International Students: Old Fears and New Scapegoats

by Catherine Mwitta for The 44 North, Contributing Writer - Politics

An artistic rendering of immigration via figurines walking across stamped passports while pushing suitcase trolleys.

Editor's Note:

The following article reflects the views & analysis of the author. As with all opinion and essay submissions, the piece has been edited for clarity and reviewed carefully for factual accuracy, but the interpretations & arguments are the author’s own. The 44 North publishes an array of perspectives & voices to encourage and ensure thoughtful engagement with complex social, political, historical, and cultural issues.

As Canada faces a cost-of-living crisis, politicians are reviving a long history of blaming newcomers—this time, targeting international students. 

In 1869, the Canadian Immigration Act discriminated against immigrants on the grounds of class and disability. The federal government enacted further measures to restrict Chinese immigration, including a head tax and the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. Additional racial and national restrictions were introduced after the First World War: Under a revised Immigration Act in 1919, the government excluded specific groups from entering the country, including Communists, Mennonites, Doukhobors, and other groups with particular religious practices, such as Judaism, as well as nationalities whose countries had fought against Canada during the First World War, such as Austrians, Hungarians, and Turks. 

Via The Canadian Encyclopedia: Southeast Asian refugees at CFB Griesbach Military Base in Edmonton, August 1979. Photo: © Murray Mosher. Courtesy of The Canadian Immigration Historical Society.

Until 1976, it seemed immigration in Canada was largely an “open door” policy privileging whiteness and interest in Western Canada settlement. Changes to prior immigration policies occurred to address severe labour market shortages and adjust to shifting global demographics. As Canada’s economic goals expanded, immigration policy evolved to include multicultural policy embedded in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 and again in 1988 via the Canadian Multicultural Act. Both have promoted economic growth by increasing the labour supply while promising strong human rights and safety guarantees for newcomers from diverse backgrounds. Over time, the demographics of immigrants arriving in Canada shifted from largely British and Western European to Asian (Indian, Filipino, Chinese).

Over thirty-five years later, 2024 saw the highest levels of immigration in over a decade. 483,390 new permanent residents arrived in Canada, and approximately 292,970 new international students received permits. At the same time, housing and healthcare issues within the country came to a head. 

Long wait times in hospital emergency rooms and the shortage of family doctors are among the many issues the Canadian healthcare system faces, which have led to worsening patient outcomes. Similarly, rent prices in Canada rose 5.9 percent in 2024 compared to 2023. The Toronto metropolitan area, in particular, saw an overall 5.1 percent increase in rent for two-bedroom units, from $2,560 in the first quarter of 2019 to $2,690 in the first quarter of 2025. 

Via International Business University

Canadians have raised concerns about the cost of living and quality of life with their members of parliament. During Canada’s last federal election and in its wake, both Conservative and Liberal politicians have used these pain points as campaign guideposts. This isn’t unusual, but something is different this time: Several mostly Conservative leaders and MPs have positioned international students as the main reason for their concerns. 

Immigration Minister Marc Miller and Ontario Premier Doug Ford have both placed blame for the rapid growth in international student enrollment on private colleges, with the federal Liberal Party going so far as to announce a cap on international student enrollment from 2025 to 2027. Further, according to the Centre of Excellence of the Canadian Federation, there has been a sharp rise in anti-immigration sentiment across all age groups in Canada. Online rhetoric, such as from notable TikTokers, is stoking anti-immigrant views. 

The Eye Opener, a Toronto Metropolitan University Newspaper, interviewed South Asian international students about the rise of xenophobia in Canada. Aasim Ul Haq Khwaja, a second-year business technology management student, said the first thing his family asks him when they call is whether he feels safe. Priyanka Prakash, a third-year food and nutrition student, and Harshi Shah, another third-year nutrition and food student, both said phone calls back home predominantly consist of family members asking about their safety in Toronto. 

Between 2020 and 2023, police in the Waterloo region logged 387 race-based hate crimes, with a significant increase in incidents targeting South Asians as international student numbers simultaneously surged. In 2023 alone, South Asians accounted for one in six reported race-based hate crimes, up from one in ten the previous year. Most of these crimes involved threats or graffiti, but 12 percent escalated to physical assault.

Via Waterloo Regional Police Service

Meanwhile, in Ontario—the province with the second-highest cost of living—the Conservative Party plans to remove rent control, has expanded funding for private clinics to 300 times that of public hospitals, and has changed OSAP policies in favour of loans rather than grants, reducing post-secondary affordability. Politicians and government officials have yet to take accountability here. Hypothetically, if the influx of international students and immigrants is too great for our healthcare, living, and education systems, then there’s still a vital distinction to make: This is most likely a government policy failure, not necessarily the fault of international students and immigrants.

