As Ottawa considers a cap on international students, the federal housing minister says challenges of the growing population are driven by temporary programs that are not capped.

He says in particular, the international student program in the last couple of years has grown by hundreds of thousands of people annually.

Fraser believes some institutions exploit the program for financial gains and the government must address the problem.

He says, “We’re working to create a trusted partner model with institutions who have a history of providing support for students and will give them preferred access to study permits.”

He says they’ll continue to work with employers to ensure that “the workers they bring here are not in positions that could not be filled by a domestic worker who is looking for an opportunity to be meaningfully employed.”

Fraser says by working across levels of government, they can restore program integrity and help achieve both their economic and homebuilding goals “by ensuring population growth does not outstrip our ability to produce homes.”