Study Permits, Housing and Status Precarity: The Legal World for the International Student in Canada

Canadian journalists have produced a furry of different op-eds and articles on the role of international students in Canada, and their impact on the rental housing market. Recent policy initiatives by the Federal Government has sought to impose restrictions on international students coming to Canada. All of this has left an unfortunate impression upon the Canadian public that international students exacerbate the domestic housing crisis or otherwise burden Canada. Yet no one asks about whether Canada has created a legal system for international students that is fair and just for them. In this talk, Zac Couture will explore the ways in which the precarity of status that arises from Canada’s immigration law system extends to create legal and social inequities outside of immigration matters. This includes disadvantage and inaccess to justice for matters of tenant rights and tenancy law, but also to the social construction of race and belonging in Canada.

Zachary (Zakaria) Jericho Couture is a law student and activist from Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta). Through legal advocacy, creative theory and education, Zac hopes to advance solidarity work, as well as anti-racist and decolonial frameworks. Zac is currently conducting research and editing in support of a consultancy report to the International Labour Organization on migrant worker access to justice. He is also working with Edelmann Law, a leading refugee and “crimmigration” firm, to research bias in findings of criminal inadmissibility of migrants to Canada.