Whenever a country faces systemic failures, it’s easy to use immigrants as a tool to either bolster the economy or excuse governmental failures. Canada is no different, despite the “goodwill” pedestal it tends to stand on, courtesy of its proximity to the more overt anti-immigration practices in the US. International students have long been used as “cash cows” for underfunded public and private universities and colleges, especially in Ontario. They’ve worked jobs no one else wanted, particularly under-the-table jobs, which frequently resulted in unfair treatment and abuse in the workplace. Yet, amid rising housing prices and the cost of living rising exponentially each year, politicians seem more desperate, and therefore, more apt to use international students as scapegoats instead of repealing harmful policies. 

Currently, the federal government is looking to launch a new cap on international students by 2027. These sentiments were reinforced by King Charles and Prime Minister Mark Carney. As Canada continues to dismiss or ignore systemic issues within its society, the blame is bound to shift to another. 

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Catherine Mwitta has a bachelor’s in creative writing from Kwantlen Polytechnic University and a certification in Journalism from Langara College. She is an editor at Augur Magazine and INKspire. Likewise, bylines at Stir Vancouver, SAD Mag, This Magazine, C Magazine and Bluffs Monitor.

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Police Presence Has Increased on the TTC. But How Can We Truly Measure the Feeling of Safety?

by Wardah Malik for The 44 North, Contributing Writer - Politics

Police officers at the Union Station PATH entrance

"While the feeling of safety is difficult to pinpoint, what is known is that many transit riders do not associate police with safety. " 

Half of Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) riders don’t feel safe using the system. At least, that’s the impression you might get scrolling through Councillor Brad Bradford’s (Beaches—East York) social media. He has made transit safety a major pillar of his mayoral campaign, arguing for increased regulation. His latest motion to place police officers at every station was approved in March. Despite overall crime rates declining, Councillor Bradford maintains that “safety isn’t defined by statistics in a spreadsheet. It’s about how people feel.” If that’s the case, how do we know whether increased police presence actually leads to greater safety? In other words, can the feeling of safety truly be measured?

On July 7, 2023, a graphic video of a man being stabbed inside a Toronto subway car circulated widely on social media. In the shaky footage, a passenger can be heard yelling, "Help him. He’s stabbing him up. He’s killing him.” The fear in the speaker's voice resonated with viewers, many of whom cite the incident, along with other viral videos depicting violent episodes on the TTC, as evidence in favour of increased security measures on the transit system. These videos and images, while useful for holding individuals accountable, also have the effect of creating an environment of heightened unease and judgment. Online forums, in particular, have contributed to this dynamic. “Oh, another one?” one user writes in response to a March stabbing. “More poverty, more problems,” says another. Although reductive, these comments reflect and reinforce broader conversations taking place beyond digital spaces. Incidents of violent crime are being treated as a marker of the TTC and are increasingly being used to advocate for stricter policing of public spaces. In an article for the National Post, Councillor Bradford writes, “It’s the indiscriminate nature of these incidents that stays with you, the fact that in a crowded vehicle or on a narrow platform, there is nowhere to go when trouble begins.” 

Toronto police presence on the TTC subway system, January 2023. Via CITYNEWS/Sean Toussaint

For Councillor Bradford, the high-profile incidents of recent years are not isolated events. Instead, they reveal a trend and serve as a warning for TTC riders: On your next commute, you could be the victim of an attack. While the TTC insists that this isn’t the case and hundreds of millions of trips go on every year “without incident,” its own data complicates that narrative. In a 2024 annual report, the TTC noted that Special Constables made 215 apprehensions under the Mental Health Act, an increase of 9% from the previous year. The report described these apprehensions as responses to “calls received for persons who were in distress or posed a threat to themselves or others.” A 2025 investigation by CBC and the Investigative Journalism Foundation adds to this, finding that the number of reported assaults on Toronto-area transit increased by 160 percent between 2016 and 2024. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf2xhFNyDh4

The rise of violence on the TTC is difficult to attribute to a single cause. However, many experts argue that these incidents signal an urgent need for better support services for people struggling with homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. Often described as a microcosm of Toronto, the TTC reflects broader dynamics across the city and reproduces the tensions that exist beyond the platform. This means that high rental costs, overcrowded shelters and warming centers, and a growing housing affordability crisis will inevitably translate to more people using subways and streetcars as “makeshift bedrooms.” At the same time, the closure of supervised consumption sites has contributed to more visible drug use and discarded equipment across the TTC system. 

And although the TTC and the City of Toronto have taken action to minimize these impacts through the introduction of several programs (including community safety ambassadors and security officers), many argue that it’s simply not enough support. Frontline transit workers, specifically, have called for more overdose response teams, outreach and crisis workers, and mental health professionals to ease their burden and reduce the expectation that they act as social workers to counsel vulnerable riders and de-escalate emergencies. However, rather than responding more robustly to this call, Councillor Bradford and others who view policing as a means of creating a safer Toronto have opted to increase police presence. 

