Articles of interest: Immigration

2023/12/08 Leave a comment

Additional polling on souring of public mood on current high levels, related commentary on links to housing availability and affordability among other issues:

‘There’s going to be friction’: Two-thirds of Canadians say immigration target is too high, poll says

Worrisome trend but understandable:

Two-thirds of Canadians say this country’s immigration target is too high, suggests a new poll that points to how opinions on the issue are taking shape along political lines — a shift that could turn immigration into a wedge issue in the next federal election.

A poll by Abacus Data has found the percentage of people who say they oppose the country’s current immigration level has increased six points since July, with 67 per cent of Canadians now saying that taking in 500,000 permanent residents a year is too much.

“The public opinion has shifted in Canada to a point where if a political leader wanted to make this an issue, they could,” said Abacus chair and CEO David Coletto.

“We’re headed into a period where there’s going to be friction.”

Source: ‘There’s going to be friction’: Two-thirds of Canadians say immigration target is too high, poll says

Affordability crisis putting Canadian dream at risk: poll

Yet another poll, focussed on immigrants:

The Leger-OMNI poll, one of the largest polling samples of immigrants in recent years, surveyed 1,522 immigrants across Canada between Oct. 18 and 25. It is one of the few polls specifically surveying immigrants.  

The research finds the cost-of-living crisis is hitting immigrants hard. Eighty-three per cent polled feel affordability has made settling more difficult. While financial or career opportunities were the motivating factor for 55 per cent of immigrants’ journey to Canada, just under half surveyed think there are enough jobs to support those coming in. 

A quarter (24 per cent) feel their experience in Canada has fallen short of expectations.

Source: Affordability crisis putting Canadian dream at risk: poll

Kalil: We simply don’t have enough money to solve Canada’s housing crisis 

Reality:

Housing does not magically appear when there is demand for it. It takes time, infrastructure needs to be built to support it, the construction industry needs to have the capacity to deliver it, and our housing economy needs to hold enough money to fund it – which it does not.

Source: We simply don’t have enough money to solve Canada’s housing crisis

Burney: Trudeau, please take a walk in the snow

Burney on immigration and his take on the public service:

A rapid increase in immigration numbers was touted until it was seen simply as a numbers game, lacking analyses of social consequences, notably inadequate housing, and unwelcome pressures on our crumbling health system. Meritocracy is not really part of the equation, so we are not attracting people with needed skills. Instead, we risk intensifying ethnic, religious and cultural enclaves in Canada that will contribute more division than unity to the country.

The policy on immigration needs a complete rethink. But do not expect constructive reform to come from the public service, 40 per cent larger now than it was in 2015 and generously paid, many of whom only show up for office work one or two days per week. Suggestions that they are more productive or creative at home are absurd.

Source: Trudeau, please take a walk in the snow

Keller: The Trudeau government has a cure for your housing depression

Here’s what Stéfane Marion, chief economist with National Bank, wrote on Tuesday. It’s worth quoting at length.

“Canada’s record housing supply imbalance, caused by an unprecedented increase in the working-age population (874,000 people over the past twelve months), means that there is currently only one housing start for every 4.2 people entering the working-age population … Under these circumstances, people have no choice but to bid up the price of a dwindling inventory of rental units. The current divergence between rental inflation (8.2 per cent) and CPI inflation (3.1 per cent) is the highest in over 60 years … There is no precedent for the peak in rental inflation to exceed the peak in headline inflation. Unless Ottawa revises its immigration quotas downward, we don’t expect much relief for the 37 per cent of Canadian households that rent.”

What are the odds of the Trudeau government taking that advice?

Source: The Trudeau government has a cure for your housing depression

Conference Board: Don’t blame immigration for inflation and high interest rates – Financial Post

Weak argumentation and overall discounting of the externalities and wishful thinking for the long-term:

Of course, immigration has also added to demand. Strong hiring supported income growth, and immigrants coming to Canada need places to live and spend money on all the necessities of life. This adds to demand pressures and is especially concerning for rental housing affordability. Such strength in underlying demographic demand is inflationary when there is so little slack in the economy. Taking in so many in such a short period of time has stretched our ability to provide settlement services, affordable housing  and other necessities. But there is also no doubt that the surge in migrants has alleviated massive labour market pressure and is thus deflationary. Without immigration, Canada’s labour force would be in decline, especially over the next five years as Canada’s baby boomers retire in growing numbers. Steady immigration adds to our productive capacity, our GDP and our tax take — enough to offset public-sector costs and modestly improve government finances.

One thing is certain, if immigration is aligned with our capacity to welcome those who are arriving, it will continue to drive economic growth and enrich our society through diversity, as it has through most of our history.

Mike Burt is vice president of The Conference Board of Canada and Pedro Antunes is the organization’s chief economist.  

Source: Opinion: Don’t blame immigration for inflation and high interest rates – Financial Post

More international students are seeking asylum in Canada, numbers reveal

Another signal that our selection criteria and vetting have gaps:

The number of international students who seek asylum in Canada has more than doubled in the past five years, according to government data obtained under an access-to-information request.

The number of refugee claims made by study permit holders has gone up about 2.7 times to 4,880 cases last year from 1,835 in 2018, as the international student population also surged by approximately 1.4 times to 807,750 from 567,065 in the same period.

