While India-Canada relations are tense as a result of claims made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau against India, another major issue confronting Indian students here is a dearth of work possibilities.



According to data, 226,450 Indian students arrived in Canada in 2022 to pursue higher education, making India the biggest source country of new international students entering the North American country last year.

According to the worldwide education search platform Erudera, the overall number of international students in Canada at all education levels, including higher education, is 807,750. Last year, 551,405 of these people were granted a study permit in Canada.

According to Erudera data, India will have the most study permit holders in Canada in 2022, with 226,450 students.

"I'm not thinking much about the India-Canada schism." My future worries and concerns me more. "There is a severe shortage of jobs here, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to find work once I finish my studies," Harwinder (name changed on request to protect his identity) told PTI here.

A similar view was expressed by other Indian students in the Greater Toronto Area.

Mayank (who did not want to reveal his last name) is studying health services at a university in the Greater Toronto Area.

While he and his friends have not faced any issues as a result of the diplomatic deadlock between Delhi and Ottawa, he says the prospect of not finding work once he completes his education in Toronto is giving him nightmares.

"I know several Indian medical students here who have been unable to find decent-paying jobs and are driving cabs and working in stores and restaurants to make ends meet." "We are in a very difficult situation," he remarked.

The high expense of living in and around Toronto and other Canadian cities is also affecting students, who are forced to live in cramped quarters to save money on rent and other necessities.

"We came with the hope that once we finished our education here, we would be able to find well-paying jobs and support our parents and families back home in India." But there are no jobs; the expense of living and healthcare is exorbitant, and we are fighting to make ends meet," claimed another unnamed Indian student from Haryana.

Following Trudeau's claims in the Canadian Parliament last month, India and Canada are locked in a diplomatic impasse.

He claimed that "Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing" of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil on June 18 in British Columbia, a charge that New Delhi scornfully dismissed as "absurd" and "motivated."

Earlier this week, India requested that Canada withdraw several dozen ambassadors from its posts in the midst of the intensifying diplomatic row sparked by Trudeau's allegation.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi stated that conversations on the mechanisms for establishing a mutual diplomatic presence are ongoing, and that India will not reconsider its stand on the matter.

According to ICEF Monitor, a worldwide education industry market intelligence resource, there will be 320,000 Indian students with active study permits at the end of December 2022, a 47 percent increase from the previous year.

"Indian students accounted for nearly four out of every ten foreign students in Canada as of the end of 2022," the monitoring organization claimed.

The Indian pupils described their hardships as similar to being caught between a rock and a hard place.

They discussed the difficulties their family and parents in India had to overcome in order to transfer them abroad for further education.

"Parents have had to sell properties, land, take massive loans to pay for the higher education of their children in Canada," they said.

"Our parents invested a lot of money to send us to Canada to study. We had imagined that once here, we would not take a cent from our parents and would instead be able to aid our families back home financially. We had hoped to find solid work in India that would sustain us and allow us to care for our family. "We are unable to do so," Mayank stated.