Trudeau government outlines five-year, $148-million plan to attract more foreign students to Canadian universities

2019/08/27 Leave a comment

Nice to see the government set out publicly the countries targeted which will allow evaluation of the success of diversification. The line “We don’t want to be poachers of talent, we want to be partners” appears ingenuous.

Courageous for a government to encourage Canadians to study abroad given that a certain percentage will likely remain in other countries to pursue opportunities.

Concerned that more than half of the international students in Canada come from just two countries, China and India, the federal government has pledged nearly $30-million over the next five years to diversify global recruiting efforts in the postsecondary sector.

The government is targeting countries with a large and growing middle class that may not yet have the higher-education capacity to educate all their students, or where the prospect of a Canadian education in English or French holds appeal.

The government said the initial focus of its marketing efforts will be in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Morocco, Turkey, France and Ukraine. It will also aim to attract students to schools outside of Canada’s largest cities, bringing economic benefits to provinces and regions that have tended to receive fewer immigrants.

“We’re really pleased with the countries [the government] has chosen,” said Paul Davidson, president of Universities Canada, the national lobby group that represents 96 universities across the country.

“We don’t want to be poachers of talent, we want to be partners.”

The government’s efforts to broaden the source countries of international students are part of a five-year, $148-million international education strategy released last week.

The strategy also allocates $95-million to encourage Canadian students to study and build ties abroad, particularly in Asia and Latin America, rather than the common destinations of the U.S., Britain and Australia.

“The higher-education community has been looking for this for about 20 years,” Mr. Davidson said. He cited statistics that show only 11 per cent of Canadian undergraduate students study in another country, lower than in some other wealthy nations.

Mr. Davidson said particular efforts will be focused on opportunities for Indigenous and low-income students, as well as those with disabilities who historically have been less likely to venture abroad for study.

The strategy fits neatly with the government’s skills agenda, Mr. Davidson said. The hope is that a future work force with an international outlook, contacts and cultural fluency in new markets will be a source of strength for Canada. Similarly, some of the international students who study in Canada are expected to apply for and be selected as permanent residents, bringing with them knowledge and networks that extend beyond Canada’s borders.

“International education is an essential pillar of Canada’s long-term competitiveness,” Jim Carr, Minister of International Trade Diversification, said in a statement. “Canadians who study abroad gain exposure to new cultures and ideas, stimulating innovation and developing important cross-cultural competencies. Students from abroad who study in Canada bring those same benefits to our shores.”

Last year, India surpassed China as Canada’s top source of foreign students. There were more than 172,000 study permit holders from India in Canada on Dec. 31, 2018, and more than 142,000 from China, each representing slightly more than a quarter of the total of 570,000. Although those countries will continue to figure prominently as source countries for Canada, there is risk associated with such concentration.

There were fears at the height of Canada’s diplomatic conflict with China over the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou that China would prevent or discourage students coming to Canada in such large numbers. Many universities expressed anxiety about that possibility last December, having seen a similar scenario play out in Canada’s relations with Saudi Arabia. The Saudis recalled hundreds of students studying in Canada after their government objected to a Canadian government tweet. Some schools lost significant amounts in tuition revenue as a result.

The economic contribution of education has grown rapidly in recent years. International students spent more than $21-billion in Canada in 2018, according to a study by Global Affairs Canada, and had a larger economic impact than exports of auto parts, lumber or aircraft.

The number of foreign study permit holders in Canada has more than doubled since 2012.

Source: Trudeau government outlines five-year, $148-million plan to attract more foreign students to Canadian universities

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Douglas Todd: Female foreign students endure harassment, exploitation

2019/03/12 Leave a comment

Of note:

Female foreign students from South Asia are experiencing sexual harassment by landlords, exploitation by bosses, and ethno-cultural double-standards, all the while dealing with their own fears of being deported.

Metro Vancouver community workers are warning about the particular vulnerability of the increasing number of young women coming to Canada from the Punjab region of India and other parts of South Asia, whose often-modest families have sold off much of their property and assets to get them to Canada.

Stories are emerging that some female international students — desperate to make enough money to avoid returning to their homelands — are resorting to offering sexual services to landlords and are even getting involved in the drug trade, says Kal Dosanjh, a police officer who runs a Surrey-based support program called Kids Play.

The young women are frightened, especially when exploitative employers in the underground economy, including at some restaurants, threaten to report them to immigration officials and have them deported, said Dosanjh.

“When these kids, who don’t know the law, hear about deportation, they get scared, because they’ve already spent so much money coming to Canada, and so much money surviving here, that the last thing they need is to be sent back to their country,” Dosanjh said.

There are more than 500,000 foreign students in Canada. After a jump of almost 50,000 additional students from India in 2017, one quarter of Canada’s international students now come from there.

“It’s a source of shame if they get sent home. They fear they’ll never get the chance to come back to Canada,” said Dosanjh, who also works with male foreign students whom he says tend to get exploited by under-paying construction companies or become low-level participants in the drug trade to pay high student fees and rents.