Over the five years, a total of 15,935 international students filed refugee claims in the country.

While less than one per cent of international students ended up seeking protection in Canada, the annual rate of study permit holders seeking asylum doubled from 0.3 per cent to 0.6 per cent between 2018 and 2022.

Source: More international students are seeking asylum in Canada, numbers revea

‘It’s unfair’: Haitians in Quebec upset province has opted out of federal family reunification program

Well, Quebec has the right to opt-out and face any resulting political pressure:

The federal program, announced in October by Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller, will open the door to 11,000 people from Colombia, Haiti and Venezuela who have immediate family members living in Canada either as citizens or permanent residents.

But when it launched on Nov. 17, it made clear that only those who “reside in Canada, outside the province of Quebec,” would be eligible to sponsor relatives.

The province of Quebec had opted out of the program.

Source: ‘It’s unfair’: Haitians in Quebec upset province has opted out of federal family reunification program

Douglas Todd: Californians taken aback by vast gap between wages and housing costs in Vancouver

More evidence of the disconnect between housing affordability, income and population:

Last month, scholars at the University of California, Berkeley invited a Canadian expert to offer his analysis of the riddle that is crushing the dreams of an entire generation.

“What really surprised them in California was the sharp decoupling there is in Metro Vancouver between incomes and housing prices,” said Andy Yan, an associate professor of professional practice at Simon Fraser University who also heads its City Program.

It’s relevant that Yan was invited to speak to about 75 urban design specialists in the San Francisco Bay area, since it also has prices in the same range (adjusted to Canadian dollars) as super-expensive Metro Vancouver.

But there is a big difference. Unlike Metro Vancouver, the San Francisco region also has the fourth-highest median household incomes in North America.

Indeed, median wages in the California city come in at the equivalent of about $145,000 Cdn., 61 per cent higher than $90,000 in Vancouver.

In other words, while things are rough for would-be homeowners in the San Francisco area, they are horrible for those squeezed out of the Metro Vancouver market.

Why is that? In his California presentation, Yan talked, quite sensibly, about the three big factors that normally determine housing costs: supply, demand and finance.

Source: Douglas Todd: Californians taken aback by vast gap between wages and housing costs in Vancouver

Glavin: Is there a triumphant Geert Wilders in Canada’s future? Not yet, but …

The risk exists but overstated:

….To object to this state of affairs doesn’t make Canada a racist country, and state-sanctioned rejection of the very idea of mainstream Canadian values, coupled with the catastrophic mismatch between immigration levels and Canada’s capacity to accommodate them all, doesn’t mean there’s some hard-right turn just around the corner with a Geert Wilders figure coming out of nowhere.

But it does mean that Canada is barrelling towards a brick wall, and we should stop and turn around.

Source: Glavin: Is there a triumphant Geert Wilders in Canada’s future? Not yet, but …

Antiquated U.S. Immigration System Ambles into the Digital World

Similar challenges as Canada:

Notorious for its reliance on antiquated paper files and persistent backlogs, the U.S. immigration system has made some under-the-radar tweaks to crawl into the 21st century, with the COVID-19 pandemic serving as a catalyst. Increased high-tech and streamlined operations—including allowing more applications to be completed online, holding remote hearings, issuing documents with longer validity periods, and waiving interview requirements—have resulted in faster approvals of temporary and permanent visas, easier access to work permits, and record numbers of cases completed in immigration courts.

While backlogs have stubbornly persisted and even grown, the steps toward modernization at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department have nonetheless led to a better experience for many applicants seeking immigration benefits and helped legal immigration rebound after the drop-off during the COVID-19 pandemic. Swifter processes in the immigration courts have provided faster protection to asylum seekers and others who are eligible for it, while also resulting in issuance of more removal orders to those who are not.

Yet some of these gains may be short-lived. Some short-term policy changes that were implemented during the pandemic have ended and others are about to expire, raising the prospect of longer wait times for countless would-be migrants and loss of employment authorization for tens of thousands of immigrant workers. Millions of temporary visa applications may once again require interviews starting in December, making the process slower and more laborious for would-be visitors. This reversion to prior operations could lead to major disruptions in tourism, harm U.S. companies’ ability to retain workers and immigrants’ ability to support themselves, and create barriers for asylum seekers with limited proficiency in English.

Source: Antiquated U.S. Immigration System Ambles into the Digital World

Thousands of Canada’s permanent residents are afraid to leave the country. Here’s why

Another policy and service delivery fail:

According to an email from Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), there are over 70,000 Ahmad Omars out there, waiting on their first PR cards. This situation has left them trapped in a travel limbo, unable to leave the country or make future plans.

“Initially, the estimated waiting time for the PR card was 30 days. However, 30 days later, it extended to 45 days, and then, 45 days after that, it became 61 days. Now, I find myself significantly beyond the expected waiting time,” Omar said.

“It doesn’t feel like I am actually a permanent resident until I get the card.”

Source: Thousands of Canada’s permanent residents are afraid to leave the country. Here’s why

Saunders: How the push for border security created an illegal-immigration surge

Agree, but likelihood low:

If we wanted to reduce legal immigration numbers, as Mr. de Haas argues, we’d need to change the underlying economy: fund universities and colleges so they don’t rely on overseas student fees; incentivize farms to rely on technology rather than cheap labour (at the cost of higher food prices); make domestic housecleaners and child-minders a strictly upper-class thing again; and settle for lower levels of competitiveness and economic growth.

