New Delhi: Visa fraud by Indians and Bangladeshis appears to be one reason why the Canadian government is considering a new law that would allow it to en masse cancel visas or halt the processing of applications, CBC has reported citing official documents.

A presentation by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to minister Lena Diab's office that CBC obtained identified “country-specific visa holders” apart from war and pandemics as issues that the mass cancellation provision could tackle, the broadcaster reported.

While noting that IRCC along with Canada's border services agency and unnamed ‘US partners’ were looking to ramp up the number of officials who can deny and cancel visas in light of fraud, the presentation also named India and Bangladesh as “country-specific challenges”, per CBC.

Diab has publicly invoked war and pandemics as subjects that the proposed legislation can help deal with but has never mentioned ‘country-specific visa holders’, CBC recalled.

Meanwhile, Reuters has reported that Indian study permit applicants were particularly hard-hit by Canada's decision to further decrease the number of foreign students it would allow in.

Indians also constituted the biggest nationality whose study visa applications were found to have been linked with fraudulent acceptance letters in 2023, the news agency said.

Ottawa's concerns come amid the continuing thaw in India-Canada bilateral ties after Mark Carney took office as prime minister in March, with both sides most recently deciding to increase staffing in their respective diplomatic missions.

CBC's report also said, citing the IRCC internal presentation, that asylum applications from Indians spiked to 2,000 per month in July 2024 from fewer than 500 in May 2023.

Verifying temporary visa applications made by Indian nationals was ‘slowing down application processing’, the presentation was also cited as saying.

The proposed law, which is known as ‘Bill C-12’ and is currently being considered by a committee of the lower house of Canada's parliament, would allow Ottawa to cancel or suspend visas as well as halt the processing of applications for these documents if doing so is deemed to be “in the public interest”.

In cancelling or suspending documents such as permanent residence visas, work permits and study permits, the government may refine its order by restricting its application to “certain documents or individuals”, the text of the Bill says.

If it chooses to not accept applications for these documents, or to suspend or terminate the processing of accepted applications, the government may specify the scope of its order by restricting it to “certain foreign nationals”.

C-12 has been criticised by various rights groups, including Amnesty International, which have noted its provision for the mass cancellation of visas.

“Migrants could lose status overnight with no legal recourse,” the Migrant Rights Network said of the Bill, calling it a “cruel and violent law that aims to create a mass deportation machine”.

Amid Canada's heightened filtering of visa applications, some 74% of Indian study permit applicants were rejected in August, while the corresponding figure for August 2023 was much lower at about 32%, reported Reuters.

Overall around 40% of student permit applications were rejected in August 2025 as were 24% of applications made by Chinese citizens, Reuters said citing government data.

The news agency also said, drawing from an IRCC communication, that “most” of the close to 1,550 study permit applications identified as being linked to fake acceptance letters in 2023 were submitted by Indians.

Speaking to Reuters, the Indian embassy in Ottawa said that it was up to the Canadian government to choose which applications it accepts or denies.

“However, we would like to emphasise that some of the best quality students available in the world are from India, and Canadian institutions have in the past greatly benefited from the talent and academic excellence of these students,” it was quoted as saying.

Relations between India and Canada became frosty in 2023 when then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Indian government agents of complicity in the murder of Khalistani separatist and Canadian citizen Hardeep Nijjar in British Columbia earlier that year. New Delhi vigorously denied the allegations and both countries expelled or withdrew their diplomats.

Matters worsened when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police claimed it had gathered evidence linking Indian government agents to “widespread violence” in Canada. The claim prompted both governments to declare each other's high commissioners personae non gratae, rendering the top posts vacant.

But a thaw began taking place with Carney's election to the premiership earlier this year, with the prime minister meeting his Indian counterpart at the sidelines of the G7 summit in Alberta, Canada in June. This was followed by both countries reinstating high commissioners in each other's capitals.

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