Being able to fly into Canada on a student visa is seen as the “ticket out of India, out of poverty” for many students, said Dosanjh. “For them to be able to stay here means everything in terms of future job prospects, monetary wealth, sanitary conditions, a significant change in lifestyle.” Many will put up with a lot of hardship to avoid going home.

MOSAIC, a large B.C. settlement service for migrants, this year began training teachers and other education officials about what they could do to support women among Metro Vancouver’s 110,000 foreign students, who the agency maintains are generally “more likely to be sexually assaulted and less likely to be helped” than native-born students.

“New research confirms that international students reported more sexual assault than domestic students and experience more intense fear, helplessness and horror after victimization,” says a statement from MOSAIC, whose 350 staff members are led by CEO Olga Stachova.

“Some perpetrators of sexual violence see international students as easy targets — too ashamed to report sexual assaults, unaware of where they can get help and influenced by different cultural norms.”

MOSAIC highlighted the case of Maham Kamal Khanum, an international student from Pakistan at UBC, who said sexual violence against women is “normalized” in her home country. “It was almost a culture shock to learn how unacceptable sexual violence was here,” Khanum said.

Dupinder Kaur Saran, Kal Dosanjh, Kiran Toor. Saran and Toor are volunteers with Kids Play, which helps youth in Surrey who are getting into trouble. Kal Dosanjh is a police officer and head of the non-profit group.

Many international students “don’t have a place to belong” when they come to Canada, says Kiran Toor, who, along with Dupinder Saran, has volunteered to work with international students through Kids Play, a large Surrey-based non-profit organization devoted to supporting young people, particularly South Asians.

Many foreign students are under a great deal of financial, social and academic pressure, including to learn English.

A recent article in Desi Today, an Indo-Canadian magazine in B.C., said it’s common for male and female foreign students to work more than the 20 hours a week permitted under a Canadian study visa.

The magazine quoted South Asian community workers who know of intimidated young women being sexually harassed in the workplace by employers, because they have worked many hours over their allowed limit and don’t want to be reported to border officials.

The young women especially feel shame about admitting to something that might hurt their reputations.

In 2017 there was a sudden jump of 48,000 more students from India. (Source: Canadian Bureau for International Education)

While Dosanjh said many female students from India are “liberal, open-minded and sophisticated,” Desi Today quoted community officials who said some traditional Indo-Canadians are “talking bad about the girl students from India.” Some Indo-Canadians don’t like that the young women are often see in public with males. Most officials cited in Desi Today did not respond to The Vancouver Sun’s messages.

At the worst, Dosanjh said, some Indian foreign students who are desperate for cash are getting involved in prostitution and the drug trade. The young men, says the longtime Vancouver police officer, are generally serving as “mules” and the women are agreeing to hold drugs for their male friends.

The effort to help schools provide more support to female foreign students who arrive in Canada without support networks is hampered, MOSAIC’s Stachova said, by the under-reporting of difficult incidents. “The students always think they have the worry: What will happen to my status in Canada?”

Even though the problem of exploitation of female foreign students is real in Metro Vancouver, Stachova said it has to be put into perspective. “I don’t want to sound alarmist,” Stachova said, “because we are generally a safe country.”

Still, the stakes are exceedingly high for the students.

As Dosanjh says, many families in India, particularly in the Punjab, see Canada as a kind of heaven on earth. “So the young people think of it is a land of rich amenities, where they can have a better life, become permanent residents and eventually sponsor their family to come over. That means that once these students come here the last thing most of them want to do is return to India.”

All of which make them more susceptible than most to exploitation.

foreign students from South Asia are experiencing sexual harassment by landlords, exploitation by bosses, and ethno-cultural double-standards, all the while dealing with their own fears of being deported. Metro Vancouver community workers are warning about the particular vulnerability of the increasing number of young women coming to Canada from the Punjab region of India and other parts of South Asia, whose often-modest families have sold off much of their property and assets to get them to Canada.

Source: Douglas Todd: Female foreign students endure harassment, exploitation

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Douglas Todd: Popular Canadian student visas leading to exploitation

2018/09/19 Leave a comment

More from Douglas Todd on Indian student visa holders:

Senior Indian politicians are warning tens of thousands of young Punjabis about the dangers of trying to take advantage of student visas to try to become Canadian citizens.

Indian nationals — some of whom are using student visas primarily to work rather than study in Canada — are being exploited in both countries for their money and cheap labour, say South Asian media outlets and officials in both India and Canada.

The Punjab’s education minister, Charanjit Singh Channi, says he recently travelled to Canada and “saw the plight of students there,” with many working 16 hours a day to make ends meet and attending fly-by-night colleges with just five students enrolled.

Channi, who is concerned about a growing brain drain of young Punjabis to Canada, told the Indian media he is cautioning students against “falling into the emigration trap.” He is one of many officials raising alarms about fraudulent immigration agents who are financially bleeding low-income families in India with false promises their offspring will easily obtain immigrant status in Canada.