“We agree that the burden of responding to emergencies shouldn’t be placed on transit workers alone. However, we also know that police often escalate tensions on transit by, for example, harassing riders and using unnecessary force. Expanding police presence on the TTC contributes to a culture of fear within communities that are already overpoliced, such as racialized riders, Indigenous riders, immigrants, unhoused people, and people experiencing mental health crises,” Nico Nothwehr from the transit advocacy organization TTCRiders tells The 44 North. 

A case study by the Ontario Human Rights Commission reaffirmed these concerns, showing that Black people in Toronto were 3.25 times more likely to experience a Toronto Police Service check than White people. The study’s community consultations also called for greater investment in social programs rather than policing, arguing that reallocating funding toward community supports would create safer, healthier, and more equitable communities that are less reliant on police services. On the TTC, this could mean expanding community-based, health-focused responses that de-escalate emergencies and strengthen non-police mental health crisis services.

Past initiatives have already demonstrated the effectiveness of these approaches. For example, the Toronto Community Crisis Service (TCCS), a free, confidential, 24/7 mobile mental health crisis response service that is available citywide to people 16 years of age and older, received more than 29,000 calls for service in 2024 and dispatched mobile crisis teams over 23,000 times across the city. Notably, 78 percent of calls transferred to TCCS by 911 were successfully resolved without any police involvement, demonstrating that non-police crisis response models can effectively support public safety while reducing unnecessary police interactions. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR0-Yo3pn7w

Still, even as advocates and community organizations continue to call for expanded, permanent support services and raise concerns about overpolicing, the TTC has steadily increased police presence across its properties and vehicles since 2021, arguably in an effort to restore pre-pandemic ridership levels. However, this strategy hasn't necessarily made riders safer. That reality makes it difficult to believe that Councillor Bradford’s latest policy will do anything other than target the city’s most vulnerable residents to create an immeasurable feeling of safety for a select few. In fact, over time, this policy will likely do more harm than good. It risks normalizing an expanded police presence in public spaces and making people increasingly dependent on policing as the primary model of safety. 

While the feeling of safety is difficult to pinpoint, what is known is that many transit riders do not associate police with safety. Policy-makers mustn’t ignore this and, instead, use it to guide consultations and engagement with riders on what truly brings about community well-being. And although a new TTC safety plan to implement a crisis worker program is a step in the right direction, issues beyond the platform need to be addressed as well. For Nothwehr, “[T]he most effective solutions will be upstream—like increasing the number of dignified and accessible shelter spaces, building more supportive housing units that use a housing first approach, reopening supervised consumption sites, and increasing funding for mental health and addiction supports.”

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Wardah Malik is a Toronto-based researcher, editor, and historian. She is the founder of Historyless Magazine, an independent publication covering global affairs and underreported political narratives. Her work spans media, human rights, and community-based research, including projects on press freedom, public health, and gender-based violence. Her research interests include governance, decolonizing language, and the preservation of underrepresented histories. Wardah holds an MPhil in World History from the University of Cambridge.

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Watching Minneapolis from Canada: When Power Stops Explaining Itself​

by Gillian Smith-Clark for The 44 North

Editor-in-Chief

Canadian Border Inspection sign on a fence

"Young Canadians, in particular, are acutely aware of this permeability. Many consume U.S. news in real time, encounter the same viral footage, and experience the same unease when democratic norms appear fragile. The fear is not that Canada is identical to the United States, but that no democracy is immune to erosion—especially when power begins to justify itself rather than explain itself." ​​

“Yet our greatest threat isn’t the outsiders among us,

but those among us who never look within.

Fear not those without papers,

but those without conscience.”

—“For Alex Jeffrey Pretti, Murdered by I.C.E., January 24, 2026”

Amanda Gorman

In the wake of at least 32 people dying in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2025, came the deadly killings of two civilians—Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti—in early 2026. The Orwellian echoes in the Trump administration’s response to both deaths reverberated far beyond the borders of the United States.

In Canada, and elsewhere, the reaction has been a mixture of rage, grief, disbelief, and deep unease. Not only because lives were lost, but because of how they were lost—and which lives were publicly named, mourned, or quietly omitted. Conflicting official accounts, disputed video evidence, victim-blaming, and the rapid hardening of narratives left little room for accountability, introspection, or restraint.

What has also gone largely unexamined is who has been missing from much of the coverage. Keith Porter, a Black man, and Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant, were also killed in the context of immigration enforcement—yet their names have been far less widely reported. Whether through indifference or intention, this silence compounds the violence itself. It suggests that some deaths demand explanation, while others are simply absorbed into the background noise of enforcement.

