The Canadian government has announced amendments to legislation that will make it easier for international students to become permanent residents.

The legislation will repeal a number of changes that were made to the Canadian Immigration Act under the previous Conservative government and were passed into law in June 2015.

The previous changes to Bill C-24 increased the residency requirement from three years to four and eliminated a special provision that allowed half the time spent in Canada on a work or study visa to be counted when applying for citizenship.

However, the new titled “An Act to amend the Citizenship Act”, will reduce the number of days during which a person must have been physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship from four out of the previous six years to three out of the previous five.

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It also restores the 50 per cent credit for time spent in Canada by international students.

Speaking on ����ٷɴǰ���’s Power & Politics programme, immigration minister John McCallum said that the “dumbest” part of the previous legislation was “taking away the 50 per cent credit for international students”.

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“If there’s any group in this country who would be good Canadians – they’re educated, they know about this country, they speak English or French – it’s them. So why punch them in the nose when we’re trying to attract them here in competition with Australia, the UK and others?”

ellie.bothwell@tesglobal.com