Many Indo-Canadians in Metro Vancouver and Toronto are in an uproar over the surge in students from India, with their presence feeding community tensions, allegations of financial exploitation by colleges and universities, employer abuse and fears some young newcomers are “buying jobs” in Canada while working for less than minimum wage, undercutting local South Asians.

The number of Indian students in Canada, mostly from the Punjab, has increased about five-fold in the past few years, since the federal government began to favour international students as future permanent residents.

Canada has 130,000 students from India now, compared to 20,000 in Britain, 70,000 in Australia and 186,000 in the U.S., which has almost 10 times Canada’s population.

“Most international students, especially from China and India, see being an international student as an opportunity to migrate to Canada for greener pastures, to pave way for their families to eventually join them,” says Barj Dhahan, a major B.C. employer and philanthropist.

“They end up paying large sums of money to ‘immigration consultants’ … to help them obtain admissions to Canadian institutions and get visas to Canada. Many of these students are enrolled in short-term degree programs” And, he said, many end up working more than the 20 hours a week are allowed under student study permits.”

Dhahan, owner of the Sandhurst Group of companies that specializes in B.C. restaurants, gas stations and commercial real estate, said some of the 500,000 international students in Canada “work illegally under the table to make ends meet, and are usually paid in cash.” In the process, he said, many are exploited by dubious employers and so-called consultants.

The Tribune is one of several Indian media outlets reporting that young Punjabis and their often-rural families are being gouged by educational institutions, landlords and employers in Canada, as well as by so-called “immigration consultants” in India.

The Punjab newspaper says it typically costs Indian students more than $15,000 Cdn for their first year in Canada, but that consultants don’t tell families that educational fees and housing costs will mushroom to $100,000 to $150,000 for a multi-year program. Last month, Indian headlines trumpeted a police raid on the office of a prominent Punjab immigration consultancy headed by Vinay Hari, who had sponsored large ads celebrating the visit of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Immigration lawyers in Metro Vancouver, such as George Lee and Richard Kurland, say international students from India and China, the two biggest source countries for Canada, are among those who end up trying to extend their chances of gaining immigrant status in Canada by “buying jobs,” some of which don’t exist.

Burnaby immigration lawyer George Lee says some international students from India and China are among those who try to extend their chances of gaining immigrant status in Canada by “buying jobs.”

Shinder Purewal, a Kwantlen Polytechnic University political scientist and a former citizenship court judge, said “Immigration is the main motive of most international students coming to Canada,” particularly those who sign up with low-tier public and private educational institutions with little intention of obtaining a serious diploma and a much stronger inclination to find work.

One of the most lucrative money-making schemes for fraudulent immigration agents in India and Canada, Purewal said, is arranging often-fake Canadian labour-market impact assessments for international students who seek a long-term work permit to cement their chance of being approved for permanent resident status, the precursor to becoming a Canadian citizen.

Some Indo-Canadian business owners, Purewal said, collude with the agents to charge Indian students $20,000 to $50,000 for a false labour-market assessment, which claims a foreign national is needed for a job because Canadians cannot be found.

Although newcomers on student visas are limited to working 20 hours a week, Purewal said most end up “working more than full time to cover costs, simply because Canadian employers don’t even pay them minimum wage. The system allows ‘immigration consultants’ and businesses to cheat, commit fraud and brutally exploit young people.”

Vancouver immigration lawyer Sam Hyman says there is a “rampant” underground economy devoted to creating false labour-market assessments for international students in Canada, regardless of their nationality. If the students who buy such fraudulent job offers are caught, Hyman warned, “they are likely to bear the enforcement consequences — including deportation — more readily than the fraudsters who victimize them and reap the profits of such illegal activity.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Popular Canadian student visas leading to exploitation

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Douglas Todd: Indo-Canadians in uproar over surge of foreign students

2018/09/11 Leave a comment

Another interesting profile by Douglas Todd of some of the tensions and debates within one of the ethnic communities:

The Indo-Canadian community is in turmoil over a recent surge in foreign students from India, whose presence is feeding community tensions amid allegations of financial exploitation, an Indian brain drain, exam cheating, mistreatment of young women, employer abuse, drug dealing and the “stealing” of South Asians’ jobs.

The number of international students from India in Canada has jumped by roughly five times in the past few years, after the federal government in 2012 bucked the trend of other Western nations and made it easier for international students to work and to go to the front of the immigration queue.

In the past it was mostly well-off Indian families who sent their children to Canada to study. But now tens of thousands of low-income Indians, including farming families, are stretching their meagre finances to get their children into the Canadian education system, job market and family immigration stream.

South Asian media outlets in Canada and India are buzzing with articles and commentary on the changes, often revolving around debate on whether the 130,000 foreign students from India, mostly from the Punjab region, are being victimized by the system or exploiting it. Canada’s South Asian population numbers more than 500,000, mostly in Metro Vancouver and Greater Toronto.

Indian education officials, especially in the Punjab, are complaining about losing students to Canada. They’re also alleging many of the foreign students are being exploited by unscrupulous immigration agents and English-language trainers in India, as well as by money-hungry colleges and universities, landlords and South Asian business owners in Canada.