What makes these events so unsettling is not simply that violence occurred; it is what they suggest about a broader shift in how state power is exercised and justified. When lethal force is deployed against civilians in the name of law enforcement, and transparency and accountability lag behind, trust erodes quickly—not only within the communities directly affected, but across borders. Minneapolis, in this sense, is not an isolated flashpoint. It is a critical juncture.

Over the past several years, immigration enforcement in the United States has become increasingly militarized, with expanded authority, aggressive tactics, and limited public oversight. Federal agencies tasked with civil enforcement now operate with levels of force once reserved for national security operations. At the same time, rapid expansion and accelerated hiring have raised troubling questions about training, qualifications, and oversight. These shifts have unfolded gradually, often justified as necessary responses to crisis or disorder. But their cumulative effect is profound: the normalization of state violence in spaces where civilians expect protection, not confrontation.

For Canadians watching closely, this raises uncomfortable questions. Canada often defines itself in contrast to the United States — as more restrained, more human-rights-focused, more humane in its approach to immigration and policing. And in many respects, those distinctions matter. But proximity matters too. The two countries share deeply intertwined roots: colonialism, families, economies, media ecosystems, and political currents. What happens in the U.S. does not stay there—not culturally, not economically, and not psychologically.

Young Canadians, in particular, are acutely aware of this permeability. Many consume U.S. news in real time, encounter the same viral footage, and experience the same unease when democratic norms appear fragile. The fear is not that Canada is identical to the United States, but that no democracy is immune to erosion—especially when power begins to justify itself rather than explain itself.

This broader sense of rupture was articulated by Mark Carney in his recent address at the World Economic Forum. Speaking to an audience grappling with global instability, Carney argued that the assumptions underpinning the postwar international order—shared rules, dependable allies, and a baseline commitment to human rights—can no longer be taken for granted. The world, he suggested, has entered a period in which power is more frequently asserted than constrained.

In that context, Carney called on so-called “middle power” countries like Canada to rethink their posture—not by retreating into isolation, and not by clinging uncritically to old alignments, but by building strategic autonomy: the capacity to act independently in defence of national interests while remaining anchored to core values such as human rights, sovereignty, and the rule of law. He acknowledged the understandable impulse toward protectionism, but cautioned:

“A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable. And there is another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transnationalism will become harder to replicate.”

Strategic autonomy is often misunderstood as a turn inward. In reality, it is about resilience and choice. It means diversifying partnerships so that no single relationship becomes a point of vulnerability. It means ensuring that economic security and diplomatic decisions reflect democratic values rather than sheer necessity. And it means strengthening institutions at home so that rights are not contingent on political mood or external pressure.

The relevance of this framework becomes clearer when viewed alongside events like those in Minneapolis. When even close allies act unpredictably—or in ways that challenge shared norms—alignment alone is no longer sufficient. Despite the claims of a vocal minority, values cannot be outsourced, nor can accountability be assumed. Strategic autonomy, seen in this light, is not about distancing Canada from the world, but about ensuring that engagement does not come at the cost of founding principles.

Why This Matters Now

Borders don’t stop instability.

Events in the U.S.—especially those involving state violence and civil liberties—reverberate outward and cross borders. For Canadians, geographic and cultural proximity means exposure, whether we welcome it or not.

Values require action.

Human rights and accountability depend on both institutions and individuals willing to defend them, particularly when norms begin to erode elsewhere.

Strategic autonomy is about protection, not isolation.

It is the ability to act with clarity and independence in a world where power is increasingly transactional.

Young people are inheriting this landscape.

The generation coming of age now faces overlapping crises—democratic backsliding, climate instability, and rising state coercion. Understanding how power operates is no longer abstract. It is urgent and personal.

Final Thoughts

What is unfolding in Minneapolis is not simply an American story, nor is it one Canadians can afford to watch with detached concern. It is a reminder that rights often erode quietly before they disappear loudly—and that proximity to power does not guarantee protection from its excesses.

It is also a moment to think seriously about what both our shared and individual values actually are. A starting point may be the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reminds us that “the recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

Canada’s task in this moment is neither complacency nor moral superiority, but clarity: recognizing that human rights, accountability, and dignity must be actively defended, even when doing so is uncomfortable or costly.

Strategic autonomy, as Carney argued, is ultimately about responsibility—the responsibility to choose principle over convenience, to resist the normalization of violence, and to insist that power remains answerable to the people it claims to serve.

That work is unfinished. It must not be abdicated. And it belongs, in different ways, to all of us.

We can all insist on naming what institutions often erase—the people who disappear not only from life, but from memory:

“Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,

crouches our power, the howl where we begin,

straining upon the edge of the crooked crater

of the worst of what we’ve been.”

—“For Renée Nicole Good,”

killed by I.C.E., January 7, 2026

Amanda Gorman