What doesn’t work is the entire false economy of border security – as years of expensive, dangerous experiments show, it actually amplifies the problem it’s meant to solve.

Source: How the push for border security created an illegal-immigration surge

Rise in net migration threatens to undermine Rishi Sunak’s tough talk – The Guardian

Leaving others to clean up the mess:

Of Boris Johnson’s many broken promises, his failure to “take back control” of post-Brexit immigration is the one that Tory MPs believe matters most to their voters.

Johnson has long fled the scene – Rishi Sunak is instead getting the blame from his New Conservative backbenchers who predict they will be punished at the ballot box in the “red wall” of the north and Midlands.

The former prime minister’s battlecry of “getting Brexit done” at the 2019 election went hand-in-hand with a manifesto promise to reduce levels of net migration from what was about 245,000 a year.

A tough “points-based immigration system” was going to be brought in by the then home secretary, Priti Patel, and supposedly allow the UK rather than Brussels to have control of the numbers.

And yet the latest net migration figures of almost 750,000 for 2022 show that far from decreasing, net migration has gone up threefold. Many economists believe this level of migration is necessary and the natural consequence of a country facing staff shortages and high domestic wages.

Source: Rise in net migration threatens to undermine Rishi Sunak’s tough talk – The Guardian

The Provincial Nominee Program: Retention in province of landing

Good analysis of retention rates by province:

“The Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) is designed to contribute to the more equitable distribution of new immigrants across Canada. A related objective is the retention and integration of provincial nominees in the nominating province or territory. This article examines the retention of PNP immigrants at both the national and provincial or territorial levels. The analysis uses data from the Immigrant Landing File and tax records, along with three indicators of retention, to measure the propensity of a province or territory to retain immigrants. Results showed that the retention of PNP immigrants in the province or territory of landing was generally high. Overall, 89% of the provincial nominees who landed in 2019 had stayed in their intended province or territory at the end of the landing year. However, there was large variation by province or territory, ranging from 69% to 97%. Of those nominees located in a province at the end of the landing year, a large proportion (in the mid-80% range) remained in that province five years later. Again, there was significant variation by province, ranging from 39% to 94%. At the national level, both short- and longer-term provincial and territorial retention rates were lower among provincial nominees than among other economic immigrants. However, after adjusting for differences in the province of residence, sociodemographic characteristics and economic conditions, the provincial nominee retention rate was marginally higher than that among federal skilled workers during the first three years in Canada, and there was little difference after five years. Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia had the highest PNP retention rates, and Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick, the lowest. This gap among provinces tended to increase significantly with years since immigration. Accounting for the provincial unemployment rate explained some of the differences in retention rates between the Atlantic provinces and Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. However, even after adjusting for a rich set of control variables, a significant retention rate difference among provinces persisted. Provinces and territories can benefit from the PNP not only through the nominees retained in the province or territory, but also from those migrating from other provinces or territories. Ontario was a magnet for the secondary migration of provincial nominees. After accounting for both outflows and inflows of provincial nominees, Ontario was the only province or territory that had a large net gain from this process, with significant inflows of provincial nominees from other provinces. Overall, long-term retention of provincial nominees tended to be quite high in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, particularly when considering inflows, as well as outflows. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia tended to have an intermediate level, but still relatively high longer-term retention rates. Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador had the lowest retention.”

Read the full report: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2023011/article/00002-eng.htm

Keller: Why are our schools addicted to foreign student tuition? Because government was the pusher

Unfortunately, a large part of the visa system has been diverted to other purposes. We’re basically selling citizenship on the cheap, with the funds backfilling for provincial governments’ underfunding of higher education.

Source: Why are our schools addicted to foreign student tuition? Because government was the pusher

International students, advocates say Canada should permanently lift 20-hour work cap

Advocates underline point that international students have become a back-door immigration worker stream:

Advocacy group Migrant Workers Alliance for Change has been calling for this change since 2017 and has been fielding increasing calls from concerned students.

The alliance’s organizer, Sarom Rho, said it has been organizing against the 20-hour work limit since international student Jobandeep Singh Sandhu was arrested for working too many hours outside school in 2019.

“This is a question about whether we want to live in a society where everybody has equal rights and protections, or if we’re going to allow a system that sections off a group of people on the basis of their immigration status and denies them the same rights,” she said.

“There are six weeks left until the end of this temporary policy. Every day matters and the clock is ticking. We’re calling on Prime Minister Trudeau and Immigration Minister Mark Miller to do the right thing and permanently remove the 20-hour work limit.”

Source: International students, advocates say Canada should permanently lift 20-hour work cap

‘Canadian experience’ requirements are not just discriminatory – they harm the economy

Change happening but too often Canadian experience applied unevenly. That being said, during my experience during cancer treatment, there were some cultural differences in patient care, reminding me that immigrants would encounter also encounter differences:

In 2021, immigrants made up nearly a quarter of the Canadian population, a historic high. As Canada ages, immigration is projected to fuel the country’s entire population growth by 2032.