Meanwhile, Indo-Canadians concentrated in Greater Toronto and Metro Vancouver have been holding public meetings to complain about how many students from India are skipping classes to work longer hours in Canada than they are permitted, leading to the Times of India running the headline: “Indo-Canadians say international students ’stealing their jobs.’”

Desi Today, an Indo-Canadian magazine, said in an editorial “There has been a simmering reaction of anger and protest by the Indo-Canadian community, especially of Surrey, against these students.

“There are YouTube videos made by Indo-Canadians displaying the behaviour of the students (and) their unhygienic lifestyle, criticizing them for their focus on earning money instead of studies. A few are leaving studies altogether to enter into illicit activities, like drug trading,” said Desi Today.

Balraj Kahlon, of Guru Nanak’s Free Kitchen, a Surrey organization that helps low-income individuals, told Postmedia News his members were discovering that “many students from India are under financial stress and there is a problem of labour exploitation, and sexual exploitation of young women.” Some Indians students are alleged to be working 16 hours a day, when their Canadian study permit allows only 20 hours a week.

The number of Indian foreign students at Surrey’s Kwantlen Polytechnic University has skyrocketed in the past couple of years, while Langara College’s cohort of Indian foreign students has catapulted 40 times in just three years. Many students from India are also attending small private colleges in Canada, which some critics dismiss as “one-room” fake diploma-and-immigration factories.

Langara College sociology instructor Gagun Chhina said Canadian institutions can’t handle the extraordinary influx of foreign students, who are flocking here because of Ottawa’s simplified process for obtaining permanent resident status. Students from India make up the second largest cohort of international students in Canada, after those from China.

Chhina said Indian foreign students are struggling to balance study with long hours on their jobs, which many need to survive in costly Vancouver and Toronto. Some are sending money home to their Indian parents, many of whom hope their sons and daughters will sponsor them to come to Canada to work temporarily or immigrate.

Indian foreign students have unfortunately become big business in both India and Canada, say the critics, and some of those enterprises are illicit.

A radio station in the Punjab, SBS, reported that English-language schools have been fined for charging students $15,000 for phoney passing marks in English tests, so they can get into Canada. Punjabi officials have ordered a crackdown on immigration consultants, some of whom take large sums and make false promises to manoeuvre young people into Canadians schools. India’s Tribune newspaper also maintains Canada’s “relaxed immigration policy” is draining tens of thousands of young people and their low-income families’ hard-earned money out of the Punjab.

Things are so strained among some South Asians in Canada that fights have broken out between domestic and foreign students in Ontario colleges.

“This is the talk of the town in the Punjabi community. The newspapers and radio shows all talk about it,” Balraj Deol, editor of the Khabarnama Punjabi Weekly, told Postmedia.

While many Indo-Canadian landlords and business owners are financially exploiting and abusing foreign students from India, Deol said the other side of the phenomenon is that Indian foreign students who break the rules by working long hours are adding to large “underground” ethnic economies in Ontario and B.C.

Said Deol: “People are angry at this poor immigration policy in Canada.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Indo-Canadians in uproar over surge of foreign students

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The Daily — Study: International Students, Immigration and Earnings Growth

2017/08/23 Leave a comment

Important study showing the importance of pre-landing work experience to earnings:

International students are increasingly regarded as an important group of young and well-educated individuals from which to select permanent residents. In December 2015 there were 353,000 international students with a valid study permit in Canada, up from 84,000 in December 1995. Of the international students admitted to Canada in the early 2000s, 25% became permanent residents over the 10 years that followed. Of these, nearly one-half applied as principal applicants in the economic class.

A small number of studies from Australia, Canada and the United States suggest that the earnings advantage that former international students have over other economic immigrants may be either small or non-existent. This suggests that pre-landing study experience in a destination country such as Canada may not in and of itself improve immigrants’ labour market outcomes over university degrees acquired abroad. Policy-makers and researchers are thus shifting their attention to the complementary role played by other factors, such as pre-landing work experience. A study released today by Statistics Canada offers new evidence on this issue.

The study examines the earnings trajectories of three groups of university graduates: international students who obtained a university degree in Canada and then became landed immigrants (i.e. Canadian-educated immigrants); individuals who had a university degree from abroad at the time they immigrated to Canada (i.e. foreign-educated immigrants); and university graduates born in Canada. The earnings trajectories of these groups were examined over 6 years for the cohort of individuals aged 25 to 34 in 2006, and over 20 years for the cohort of individuals aged 25 to 34 in 1991.

Among the 2006 cohort of male Canadian-educated immigrants, average annual earnings one year after landing were 48% lower than those of Canadian-born graduates. This gap narrowed to 34% six years after landing. Among female Canadian-educated immigrants, the earnings gap vis-à-vis Canadian-born graduates was 39% one year after landing and 32% six years after landing.

Most of these earnings gaps were accounted for by differences in the work histories of immigrant and Canadian-born graduates. Prior to becoming landed immigrants, 12% of male Canadian-educated immigrants had no work experience in Canada and 40% had prior work experience with annual earnings under $20,000. Among male Canadian-born graduates, virtually all had prior work experience and almost 90% had prior work experience with annual earnings of $20,000 and over. These patterns were broadly similar among women.

