Canada has said it will cap the number of foreign students admitted to the country for two years in an attempt to address pressure on housing and healthcare in the country.

The cap will result in a decrease of 35% in approved study permits.

Over 800,000 foreign students were in Canada in 2022, up from 214,000 a decade earlier.

The new measures are also meant to ensure the “integrity” of the system, officials said. 

Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced the cap on Monday, saying that Canada aims to approve around 360,000 undergraduate study permits this year.

Each province and territory will be allotted a portion of that total, determined by population and current student intake. Provinces will then decide how to distribute these permits across their universities and colleges.

The cap will only apply to students at a diploma or undergraduate programme, and will not affect students applying for study permit renewals.

As part of the change, the government will also no longer – as of September – grant work permits for students graduating from colleges that operate under a public-private partnership model, which is most commonly found in the province of Ontario. 

“It’s unacceptable that some private institutions have taken advantage of international students by operating under-resourced campuses, lacking supports for students and charging high tuition fees, all while significantly increasing their intake of international students,” Mr Miller said.

He said the new measures are “not against individual international students” but are meant to ensure future students receive a “quality of education that they signed up for”.

The announcement also comes as the Trudeau government faces growing pressure to address an increasingly unaffordable housing market.

Home prices in Canada now average C$750,000 ($550,000;£435,000) and rent for Canadians has risen 22% in the last two years.

Some economists have linked housing unaffordability to a spike in immigration, as home construction has not kept up with Canada’s unprecedented population growth.

In 2022, the country grew by over a million people in the span of one year for the first time ever – a growth largely driven by newcomers. Last year Canada’s population hit a record of 40 million people.