It is often said that immigrants help drive Canada’s prosperity. But if “Canadian experience” remains a stumbling block for newcomers to enter the job market, that vision will be nothing but a pipe dream.

Fortunately, I am now employed, working in a field where my past skills are highly relevant and respected. In hindsight, I would have answered that recruiter’s question differently.

There is nothing alien about my “foreign experience,” I would have emphasized. What I learned in China – skills like collaboration, research, empathy and writing – still applies. And I say this as a writer and communicator: a skill is a skill, regardless of where I call home.

Owen Guo is a freelance writer in Toronto. He is a former reporter for the New York Times in Beijing and a graduate of the University of Toronto.

Source: ‘Canadian experience’ requirements are not just discriminatory – they harm the economy

Australia’s political opportunists have stoked hysteria and robbed refugees of their humanity – The Guardian

By former Minister of Immigration 1079-82:

There was a time in Australia when refugees were heroes. In the late 1970s, when thousands of Vietnamese refugees settled in Australia, the then Fraser government publicised their “stories of hardship and courage”. They were presented as individuals with names and faces, possessing great resilience and ordinary human needs. Giving these brave people – nurses, teachers, engineers among them – and their children sanctuary made sense. When we are humane and welcome refugees, we assist them and ourselves.

Much has changed since then. As Fraser’s former minister for immigration and ethnic affairs, I have watched with dismay the shift in Australian public attitudes to refugees over the past two decades, since the Howard government began to pedal hard on the issue, depicting people seeking asylum as a threat to the Australian way of life. The humanity and individuality of refugees has been lost in political opportunism, as dog-whistling slogans stoked the hysterical, sometimes racist elements of public discourse. Yet this politics proved a winner and over the past two decades both major parties came to share the same dehumanising asylum policies. This is evident in the recent ugly, bitter parliamentary debate following the high court’s decision that it is unlawful for the Australian government to indefinitely detain people in immigration detention and the hasty legislative response.

Ian Macphee AO was minister for immigration and ethnic affairs in the Fraser government (1979-1982)

Source: Australia’s political opportunists have stoked hysteria and robbed refugees of their humanity – The Guardian

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How Canada can fix its ‘predatory’ relationship with international students

2022/12/06 Leave a comment

Good long read on the university and college cash cow and a program that has increasingly deviated from an education to a labour program, with some interesting insights from Australia.

While bit over the top, this money quote has an inconvenient truth:

“The whole objective of international education is just to make money and to grow the economy. It has really little to do with education,” says Kahlon. “If we’re honest about what the international education strategy is, it is just to raise Canada’s GDP.”

—

Canada’s international education strategy has been an undisputable success — the envy of other nations — attracting foreign students to come and study with the promise of work opportunities and the prospect of permanent residency and citizenship.

Over the years, the campaign has injected billions into the economy, created a pipeline of immigrants and fuelled a post-secondary education sector that struggled with declining public funding and falling domestic enrolment.

But that successful formula and unfettered growth seems to have reached a tipping point.

Students who are falling through the cracks are starting to question whether their investment of time and money, by way of hefty tuition fees, is paying off.

And Canada doesn’t need a crystal ball to see what lies ahead.

“A CASH cow is all very well, and a fine thing when it is happily chomping in the field. But what happens when it grows horns, turns nasty and demands that you feed it more and look after it better?”

That was a question raised in an article published in The Age, one of Australia’s oldest and most reputable newspapers, back in 2008. At the time, Australia was seeing an exponential growth in international enrolment that made the then-$12.5 billion international education sector its third-largest export after coal and iron.

“There is pressure on the industry from without and within. Increasing competition from foreign universities in the global race for market share, Australian universities at capacity, and a growing perception that Australia’s international students have been exploited on one hand, and neglected on the other, are biting hard,” the story continued.

There were other reports about international students in Australia being “underpaid and exploited” as a labour underclass, of students struggling with social isolation, feeling unhappy with the immigration prospects and facing “severe overcrowding” in rooming houses, including one extreme case where 48 students were living in a six-bedroom property.

Canada has been following a similar trajectory, some say.

The pandemic has further exposed international students’ precariousness and our country’s disjointed education and immigration systems, which leave students disillusioned amid a patchwork of support that relies on the goodwill of the schools, employers and local communities.

More and more international students in Canada are publicly complaining about exploitation and wage thefts by bad employers and landlords, the financial and emotional hardship of the journey, and the unfulfilled immigration dream sold to them by unscrupulous education recruiters.

Increasingly, there’s a recognition that what they have been promised is not exactly what they’re getting. while studying in Canada is not a guaranteed pathway for permanent residence that many expect.

It’s led to a growing chorus of voices calling on the Canadian government to refresh its strategy to ensure its international enrolment growth is sustainable and its appeal as a destination of choice will last.

But what would a reset, recalibrated international student program look like in Canada?

There is some no shortage of possibilities.

Resetting Canada’s international education strategy

The Canadian government launched an aggressive campaign in 2014 to boost its annual number of international students to more than 450,000 by 2022.

The country has long surpassed that goal.

Last year, there were 845,930 valid study permit holders in Canada, which rose to 917,445 as of Sept. 30 of this year.

International students, through their spending and tuition, contribute $22 billion to the Canadian economy and support 170,000 jobs in the country.