When group differences in prior Canadian work experience were taken into account, the earnings gap between Canadian-educated immigrants and Canadian-born graduates in the 2006 cohort disappeared among both men and women. Likewise, prior work experience accounted for much of the earnings gap observed among the 1991 cohort.

Canadian-educated immigrants had higher post-immigration earnings than foreign-educated immigrants, but prior work experience once again played an important role. Five years after landing, male Canadian-educated immigrants with no pre-landing work experience had annual earnings 20% below those of male foreign-educated immigrants. Among women, the shortfall was 7%. This takes into account a broad range of socio-demographic and source country characteristics. Canadian-educated immigrants who accumulated pre-landing work experience fared far better relative to their foreign-educated counterparts.

Canadian-educated immigrants with three years of pre-landing work experience that paid less than $20,000 had annual earnings five years after landing that were similar to, or higher than, their foreign-educated counterparts. Those with three years of pre-landing work experience that paid $20,000 to $50,000 had annual earnings five years after landing that were 42% to 61% higher. For the approximately 10% of Canadian-educated immigrants who had three years of pre-landing work experience that paid more than $50,000, their earnings five years after landing were more than double those of foreign-educated immigrants. These differences in earnings were larger among the 2006 cohort than the 1991 cohort.

These results suggest that pre-landing Canadian work experience and earnings play an increasing role in differentiating the post-immigration labour market outcomes of university-educated immigrants.

Source: The Daily — Study: International Students, Immigration and Earnings Growth

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Douglas Todd: The hidden cost of foreign-student policy

2016/12/12 Leave a comment

Some valid points regarding the rise of international students and their impact although the healthcare costs are likely grossly inflated: using the provincial average is not appropriate for young age cohort that tend to have fewer healthcare needs.

And the concern about slipping standards is more anecdote based without hard data to back this up:

Although unheeded by politicians, Knight and Altbach say Western foreign-student programs have lost their humanitarian ideals, grown into a giant business and now largely draw second-tier students, many of whom struggle with new languages.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University political science professor Shinder Purewal and Patrick Feeney, a B.C.-based education professor now at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, add to such warnings about the hidden costs of Canada’s foreign student policy.

While both scholars support foreign student programs, they fear they’ve mushroomed out of control. Canadians, the scholars say, need to be aware of the disguised burden on taxpayers. Purewal and Feeney also say academic standards are declining in many classrooms.

Working independently, Purewal and Feeney reveal there have been significant repercussions as the ratio of foreign students at B.C.’s two leading universities, UBC and SFU, has grown to one in four, with by far the largest cohort from Mainland China.

Even though the portion of foreign students at suburban Vancouver’s Kwantlen Polytechnic University is one in eight (almost half the foreign students are South Asian), internal documents show that Kwantlen recently paid more than $300,000 to student-recruiting agents in India.

To further illustrate how massive the industry has become, Purewal said Metro Vancouver is home to more than 150 private colleges and universities that cater almost exclusively to foreign students. He calls them “drive-thru institutions, basically two-room colleges.”

What are the hidden financial costs of Canada’s foreign-student policies?

Purewal, who is also a registered immigration consultant, says Canadians are not aware that the more than 300,000 foreign students in the country at any one time receive provincial taxpayer-funded health care.

The foreign students — as well as their spouses and children — have their doctor and hospital visits paid for by Canadian taxpayers, even though they have not contributed to the universal health care program.

With B.C. home to 110,000 foreign students, and the average resident using up almost $6,000 a year in medical expenses, Purewal calculated “the cost could be up $635 million” to the province’s health care system, not including spouses and children (who are also allowed free public-school educations).

“While the post-secondary institutions earn more tuition money, the Canadian taxpayers foot the bill for their health costs,” said Purewal, who has served as a citizenship court judge, where he’s seen how Canadian policy also favours foreign students as future immigrants.

Many foreign students and especially their spouses also seize on the option to work while in Canada, often full-time, says Purewal, echoing a new trend discovered by Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland.

In many cases, Purewal believes, Canadian bosses prefer to hire foreign students or their spouses. “You can exploit them to bone. They are not going to talk about labour standards. They can’t complain. Employers are happy with this system.”

What’s happening in higher education itself?

Purewal and Feeney are skeptical about the mantra from administrators and politicians that foreign students do not take the seats of domestic students.

The two academics maintain that, since government funding for higher education is declining, the money available to create seats for domestic students is also, in effect, declining. Domestic student enrolment in classrooms is capped.

Former UBC president Stephen Toope is among those who have said B.C. government funding for university students has been cut almost in half from its high in the 1970s, when it covered 70 per cent of per capita costs.

Purewal says the competition between domestic and foreign students becomes particularly keen in winning coveted spots in masters or PhD programs, which are small, with varied selection criteria.

Purewal also maintains universities are not asking most foreign students in Canada, who typically pay anywhere from $12,000 to $18,000 a year in fees, to pay their own way in full.

