, such as study permit fraud. 

It also made a few surprising discoveries. For example, despite an anticipated permit approval rate of 60% in 2024, the real numbers were much lower. 

Why was the Number of Approved Study Permits Lower than Expected? 

Between 2019 and 2023, the number of international student applications more than doubled, from about 426,000 in 2019 to 943,000 in 2023. 

This rapid growth caused problems like not enough housing, fewer job opportunities for students, and pressure on support services. 

In January 2024, IRCC set a yearly limit (cap) on how many new students could come to Canada.  

According to the OAG, IRCC planned to approve about 255,000 new study permits in 2025, but by September just over 50,000 were approved. IRCC often points out that the number of temporary residents (including students) has gone down fast, but the OAG says IRCC does not know the exact reasons why study permit approval rates are so low. 

IRCC did not check if their new rules or fewer study permit applications were the reason for the drop in approvals. The OAG found that the drop was not caused by the new letter of acceptance system or higher financial requirements. In the end, the report says there is no clear reason why approvals are much lower than IRCC expected. 

More Extensions than New Study Permit Approvals  

What we do know is that in 2024 and 2025, IRCC approved far more study permit extension applications than it did for new permits.  This is probably a large contributing factor to reduced arrivals.

The department says this is because it trusted the vetting process of students during their initial application. This meant they could use a “light touch”, especially for applications submitted through the now-closed Student Direct Stream.  

What isn’t clear is how many of those extensions were given to students who started school in Canada before the cap, increased financial requirements, and the letter of verification system were introduced.   

Some Provinces Disproportionately Impacted by Study Permit Allocations and Approval Rates  

Another surprising find was that IRCC’s intention to reduce the number of students in large provinces such as Ontario and British Columbia backfired, and instead, smaller provinces felt the impact more keenly.   

IRCC expected 10% decreases in study permit approvals for Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick and even anticipated increases in international students in both Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador.   

What really happened is that many of these provinces experienced a decrease of 59% or more in study permit approvals.   

The OAG found two issues that contributed to the losses. Initially, the provinces with higher populations received larger allocations of provincial attestation letters. This puts smaller provinces at an immediate disadvantage.   

Further, IRCC overestimated the approval rate. In 2024, IRCC estimated that approximately 60% of applications received would be approved. However, the department did not account for historical data about provincial approval rates. Lower application volumes also worsened the problem.  

The OAG recommends that IRCC begin tailoring its approach to study permit reductions by province.  

IRCC Not Following Up on Student Fraud  

The Letter of Verification System was introduced to help IRCC identify false letters of acceptance, an essential part of any study permit application. These letters have historically been a major source of fraud in the study permit process. Designated Learning Institutions are required to verify every letter of acceptance.  

The OAG says this is one thing IRCC is getting right. The system verified over 97% of 841,000 letters of acceptance between December 2023 and September 2025 (the remaining 3% were manually processed). The findings show that 94% of all letters of acceptance were genuine.   

But, IRCC hasn’t done enough to follow up on applications that have already been identified as potential fraud. Specifically, the department had identified 800 approved study permits issued between 2018 and 2023 that included fake documents or misrepresentation.   

IRCC could still act on these cases, but hasn’t. OAG says it’s very concerning because there is now no alert on the files when individuals apply for other immigration programs, including permanent residency. In fact, the OAG found that 92% of the 800 had been approved for, or were awaiting decisions on, other immigration permits.  

Further, the OAG found that between 2023 and 2024, reports from 700 designated learning institutions identified 153,000 students who may have been non-compliant with the conditions of their permits. This could mean that they weren’t attending classes or working more than the 24 hours a week limit (during the academic year).   

IRCC has an obligation to thoroughly investigate each case. However, according to the OAG, IRCC has the funding to investigate just 2,000 cases of non-compliance each year between 2023 and 2028. Again, this means that the majority of international students who might be breaking the conditions of their permits could apply for other permits.  

In 2023 and 2024, IRCC investigated just 4,057 cases. Among those, 41% of cases couldn’t be closed because the students didn’t respond, 1,401 were found to be compliant with their permits, and 50 were found to be non-compliant.  

IRCC’s Response  

Overall, it seems that IRCC’s enthusiasm to reduce the number of students and temporary residents in Canada has overridden other considerations.   

This could be because in late 2023, there was public pressure on the department to reduce immigration levels due to perceived strain on Canada’s housing market and other social services, and IRCC felt it had to move quickly.  

The OAG report suggests that not enough was done to mitigate the immediate impact of the student cap and concluded that “Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada was not effectively implementing reforms to the International Student Program.”  

In a statement following the report’s release, Minister Diab acknowledged that there is room for improvement and said the findings reflect the early stages of reforms implemented in 2024 and 2025. She noted that ongoing measures—many of which are expected to continue through 2027—were not fully captured in the report.  

The minister also emphasized that the use of study permit allocations varies by province and educational institution and is not entirely within IRCC’s control.  

She agreed that more needs to be done to strengthen follow-up on cases involving suspected fraud.  

The OAG report makes it clear that while IRCC has taken significant steps to rein in the rapid growth of Canada’s international student program, the rollout has been uneven and difficult to understand, even by IRCC itself.   

Lower-than-expected approval rates, disproportionate regional impacts, and gaps in fraud follow-up point to a system still adjusting to major policy shifts. As reforms continue throughout 2026 and 2027, the challenge for IRCC will be not just reducing numbers, but doing so in a transparent and accountable way to both applicants and Canada’s provinces.