Those international students, who typically pay up to four times more in tuition than their domestic counterparts, are a godsend to many Canadian colleges and universities to help fill classroom seats and keep courses open for domestic students who otherwise would’ve had fewer options from which to choose. They are also embraced by employers desperate for temporary help at gas stations, restaurants and factories to keep businesses running.

Yet there have been increasing public calls for the federal government to better align academic goals, Canada’s economic needs and the interests of students.

The RBC has recently recommended Ottawa to be more strategic in leveraging and expanding its international student pool in the global race for skilled workers post-pandemic; the Conference Board of Canada in a separate report urged better co-ordination to ensure the number of international students admitted are in line with thelevel of permanent residents admitted each year to avoid further “friction.”

Australia moved to reset its own system.

International enrolment there had blossomed from 256,553 in 2002 to 583,483 in 2009 as migrants were drawn by the opportunities to work and stay in the country permanently before Canberra decided to rein in an unruly sector by “desegregating education and immigration.”

Australian officials began asking education institutions to register international education agents who worked for them and to review their performances based on student enrolment outcomes.

The bar for permanent residence was raised and limited to those who completed degree-level programs, postgraduate programs and regulated professions such as nursing, engineering and social work.

All applicants must submit a statement detailing their personal circumstances and why they pursue a particular program in Australia. Each is assessed based on the study plan, as well as factors such as the economic situation, military service commitments and even political and civil unrest in the person’s home country to make sure they are “genuine temporary entrants.”

Today, international education is still worth about $34 billion (Canadian) to Australia’s economy, with 418,168 in higher education out of 882,482 students in international enrolment in 2020. The rest were mainly in language training and vocational schools.

International students, meanwhile, go where the opportunities are. Experts say students traditionally turn to other jurisdictions with fewer perceived barriers when countries such as Australia restrict the pipeline.

Students “are using commercial agents to find the cheapest, most affordable routes there are,” says Chris Ziguras, a professor at RMIT University in Melbourne, who studies the globalization of education.

“At the moment, I think there’s a lot of students clearly voting with their feet and choosing that pathway into Canada over other pathways which are more expensive, more difficult and more restrictive. And that’s why we’re seeing the bulge there.”

A patchwork of settlement supports for foreign students

Noor Azrieh didn’t know anyone in Canada when she came to Carleton University in 2018 for a four-year journalism and human rights program. The 22-year-old Lebanese says she has had issues finding housing and skilled jobs because of her temporary status.

Landlords would often ask for six-to-eight-month rent deposits and demand a Canadian guarantor, while employers lost interest in hiring her once they found out she was here on a time-limited post-graduate work permit.

“It feels like you are doing this entirely alone. And maybe that’s just how it is,” says Azrieh, who works full time as an associate producer at CANADALAND. “Maybe I wasn’t ready to move across the country, across the globe, to a country that I didn’t know. But it felt like I was doing everything alone.”

.Colleges and universities are educational institutions, and some don’t have the capacity to properly support international students, who lack access to the kind of settlement services designed exclusively for permanent residents.

In light of the service gaps, immigrant agencies in B.C. now provide support for international students and temporary foreign workers through one-on-one information and referral, workshops and support groups.

Nova Scotia also launched a pilot program recently that offers international students in their final year help with career development opportunities and community connections to successfully transition to permanent residence.

However, these supports are piecemeal and it’s unclear who is responsible for the costs and the students’ well-being, says Lisa Brunner, a University of British Columbia doctoral student, whose research focuses on immigration, higher education and internationalization.

“If you’re coming from an institution’s perspective, my goal is to support students in their education and their experience in Canada, versus the government saying, ‘OK, we want to support this person because they’re a future immigrant and we want to retain them,’ ” she says.

“Those are two different types of services.

“The way it’s structured now works well for the government, because essentially the students themselves are responsible for the settlement process. Either they acquire the capital that’s necessary to succeed in the labour market to qualify for permanent residence or they don’t. In this way, the government doesn’t have to fund the services.”

“We all acknowledge giving access to students to those (settlement and support) services from the beginning of their journeys would be a tremendous return on investment for Canada,” says Larissa Bezo, president and CEO of the Canadian Bureau for International Education, a not-for-profit organization that aims to promote and advance Canadian international education.

“There’s a shared responsibility that we have … And in a federation like ours, that’s complex. I’m under no illusion. But we need to do a better job of connecting these dots.”

Coming out of the pandemic, Bezo says, Canada’s global brand has remained strong as Canadian governments and the sector pivoted in supporting international students through the crisis as other countries such as Australia asked their students to go home.

Clear messaging to international students

Balraj Kahlon, who co-founded One Voice Canada in British Columbia in 2019 to support and advocate for international students, says Canada’s international education strategy has been “ruthlessly” successful.

“The whole objective of international education is just to make money and to grow the economy. It has really little to do with education,” says Kahlon. “If we’re honest about what the international education strategy is, it is just to raise Canada’s GDP.”

He says the country’s international enrolment has increasingly been coming from the working poor in developing countries, lured by Canada’s relatively low tuition fees, the chance to work and make money to pay off family loans for the studies, and sometimes misinformation by unscrupulous education agents about the direct pathway for permanent residence.

