The Canadian government is reportedly seeking the authority to enforce a mass cancellation of temporary visas for certain groups of visa holders from India, partly due to concerns of fraud.
Apart from India, this also concerns Bangladesh, as the two countries have been termed "country-specific challenges" in a departmental presentation before the immigration minister's office, a CBC News report said, citing internal documents.
According to Canadian agencies like the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), as well as unnamed US partners, the aim was to identify and cancel fraudulent visitor visa applications.
In that regard, these agencies have formed a working group with the aim of aiding Canadian authorities in refusing and cancelling such visa applications.
The report added that a section of the presentation also showed how the mass cancellation powers sought by these agencies could be used in hypothetical situations, such as in pandemics, wars, or in the case of “country-specific visa holders".
However, Immigration Minister Lena Diab has only publicly talked about a pandemic or war as the reason behind why the government was seeking mass visa cancellation powers under a pending legislation, and not "country-specific visa holders".
This pending legislation is currently tabled in the Canadian parliament under Bill C-12—once a part of the contentious Bill C-2 (for the Mark Carney government's Strong Borders Act).
This follows a Reuters report highlighting that about 74 per cent of Indian student visa applications (in August 2025) were rejected, as per immigration statistics—a huge increase from about 32 per cent in August 2023. This, in turn has led to a decline in the number of Indian student visa applications made over the same period—4,515 in August 2025, as compared to a whopping 20,900 in August 2023.
"74% of Indian applicants for Canadian study permits in August were rejected, up from 32% in August 2023"
— Ritesh Jain (@riteshmjn) November 3, 2025
According to some analysts .. Indian students' business is worth 26 billion USD annually for Canadian eco system. Most of these frauds happen in community colleges where you… pic.twitter.com/XrEQLuS4vB
This comes despite India and the Carney-led Canadian government looking to slowly mend ties after more than a year of diplomatic tensions between New Delhi and Ottawa when Justin Trudeau was in power.
About time.
— Kirk Lubimov (@KirkLubimov) November 4, 2025
74% of study permits from India have been rejected in August. Hopefully it's a new trend.
Even India has been warning Canada of this.
Now that we admit we have a problem; how about investigating everyone involved and all previous visas?
None of them had background… pic.twitter.com/BJdYmQELuJ
The presentation also spoke of an increase in asylum claims from Indian nationals—from 500 in May 2023 to 2,000 by July 2024—as well as an increase in "no boards" (passengers blocked from boarding flights) to 1,873 by the end of July 2024. No such data about Bangladesh was provided in the document, the report explained.
This reportedly put the onus on verifying Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) applications properly, which led to an increase in processing time for Indian applications from about 30 days to about 54 days.
“The ability to cancel temporary resident documents reduces security risks and limits potential misuse of such documents,” noted a October 2024 IRCC memorandum to then immigration minister Marc Miller.
