Lesser number of Indian students are headed to Canada, new data has revealed. The number of Indian students fell drastically to 8.1% of the total international student population in Canada by September 2025. Indians comprised 51.6% of the incoming students in 2023 which fell to 33.6% in 2024. This was revealed in a report- International Student Program Reforms- tabled in Canadian Parliament on Monday by the country’s Auditor General.
Canada introduced reforms to the international student program in order to limit the number of applications from international students, after the numbers went up by 121 per cent between 2019 and 2023. It was observed that many students were not attending the academic institutions that accepted them. The report found reforms for improving the integrity of the program “fell short” in key areas. It claimed that out of 153,324 students identified as potentially non-compliant with study permit conditions in 2023 and 2024, the immigration department could only investigate about 2,000 a year.
The report found Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) did not follow up on 800 students who were found to have mispresented themselves or used fraudulent documents, after study permits were issued to them between 2018 and 2023. Most of these students later applied for other immigration permits while in Canada, and more than half of those permits have been approved, the report found. 105 people were approved for permanent resident status while 110 have applied for asylum.
Promising action on the report, Canada’s Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab said in a written statement, “The measures are working, but more can be done. Canada’s new government is taking back control of our immigration system and reducing the temporary population to below five per cent of Canada’s population by the end of 2027.”
A key part of the government’s plan is putting hard caps on the number of international students admitted to Canada each year. And it is already showing results. The auditor’s report says that new student visa approvals were far below their predicted levels in both 2024 and 2025. According to government data, 74% of Indian study permit applications were rejected in August 2025, compared to 32% rejections in August 2023. This, combined with the violence faced by Indian students in Canada, could push the numbers down further.
In its reply to a question about the safety of Indian students abroad, the Ministry of External Affairs disclosed in Parliament that 14 students were killed in violent attacks in Canada between 2021-26 with the maximum- 11 deaths- occurring in 2024. In the latest incident, 22-year-old Birinder Singh was shot dead while driving on a highway south of Leduc on March 14. He was an international student from India who had just secured a work permit for a job in Edmonton. Two of his friends, who were in the car with him at the time of the shooting, said they could not understand why Birinder was shot. An 18-year-old has been arrested for the killing although police has not been able to determine yet whether it was a hate crime.
In an interview to CBC News, one of the friends, who requested anonymity because of safety concerns, said, “We used to hear back home in Punjab that Canada is very safe, but now it doesn’t feel that way.” He added that reading hateful and racist comments online following the incident had made the situation even more painful. The World Sikh Organisation of Canada had called upon the police to investigate the shooting as a hate crime. In a press release, the organisation said, “the incident comes amid a disturbing rise in anti-Sikh hate across Canada including crimes and incidents targeting Sikhs.”
India has been Canada’s biggest source of international students for more than a decade. But the country once viewed as a top global study destination by Indian students is losing its sheen as the path to permanent residency and employment opportunities becomes tougher.
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