He says many international students these days are pursuing the cheaper and shorter programs at colleges with the sole intent of immigration, even if they know they can’t afford the tuition fees and their courses won’t get them beyond a warehouse, factory or retail job.

Yet, he says many can’t resist the allure of the opportunity for permanent residence and a life toiling in low-wage, low-skilled jobs in Canada that still pay more than what they would earn back home.

If the international education strategy really aims to attract the best and the brightest, he says, permanent residency should be limited to the students who are at the top in their fields by lowering their tuition and making schooling affordable to them.

“Until you get rid of the profit motive, problems are going to keep coming, because the incentive is always just more numbers,” says Kahlon.

Sixty per cent of international students do plan to apply for permanent residence in Canada, but only three in 10 international students who entered the country in 2000 or later ended up obtaining permanent residence within 10 years.

While some fail to complete their education or secure employment for immigration, others find opportunities elsewhere and leave.

“Higher-education admission policies and procedures have a very different goal than the admission criteria for economic immigrants,” says Grunner, the UBC researcher. “That difference is not always clear to students before they come to Canada.

“The message they get is that Canada wants international students. That’s the policy message that gets communicated. International students are desired by Canada for their labour. We got that message very clear because it says that international students can now work for the next year with unlimited hours. And international students are desired as potential immigrants.”

Diversifying where and what students choose to study

Paul Davidson, president of Universities Canada, says there is capacity to absorb more international students, though that capacity isn’t evenly distributed across the country.

Governments, education institutions, immigrant settlement agencies, local communities and employers all have a stake in ensuring international students’ experience and well-being, he says.

“It’s really important that international students get credible information and are supported in every step of their training,” says Davidson, whose organization is the voice for 93 Canadian universities. “There are people making false claims about what their experience in Canada will be and we need to call that out.”

Denise Amyot, his counterpart at Colleges and Institutes Canada, says the federal government not only needs to diversify the source of international students here (currently 35 per cent from India; 17 per cent from China; and four per cent from France), but also where and what they choose to study.

Her organization released a report last year, calling for new permanent residency streams and supports for colleges to improve their labour market outcomes.

“I would be in favour of accelerating permanent residency for students that are in the areas of skills that we need,” says Amyot, who also would like to see international students be eligible for government-funded co-op and job programs.

“It’s important that students do their homework (and ask), ‘How I will be integrated into the community,’ where they look at the best possible scenario for what they want to do and what’s their intentions moving forward.”

Global Affairs Canada says the government has aimed to diversify the countries of origin of its international students, promote study opportunities, especially outside of major urban centres, and showcase sectors to highlight areas of labour shortages and encourage study in those fields through digital marketing initiatives.

Several targeted international ad campaigns will be carried out to promote programs in STEM, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies, the department says. Consultations are underway to renew the country’s international education strategy.

Striking a balance

Sana Banu, an international student from India, can’t say enough about the amazing experience she’s had at Kitchener, Ont.-based Conestoga College, despite all the challenges her peers face and a pathway to permanent residence that’s full of pitfalls.

It has given her experience that has pushed her out of her comfort zone, says the 29-year-old, who came here in 2018 to study marketing and communication with an undergrad degree and eight years of work experience in advertising back home.

International students are a diverse group, each with their expectations and intentions, and it’s impossible to generalize everyone’s experience.

To Banu, the issues come down to equity — whether it’s about the hefty and uncapped international tuition fees or job opportunities that usually favour permanent residents and citizens.

“The relationship shouldn’t be predatory,” says Banu, president and CEO of Conestoga’s student association, who was recently invited to apply for permanent residence. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship that international students provide to Canada and Canada provides to international students.

“It’s important that everybody sees the human side of an international student rather than just as a resource to fill your economic gaps and contribute to your economy exclusively. They are humans, who are coming here with expectations, dreams and hopes. And you could do a lot more in treating them with more dignity, equity and compassion.”

Source: How Canada can fix its ‘predatory’ relationship with international students

Canada’s international education strategy has been an undisputable success — the envy of other nations — attracting foreign students to come and study with the promise of work opportunities and the prospect of permanent residency and citizenship.

Over the years, the campaign has injected billions into the economy, created a pipeline of immigrants and fuelled a post-secondary education sector that struggled with declining public funding and falling domestic enrolment.

But that successful formula and unfettered growth seems to have reached a tipping point.

Students who are falling through the cracks are starting to question whether their investment of time and money, by way of hefty tuition fees, is paying off.

And Canada doesn’t need a crystal ball to see what lies ahead.

“A CASH cow is all very well, and a fine thing when it is happily chomping in the field. But what happens when it grows horns, turns nasty and demands that you feed it more and look after it better?”

That was a question raised in an article published in The Age, one of Australia’s oldest and most reputable newspapers, back in 2008. At the time, Australia was seeing an exponential growth in international enrolment that made the then-$12.5 billion international education sector its third-largest export after coal and iron.

“There is pressure on the industry from without and within. Increasing competition from foreign universities in the global race for market share, Australian universities at capacity, and a growing perception that Australia’s international students have been exploited on one hand, and neglected on the other, are biting hard,” the story continued.

There were other reports about international students in Australia being “underpaid and exploited” as a labour underclass, of students struggling with social isolation, feeling unhappy with the immigration prospects and facing “severe overcrowding” in rooming houses, including one extreme case where 48 students were living in a six-bedroom property.

