Housing affordability one of the main issues as cabinet meets for three days in P.E.I.
The federal government is considering a cap on the number of international students to ease the pressure on the housing market, says the man now tasked with tackling Canada’s housing crisis. “I think that’s one of the options that we ought to consider,” federal Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Sean Fraser told reporters as the Liberal cabinet gathered in Charlottetown on Monday. “I think we need to do some serious thinking here.” Canada hosted more than 800,000 international students last year, according to the government’s figures.
Fraser — who was the immigration minister until last month’s cabinet shuffle — said he plans to sit down with post-secondary institutions to find out what can be done to make it easier to find living space for those students in a tight rental market.
“If they’re going to continue to bring in record numbers of students, that they are being part of the solution as well by making sure that they have a place to live,” he said.
He also took aim at institutions he accused of exploiting students and exacerbating the housing crisis. “When you see some of these institutions that have five, six times as many students enrolled as they have spaces for them in the building … you’ve got to start to ask yourself some pretty tough questions,” he said. There are good private institutions out there and separating the wheat from the chaff is going to be a big focus of the work that I tried to do with [Immigration Minister Marc] Miller.”..
Source: cbc.ca/news
Saturday, April 18, 2026
