Public Accounts

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts met to study the Auditor General’s 2026 report on reforms to the International Student Program. Appearing were Karen Hogan, Auditor General of Canada; Ted Gallivan, Deputy Minister of Citizenship and Immigration; Alexis Graham, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister of Economic Programs at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC); Tara Lang, Director General of Admissibility at IRCC; and Aaron McCrorie, Vice-President of Intelligence and Enforcement at the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

Karen Hogan stated that IRCC reduced new study permits to under 150,000 in 2024, well below the forecast of 350,000, but that smaller provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan were disproportionately affected, seeing decreases of at least 59% when increases were expected. She found critical integrity weaknesses: of over 153,000 potential non-compliance cases flagged by learning institutions in 2023-2024, only about 4,000 were investigated, and most cases were closed because students did not respond. She also noted that 800 fraud cases identified after permit approval received no follow-up, and that over half of those individuals later had subsequent immigration applications approved. She recommended better collaboration with CBSA to track whether students with expired permits leave Canada, noting that only about 40% of 39,500 students required to leave in 2024 had done so.

Ted Gallivan acknowledged the Auditor General’s findings and said IRCC has an action plan to be completed by 2026, including following up on all potential fraud cases and better managing visa expirations. He agreed that the department had not done the homework to distill the 153,000 flagged cases into actual fraud numbers, but said subsequent work reduced that figure to 22% potential fraud. He committed to ensuring all indicators are followed through on and to applying extra scrutiny to students who entered through the discontinued student direct stream when they apply for renewals or other status.

Alexis Graham explained that the drop in approval rates is partly due to a transition from a facilitative approach to a more controlled program with allocations, and that recruitment practices of provinces and institutions also play a role. She said IRCC is engaging with provinces to adjust the allocation formula, including giving more allocations to jurisdictions with higher refusal rates so they are not penalized, and noted that the proportion of university-bound students has returned to pre-pandemic levels of about 40%.

Tara Lang clarified that when cases are referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board, officers have discretion on whether to intervene based on factors like misrepresentation or criminality, and that not every overstay automatically triggers intervention.

Aaron McCrorie said CBSA works closely with IRCC, citing a 2023 case where they collaborated to address fraudulent letters and remove non-genuine students. He noted that CBSA co-manages security screening with IRCC and CSIS, and that the agency is moving to a more risk-based approach to speed up decisions on low-risk files while focusing on higher-risk ones. He reported that CBSA conducted about 23,000 removals last year, prioritizing those involved in criminality.

During the meeting, a motion was moved by Ned Kuruc requesting that the committee write to the Auditor General to expand the scope of her audit to include topics such as coordination between IRCC and CBSA, non-compliance by learning institutions, and fraud detection across streams. After debate, the motion was amended to change “undertake” to “request” and to remove the line reporting the request to the House. The motion as amended was then adopted.

A second motion was moved by Sébastien Lemire requesting a follow-up study on the Benefits Delivery Modernization Programme, including the production of documents from several departments and the summoning of former officials. After debate and an amendment to replace “management” with “estimates and costs” and to extend the production deadline to before the start of the fall session, the motion as amended was adopted.