Canada has been following a similar trajectory, some say.

The pandemic has further exposed international students’ precariousness and our country’s disjointed education and immigration systems, which leave students disillusioned amid a patchwork of support that relies on the goodwill of the schools, employers and local communities.

More and more international students in Canada are publicly complaining about exploitation and wage thefts by bad employers and landlords, the financial and emotional hardship of the journey, and the unfulfilled immigration dream sold to them by unscrupulous education recruiters.

Increasingly, there’s a recognition that what they have been promised is not exactly what they’re getting. while studying in Canada is not a guaranteed pathway for permanent residence that many expect.

It’s led to a growing chorus of voices calling on the Canadian government to refresh its strategy to ensure its international enrolment growth is sustainable and its appeal as a destination of choice will last.

But what would a reset, recalibrated international student program look like in Canada?

There is some no shortage of possibilities.

Resetting Canada’s international education strategy

The Canadian government launched an aggressive campaign in 2014 to boost its annual number of international students to more than 450,000 by 2022.

The country has long surpassed that goal.

Last year, there were 845,930 valid study permit holders in Canada, which rose to 917,445 as of Sept. 30 of this year.

International students, through their spending and tuition, contribute $22 billion to the Canadian economy and support 170,000 jobs in the country.

Those international students, who typically pay up to four times more in tuition than their domestic counterparts, are a godsend to many Canadian colleges and universities to help fill classroom seats and keep courses open for domestic students who otherwise would’ve had fewer options from which to choose. They are also embraced by employers desperate for temporary help at gas stations, restaurants and factories to keep businesses running.

Yet there have been increasing public calls for the federal government to better align academic goals, Canada’s economic needs and the interests of students.

The RBC has recently recommended Ottawa to be more strategic in leveraging and expanding its international student pool in the global race for skilled workers post-pandemic; the Conference Board of Canada in a separate report urged better co-ordination to ensure the number of international students admitted are in line with thelevel of permanent residents admitted each year to avoid further “friction.”

Australia moved to reset its own system.

International enrolment there had blossomed from 256,553 in 2002 to 583,483 in 2009 as migrants were drawn by the opportunities to work and stay in the country permanently before Canberra decided to rein in an unruly sector by “desegregating education and immigration.”

Australian officials began asking education institutions to register international education agents who worked for them and to review their performances based on student enrolment outcomes.

The bar for permanent residence was raised and limited to those who completed degree-level programs, postgraduate programs and regulated professions such as nursing, engineering and social work.

All applicants must submit a statement detailing their personal circumstances and why they pursue a particular program in Australia. Each is assessed based on the study plan, as well as factors such as the economic situation, military service commitments and even political and civil unrest in the person’s home country to make sure they are “genuine temporary entrants.”

Today, international education is still worth about $34 billion (Canadian) to Australia’s economy, with 418,168 in higher education out of 882,482 students in international enrolment in 2020. The rest were mainly in language training and vocational schools.

International students, meanwhile, go where the opportunities are. Experts say students traditionally turn to other jurisdictions with fewer perceived barriers when countries such as Australia restrict the pipeline.

Students “are using commercial agents to find the cheapest, most affordable routes there are,” says Chris Ziguras, a professor at RMIT University in Melbourne, who studies the globalization of education.

“At the moment, I think there’s a lot of students clearly voting with their feet and choosing that pathway into Canada over other pathways which are more expensive, more difficult and more restrictive. And that’s why we’re seeing the bulge there.”

A patchwork of settlement supports for foreign students

Noor Azrieh didn’t know anyone in Canada when she came to Carleton University in 2018 for a four-year journalism and human rights program. The 22-year-old Lebanese says she has had issues finding housing and skilled jobs because of her temporary status.

Landlords would often ask for six-to-eight-month rent deposits and demand a Canadian guarantor, while employers lost interest in hiring her once they found out she was here on a time-limited post-graduate work permit.

“It feels like you are doing this entirely alone. And maybe that’s just how it is,” says Azrieh, who works full time as an associate producer at CANADALAND. “Maybe I wasn’t ready to move across the country, across the globe, to a country that I didn’t know. But it felt like I was doing everything alone.”

.Colleges and universities are educational institutions, and some don’t have the capacity to properly support international students, who lack access to the kind of settlement services designed exclusively for permanent residents.

In light of the service gaps, immigrant agencies in B.C. now provide support for international students and temporary foreign workers through one-on-one information and referral, workshops and support groups.

Nova Scotia also launched a pilot program recently that offers international students in their final year help with career development opportunities and community connections to successfully transition to permanent residence.

However, these supports are piecemeal and it’s unclear who is responsible for the costs and the students’ well-being, says Lisa Brunner, a University of British Columbia doctoral student, whose research focuses on immigration, higher education and internationalization.

“If you’re coming from an institution’s perspective, my goal is to support students in their education and their experience in Canada, versus the government saying, ‘OK, we want to support this person because they’re a future immigrant and we want to retain them,’ ” she says.

“Those are two different types of services.

“The way it’s structured now works well for the government, because essentially the students themselves are responsible for the settlement process. Either they acquire the capital that’s necessary to succeed in the labour market to qualify for permanent residence or they don’t. In this way, the government doesn’t have to fund the services.”

