We've seen a similar trend in graduate enrollment in Toronto. Although I don't have an article to link to, last year the University extended graduate enrollment

We've seen a similar trend in graduate enrollment in Toronto. Although I don't have an article to link to, last year the University extended graduate enrollment 3 times (from a January 6th deadline, to a May deadline) in an effort to attract more local students. It appears that in the midst of the recession, the government has made it more expensive to bring in international students (one quote I got was "one international MASc student is similar to one local post-doctoral student") on a year-by-year expense, since our engineering graduate programs are research based and are thus funded. This was meant as an attempt to provide local new-grads with more opportunities in a dire job market, and in that sense, it certainly worked