Their fees do not finance infrastructure, he said. If foreign students had to completely make up for the taxpayer money that has gone into constructing UBC, SFU or Kwantlen, Purewal estimated their fees would have to double or triple.

The quality of education is also declining in many university and college classrooms, says Feeney.

Source: Douglas Todd: The hidden cost of foreign-student policy | Vancouver Sun

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Why kicking me out of the country is bad for Canada’s economy

2016/06/17 Leave a comment

One personal account of the impact of Express Entry by an international student, Murad Hemmed:

As of June 16, 2017, I will no longer be welcome in Canada. On that date, my Post-Graduate Work Permit expires, and I have to leave the country. There’s no telling when—if—I’ll be able to return.

I arrived in Toronto on September 12, 2010. As a precocious (read: full of himself) teenager, I thought I was headed for the Ivy League. Then reality set in: I couldn’t afford a U.S. education. Luckily, the self-styled “Harvard of the North” accepted me, so to the University of Toronto I came. It helped that I had an aunt in the city who generously agreed to put me up for the duration of my degree. (A decision I’m sure I gave her cause to regret, with my tendency to return home in the wee hours and my litre-a-week ice cream habit.) Once here, though, Toronto quickly became home. I have a job, an apartment and relationships here. Bombay, the city of my birth, is a place I haven’t called home in years. India, the country of my citizenship, holds no special place in my heart.

Until quite recently, it would have been relatively simple for me to stay. But changes to Canada’s immigration policies that took effect last year have made the path to becoming a permanent resident much more difficult for international students. It’s a sucker punch for the thousands of young people who have bought into Canada’s “nation of immigrants” tag line, who hope that their personal and financial commitment to this country will be recognized and rewarded. It makes little sense to court bright foreign talent to enrol in Canada’s universities, educate them and allow them to integrate, only to uproot them and send them away. But this isn’t just a sob story; it’s an economic issue.

The problem was caused by trying to solve another one. In January 2015, the previous Conservative government implemented a new permanent residency system, called Express Entry, to speed up processing times and prioritize economic immigration. Businesses would be able to hire foreigners with special, in-demand skills without replacing Canadian workers. As part of the overhaul, the government also took a separate program commonly used by international students to gain residency and lumped it in with the Express Entry process. Now, applicants like me are up against everyone else who wants to immigrate to this country.

I’m currently putting together an application for permanent residency. I’m collecting documents, consulting lawyers and comparing notes with friends who are doing the same. Come June, I’ll create a profile for myself in Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s online Express Entry database. Then I’ll wait to be chosen, either by Ontario or in one of the monthly draws from the Express Entry pool. Under the current system, my qualifications and skills are converted into points—the more I have, the better my chances. I score the maximum for being young and for my excellent English. My degree earns me a few more, but there are no extra points for earning it in Canada. Add it all up, and I have fewer than 450 points, the lowest the bar for entry has ever dropped. I’d get an extra 600 points if I qualified for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), a document showing my employer can’t find a Canadian to do my job. That’s a requirement engineers and software developers can often meet; journalists, not so much.

Look: Canada can probably do without me, personally. But I’m not the only young person facing this predicament, and losing potentially thousands of international students each year isn’t good for the country or its companies. According to the Canadian Bureau for International Education, 51% of international students plan to apply for permanent residency. We’re Canadian-educated, so our degrees and qualifications need no translation. We’re culturally integrated and linguistically compatible. We’ve paid hundreds of thousands into the public purse in the form of frankly ridiculous international tuition fees, and we have acclimatized to Canadian winters. We know that coffee is spelled “Tim Hortons” and that poutine is a superfood.

Consider the country’s demographics, too. “Canada has a shortage of talented 20-somethings in all areas,” says Mike Moffatt, an assistant professor in the Business, Economics and Public Policy group at Ivey Business School at Western University. “We need people who are going to be working for the next 30 to 40 years, paying into CPP [and] creating economic growth to allow the baby boomers to have the full pensions they’re expecting.” The demographics issue is particularly acute in mid-size cities like London and Windsor, Ont., which have trouble retaining young people and desperately need 20- and 30-somethings to start families and lift the local economy.

We’re also incredibly valuable to our employers. Vancouver tech startup Mobify has hired a number of international students. Some don’t meet the LMIA requirements because they work in non-technical fields. “But they’re highly valuable to us, because they’re already here and they have that knowledge and skill base,” says Tanya Kensington, the company’s senior director of people and culture. The spouse of one Mobify employee recently had to go back to school to allow the couple to stay in the country.

Ontario has its own program for international students with job offers, which allows applicants to potentially skip the LMIA requirement. But Toronto lawyer Stephen Green says employer approvals aren’t being processed fast enough. “If you go to the website, they say you get an answer in 90 days,” he says. “You don’t! So [they’re] giving out misinformation, and suddenly everyone’s freaking out. And we’re losing amazing people.” In any case, the allocation for that scheme fills out rapidly—Ontario stopped accepting most classes of applications on May 9 this year.