“We all acknowledge giving access to students to those (settlement and support) services from the beginning of their journeys would be a tremendous return on investment for Canada,” says Larissa Bezo, president and CEO of the Canadian Bureau for International Education, a not-for-profit organization that aims to promote and advance Canadian international education.

“There’s a shared responsibility that we have … And in a federation like ours, that’s complex. I’m under no illusion. But we need to do a better job of connecting these dots.”

Coming out of the pandemic, Bezo says, Canada’s global brand has remained strong as Canadian governments and the sector pivoted in supporting international students through the crisis as other countries such as Australia asked their students to go home.

Clear messaging to international students

Balraj Kahlon, who co-founded One Voice Canada in British Columbia in 2019 to support and advocate for international students, says Canada’s international education strategy has been “ruthlessly” successful.

“The whole objective of international education is just to make money and to grow the economy. It has really little to do with education,” says Kahlon. “If we’re honest about what the international education strategy is, it is just to raise Canada’s GDP.”

He says the country’s international enrolment has increasingly been coming from the working poor in developing countries, lured by Canada’s relatively low tuition fees, the chance to work and make money to pay off family loans for the studies, and sometimes misinformation by unscrupulous education agents about the direct pathway for permanent residence.

He says many international students these days are pursuing the cheaper and shorter programs at colleges with the sole intent of immigration, even if they know they can’t afford the tuition fees and their courses won’t get them beyond a warehouse, factory or retail job.

Yet, he says many can’t resist the allure of the opportunity for permanent residence and a life toiling in low-wage, low-skilled jobs in Canada that still pay more than what they would earn back home.

If the international education strategy really aims to attract the best and the brightest, he says, permanent residency should be limited to the students who are at the top in their fields by lowering their tuition and making schooling affordable to them.

“Until you get rid of the profit motive, problems are going to keep coming, because the incentive is always just more numbers,” says Kahlon.

Sixty per cent of international students do plan to apply for permanent residence in Canada, but only three in 10 international students who entered the country in 2000 or later ended up obtaining permanent residence within 10 years.

While some fail to complete their education or secure employment for immigration, others find opportunities elsewhere and leave.

“Higher-education admission policies and procedures have a very different goal than the admission criteria for economic immigrants,” says Grunner, the UBC researcher. “That difference is not always clear to students before they come to Canada.

“The message they get is that Canada wants international students. That’s the policy message that gets communicated. International students are desired by Canada for their labour. We got that message very clear because it says that international students can now work for the next year with unlimited hours. And international students are desired as potential immigrants.”

Diversifying where and what students choose to study

Paul Davidson, president of Universities Canada, says there is capacity to absorb more international students, though that capacity isn’t evenly distributed across the country.

Governments, education institutions, immigrant settlement agencies, local communities and employers all have a stake in ensuring international students’ experience and well-being, he says.

“It’s really important that international students get credible information and are supported in every step of their training,” says Davidson, whose organization is the voice for 93 Canadian universities. “There are people making false claims about what their experience in Canada will be and we need to call that out.”

Denise Amyot, his counterpart at Colleges and Institutes Canada, says the federal government not only needs to diversify the source of international students here (currently 35 per cent from India; 17 per cent from China; and four per cent from France), but also where and what they choose to study.

Her organization released a report last year, calling for new permanent residency streams and supports for colleges to improve their labour market outcomes.

“I would be in favour of accelerating permanent residency for students that are in the areas of skills that we need,” says Amyot, who also would like to see international students be eligible for government-funded co-op and job programs.

“It’s important that students do their homework (and ask), ‘How I will be integrated into the community,’ where they look at the best possible scenario for what they want to do and what’s their intentions moving forward.”

Global Affairs Canada says the government has aimed to diversify the countries of origin of its international students, promote study opportunities, especially outside of major urban centres, and showcase sectors to highlight areas of labour shortages and encourage study in those fields through digital marketing initiatives.

Several targeted international ad campaigns will be carried out to promote programs in STEM, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies, the department says. Consultations are underway to renew the country’s international education strategy.

Striking a balance

Sana Banu, an international student from India, can’t say enough about the amazing experience she’s had at Kitchener, Ont.-based Conestoga College, despite all the challenges her peers face and a pathway to permanent residence that’s full of pitfalls.

It has given her experience that has pushed her out of her comfort zone, says the 29-year-old, who came here in 2018 to study marketing and communication with an undergrad degree and eight years of work experience in advertising back home.

International students are a diverse group, each with their expectations and intentions, and it’s impossible to generalize everyone’s experience.

To Banu, the issues come down to equity — whether it’s about the hefty and uncapped international tuition fees or job opportunities that usually favour permanent residents and citizens.

“The relationship shouldn’t be predatory,” says Banu, president and CEO of Conestoga’s student association, who was recently invited to apply for permanent residence. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship that international students provide to Canada and Canada provides to international students.

“It’s important that everybody sees the human side of an international student rather than just as a resource to fill your economic gaps and contribute to your economy exclusively. They are humans, who are coming here with expectations, dreams and hopes. And you could do a lot more in treating them with more dignity, equity and compassion.”

Source: How Canada can fix its ‘predatory’ relationship with international students

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