Indo-Canadian YouTuber Kushal Mehra has urged Indian parents to reconsider sending their children to Canada for higher education, warning of joblessness, exploitation, and rising racism. Speaking to journalist Ravinder Singh Robin, Mehra described how young Indian students are often “lured with the dream of permanent residency” only to face “a nightmare of fake colleges, financial ruin, and in some cases, human trafficking.”
‘Diploma mills’ and false promises
Kushal Mehra said that since 2019, several Canadian colleges and universities have targeted Indian students with misleading promises of post-study residency and employment. Many of these institutions, he alleged, function as “diploma mills”, issuing certificates that hold little to no value in the job market.
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“If it’s a reputed university like Waterloo, York, or Western, that’s different. But if someone offers you a diploma mill admission, it’s a trap that will destroy your future,” Mehra cautioned in the interview.
He added that many students fall prey to agents who market these colleges as pathways to citizenship, leaving them burdened with debt and uncertain futures.
Migration boom and rising hostility
Explaining Canada’s post-pandemic migration surge, Mehra said that during the 2020 labour shortage, “Canada opened the floodgates” for Indian immigrants, which led to a housing crisis and rising anti-immigrant sentiment.
He linked the worsening job market to Motion M44 which was a 2022 policy that allowed students to work full-time while studying which, he argued, “pushed more students into low-paying, unstable jobs.”
Sexual exploitation and trafficking
The YouTuber also spoke about the exploitation of young Indian women in Canada. “In the last three years, I have sent 13 girls back to India at my own expense because they were being sexually trafficked,” Mehra said, claiming that touts target desperate students who have sold family land to fund their education abroad.
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“In Toronto alone, there are over 4,000 women of Indian origin trapped in the sex trade,” he alleged. “They sell everything to come here - ₹40 to 50 lakh - and when things collapse, there’s nowhere to go.”
Ending the video on a plea to Indian parents, Mehra said, “If you have land, farm it. India has good universities - send your children there, don't send them to Canada.”
