As the government tries to staunch an overflow of temporary immigration, tens of thousands of students and recent grads may be forced to leave. Here are their stories.
For a while, bringing hundreds of thousands of international students into Canada seemed like a great idea. It was a windfall for universities and colleges, and the students helped fill Canada’s labour gaps. In exchange, they were promised post-graduation work permits, or PGWPs, and all but guaranteed a pathway to becoming Canadian citizens. In 2019, 638,000 international students lived in Canada. Last year, the number had passed one million. Then, in 2022, in response to labour shortages, the federal government offered an 18-month extension for PGWPs. By last December, there were nearly 400,000 PGWP holders in Canada. But it was a massive miscalculation. Canadians now blame immigrants, including international students, for national housing shortages and an overburdened health-care system. In response, the government slammed shut the doors it had previously thrown open. In December of 2023, the feds ended pandemic-era PGWP extensions. For many students and recent graduates, the changes are devastating; they’ll be forced to leave the country, when they had every reason to think they’d be able to stay. At Maclean’s, we wondered how these would-be Canadians were coping. So we found four of them to tell us their stories. |
In early September, school boards across the country announced that kids would no longer be allowed to use their smartphones in class. A few months later, not much has changed. Kids still sneak their phones onto their desks, hide them behind books and look down at them in their laps. How did the lofty smartphone ban fall apart? From our December issue, read Luc Rinaldi’s story, “Schools vs. Screens.” It’s a vivid portrait of the state of education in Canada and the challenge of trying to go tech-free. |
The masks at the Audain Art Museum’s new exhibit are visions of ferocious femininity. One shows a woman with salmon woven into her hair. Another features a figure with a sharp, beak-like nose, morphing into an eagle spirit. Curators Dana Claxton, an artist from Wood Mountain Lakota First Nations in Saskatchewan, and Curtis Collins, the museum’s director and chief curator, selected more than 130 sculptures for the show, which spans 80 years of Indigenous artistry from the Northwest Coast. Here, Collins and Claxton discuss several of the carvings they’re showcasing. |
Three of Toronto’s most dynamic theatre companies—Crow’s Theatre, Soulpepper and the Young Centre—have teamed up to revive the 2023 play The Master Plan, a hilarious satire about Google’s ill-fated bid to turn Toronto’s waterfront into a so-called smart city, based on Globe and Mail journalist Josh O’Kane’s book about the disastrous plan. Originally pitched in 2017 as a futuristic hub featuring self-driving cars and heated sidewalks, Google’s project collapsed under the weight of angry residents, tangled bylaws and corporate hubris. This time, playwright Michael Healey does double duty, acting as a Norway maple tree who narrates the chaos. |
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