The new federal Liberal government seems to be aware of the issue. On March 14, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship John McCallum signalled that making it easier for international students to gain residency would be part of a broader review of the Express Entry system. “I believe international students are among the most fertile source of new immigrants for Canada,” he told reporters, saying he wanted federal-provincial talks on the matter. Ideally—from my own selfish perspective—that would mean a quota or a program specifically for international students. The government could also follow the advice of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which recently recommended that applicants be awarded points for earning a Canadian post-secondary degree. Whatever form the changes take, the immigration lawyers I’ve spoken to—both as a journalist and as a client looking at my options—have suggested they are likely to come within a year.

In the meantime, it’s possible that I could obtain permanent residency under the current system, if the bar falls low enough. But for now, I’m filling out my forms, resigned to the fact that I may well have to book a plane ticket to Mumbai in the coming months. One-way.

Source: Why kicking me out of the country is bad for Canada’s economy

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Douglas Todd: Mixed motives fuel rise of foreign students

2016/05/24 Leave a comment

Not surprising that universities and other educational institutions view foreign students from an economic perspective and that foreign families consider not only the education but financial (shift money to Canada, invest in real estate) and political benefits (citizenship).

But, as in the case over the debate over housing prices, it raises policy issues:

Immigration Canada data shows about 72,000 foreign students from Mainland Chinese were accepted in 2014, 36,000 from India, 17,000 from South Korea and 13,000 from France. In total, one out of four foreign students in Canada is from China.
Canadian politicians talk in predictable ways about the increasing number of foreign students.

Wilkinson maintains Chinese and other foreign students bring “social, cultural and economic benefits.” And they pay full fees for their own educations, unlike subsidized homegrown students.

The federal Immigration Minister John McCallum often calls foreign students “the cream of the crop.”

But noted specialists in higher education, including Boston College’s Philip Altbach and Ontario’s Jane Knight, say the quality of foreign students is going down as their numbers inflate.

Most foreign students are now second tier, say Altbach and Knight. They’re generally not doing well in the schools in their countries of origin. But many have rich parents.

Given the trend, Knight argues that most Western foreign-student programs have lost their humanitarian origins and become elaborate cash grabs. They make it possible for governments like British Columbia’s to mask that they are tightening education funding.

What are some foreign students in Canada doing when they’re not studying?

Canada’s federal housing agency, looking for new methods to track foreign ownership in the country’s soaring real estate markets, has considering classifying foreign university students as foreign buyers as it steps up its investigation into global money-laundering.

Bloomberg News discovered that Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp., the Crown corporation that tracks housing data, is especially interested in how the red-hot housing markets in Toronto and Vancouver are partly fuelled by foreign students, some of whom live in multi-million-dollar homes near the UBC campus.

In a related study, urban planner Andy Yan, head of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, discovered that in a six-month period in 2015, about 70 per cent of 172 detached homes sold on Vancouver’s west side were purchased by Mainland Chinese buyers.

Yan’s research showed that, of all self-declared occupations among owners of the high-priced homes in the study, 36 per cent were housewives or students with little income.

Five of eight homes owned by “students” were bought outright with cash at an average value of $3.2 million.

Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, a frequent adviser to the federal parliament, said it’s clear that most children from around the world who are able to afford to live and pay full education fees in expensive cities like Toronto and Vancouver are from “elite families.”

One bonus of getting children into Canada as foreign students, Kurland says, is that those who are able can become players in real-estate investment. Students are being declared as property owners of Vancouver residential property because they aid in international money transfers, Kurland said.

Foreign students have the advantage of being able to appear as residents of Canada for income tax purposes, even as their declared earned income would be extremely low.

As principal resident of a dwelling, Kurland said, a foreign student does not have to pay capital gains when his or her home is sold at a profit. “Then, out of the goodness of their heart, they can send the profit back to their uncle in China,” Kurland said with irony.

In addition to aiding the movement of trans-national wealth, however, possibly the more common reason a well-off foreign family puts a great deal of effort into establishing their son or daughter in Canada is that it goes a long way to obtaining a second passport.
Canadian politicians often rank international students as prime candidates for immigration. Roughly three out of 10 foreign students have gone on to become Canadian citizens. And that proportion is expected to rise.

Kurland believes more foreign students from China are being flown to Canada at “younger and younger ages … in part because they’re a no-fit in the Chinese educational system.” They need to establish themselves early in Canada’s educational system if they’re going to make it.

The immigration lawyer, who publishes a newsletter called Lexbase, discovered that Mainland Chinese families have doubled the rate at which they’re sending their children to Canadian elementary and high schools. Four out of 10 foreign students in Canada, including those from Mainland China, now apply for “secondary school or less.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Mixed motives fuel rise of foreign students | Vancouver Sun

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International-student work program needs overhaul, report says

2016/04/01 Leave a comment

Great example of some of the in-depth research and analysis that IRCC/CIC do, and the importance this work can and should have in ongoing policy development and program design.

