The federal immigration system is struggling to keep pace with its own safeguards. That’s the blunt assessment from Auditor General Karen Hogan, whose latest review exposed serious gaps in how Canada tracks international students after they arrive. For a country that welcomed hundreds of thousands of study permit holders in recent years, the findings raise uncomfortable questions about enforcement capacity and border integrity.
Hogan’s audit, released Monday, examined the International Student Program and found that roughly 150,000 cases were flagged in 2023 and 2024 for possible non-compliance. Most of these flags were triggered because students appeared not to be attending the schools that sponsored their permits. It’s a basic compliance measure: if you’re here to study, you should be studying. But the department launched investigations into only about 4,000 of those cases.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada doesn’t dispute the numbers. Officials told the auditor they have budget for roughly 2,000 investigations per year through 2028. That’s less than two percent of the flagged cases from the audit period. The backlog isn’t just administrative clutter—it represents thousands of individuals whose immigration status may be based on conditions they’re not meeting.
Of the investigations that did proceed, 1,600 were marked inconclusive. Why? The students didn’t respond. IRCC makes two attempts to reach someone before closing the file, a process that takes about six months. Once a file goes inconclusive, there’s no follow-up. The person remains in Canada under the original permit terms, even though the department couldn’t verify compliance.
The audit also uncovered another enforcement gap that predates the recent surge in student arrivals. Between 2018 and 2023, immigration officials identified roughly 800 applicants who used fraudulent documents or misrepresented information on their study permit applications. The department took no follow-up action in these cases. Hogan’s report described this inaction as a “serious concern,” noting that future immigration applications from these individuals would proceed without any red flags on file.
What happened to those 800 individuals? The audit found that 92 percent applied for some other form of immigration status to remain in Canada. And 456 of them received approvals. The system flagged them once, then allowed them to move forward as if nothing had been noted.
Tracking who leaves Canada is equally murky. The audit examined 549,000 people whose study permits expired in 2024. Of those, 93 percent were allowed to remain in the country under extensions or new applications. That left about 39,500 individuals who were expected to leave. IRCC worked with the Canada Border Services Agency to confirm actual departures. Only around 16,000 of those people left the country. The whereabouts of the remaining 23,500 are unknown.
IRCC has no systematic way to track exits. The department doesn’t share lists of expired permit holders with CBSA unless those individuals have already applied for new status. Hogan recommended changing that practice so border officials can better monitor who’s leaving and who’s staying beyond their authorized period.
Immigration Minister Lena Diab appeared before the House of Commons immigration committee on Monday and acknowledged the findings. She noted that she was minister for only four of the 18 months covered by the audit, describing the review as “a preliminary look” at reforms already underway. Diab emphasized that the government has moved to reduce student numbers and tighten program integrity, steps the auditor general did recognize in the report.
But the numbers tell a complicated story. The federal Immigration Levels Plan aims to reduce temporary residents to less than five percent of Canada’s total population by the end of 2027. Hard caps on international student admissions are a key part of that strategy. New approvals have indeed dropped—dramatically.
In 2024, IRCC approved roughly 150,000 study permits against a target of nearly 349,000. That’s a 41 percent approval rate. By September 30, 2025, only about 50,000 permits had been approved, compared to an expected 255,000. That’s a 38 percent approval rate. For context, the approval rate was 58 percent in 2023 and 54 percent in 2022.
The immigration department told the auditor it doesn’t know why approval rates are falling so sharply. Hogan’s team investigated whether new letter-of-acceptance verification rules or stricter financial requirements could explain the drop. Neither factor accounted for the scale of the decline.
Every province saw larger-than-anticipated reductions in study permit approvals. All provinces except Quebec experienced declines of more than 59 percent in 2024. IRCC had predicted fluctuations of around 10 percent in most regions, with slightly higher variability expected only in British Columbia and Ontario.
The implications are significant for postsecondary institutions that rely on international student revenue. It also affects Canada’s immigration pipeline, since the student pathway has been a primary route to permanent residency for years. If approvals remain this low without clear policy direction, universities and colleges will face budget pressures, and prospective immigrants will look elsewhere.
But the audit’s core message isn’t about approval rates. It’s about oversight. Canada built a large international student program without the enforcement infrastructure to match. Flags are raised, but investigations don’t happen. Fraud is detected, but files aren’t marked. Permits expire, but departures aren’t tracked. The system operates on trust more than verification.
Hogan’s recommendations are straightforward: increase investigation capacity, follow up on fraud cases, and share data between departments. Whether IRCC receives the budget and political support to implement those changes will determine if the next audit tells a different story.