However, highly disturbing that the release of such research took a nine-month battle between the Globe and IRCC/CIC. It is one thing to apply ATIP liberally with respect to advice to a Minister (decision or information memo), quite another to research. Questionable ethics for all involved, and hopefully the current Government will deliver on its commitment to greater openness:

A program that allows international students to work in Canada after graduation is creating a low-wage work force, encouraging low-quality postsecondary programs, and needs to be redesigned, says an internal report from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Under the Post-Graduation Work Permit Program international students with degrees from Canadian colleges and universities can work here for up to three years after their programs end. Between 50 per cent and 60 per cent of eligible international students applied for a work permit, the report says, with more than 70,000 people holding permits in 2014.

The program is designed to make Canadian postsecondary institutions an attractive destination and to give international students work experience, making it easier to apply for permanent residence.

But the 35-page report found that the majority of those employed through a work permit are in low-skilled jobs in the service sector, and have median earnings that are less than half of other recent university and college graduates.

“Facilitating this large pool of temporary labour, largely in low-paid positions, may be in conflict with the objectives of the Putting Canadians First strategy,” the report states.

That strategy was initiated by the former Conservative government to prioritize employment for Canadians after abuses of the temporary-foreign-worker program came to light. The Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) report was commissioned as part of a larger review of temporary-foreign-worker policies.

The Globe and Mail obtained the report after a nine-month battle. The government initially refused the request. After an appeal to the Information Commissioner of Canada and discussions between the commissioner, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the newspaper, the government provided a partly redacted version of the report.

Marked “secret,” the report reviews six years of the work-permit program, from 2008 to 2014. It raises many questions about how Canada attracts international students and how they transition to citizenship.

Its findings are likely to complicate the recently announced review of how the new Express Entry immigration system is treating international students who want to become permanent residents. Express Entry, introduced in January, 2015, does not award applicants any extra points for studying in Canada, as had been the case under a prior immigration program for international students. As a result, it has been heavily criticized for making it much harder for international students to become permanent residents.

Earlier this month, John McCallum, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, said the government is launching a federal-provincial task force to look at how Express Entry can better serve this group.

“International students have been shortchanged by the Express Entry system,” he said at the time. “They are the cream of the crop in terms of potential future Canadians …”

The PGWP report, however, suggests that most international students’ investment in a Canadian education is not being rewarded by the labour market.

International students with a work permit had median earnings of $19,291 in 2010, compared with about $41,600 for 2013 domestic college graduates and $53,000 for Canadian university grads, according to the review.

Source: International-student work program needs overhaul, report says – The Globe and Mail

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Ottawa looks to ease international students’ path to permanent residency

2016/03/16 Leave a comment

Appears that the government has heard these entreaties, as well as believing in the policy merits of encouraging a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship for students, with changes to Express Entry expected:

The Liberal government is moving to make it easier for international students to become permanent residents once they have graduated from Canadian postsecondary institutions.

Immigration Minister John McCallum said he intends to launch federal-provincial talks to reform the current Express Entry program, a computerized system that serves as a matchmaking service between employers and foreign skilled workers. Thousands of international students have been rejected for permanent residency because the program favours prospective skilled workers from abroad.

“We must do more to attract students to this country as permanent residents,” Mr. McCallum told reporters after meeting with his provincial and territorial counterparts Monday. “International students have been shortchanged by the Express Entry system. They are the cream of the crop in terms of potential future Canadians and so I certainly would like to work with my provincial and territorial colleagues to improve that.”

Mr. McCallum said international students are ideal immigrants and should be recruited by Canada.

“I believe international students are among the most fertile source of new immigrants for Canada. By definition, they are educated. They speak English or French,” said the minister.

“They know something about the country, so they should be first on our list of people who we court to come to Canada,” he minister.

International students have been uncertain about whether they will be able to stay in Canada after they finish their studies since the former Conservative government introduced the Express Entry system on Jan. 1, 2015. Prior to that, they had a clear path to permanent residency.

To be able to apply for permanent residence under Express Entry, however, graduates have to reach a certain number of points, with levels changing from month to month. Those with the highest points in any given month are more likely to be successful.

Evan Green, a Toronto immigration lawyer who has helped international students apply for permanent residence, was cautious about the promise to adjust how applications are processed.

The government is projecting fewer economic applicants overall, and so international students may face more competition for the available spots.

“The target for 2015 was 181,300 in the economic class and this year it’s 160,600,” he said.

Still, a few simple adjustments could make it easier for international students to settle in Canada, he said. Giving graduates specific points for education and work experience in this country would be a start. That’s how the prior system worked.

“You had people who paid for their own education, had Canadian work experience, they’re pretty good immigrants,” he said. “They could adjust it so that work experience on your postgrad work permit could be worth more.”

Making the system easier to navigate is crucial to Canada’s economy and its universities, said Paul Davidson, the president of Universities Canada. International students contribute in excess of $10-billion in GDP to the economy, more than wheat and more than softwood lumber, he said.

“It’s a global competition,” he said. “Being able to offer a commitment that students can stay here after they graduate is part of the pitch Canadian universities make to attract top talent.”

Source: Ottawa looks to ease international students’ path to permanent residency – The Globe and Mail

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