Canadian universities raise alarm over international student visa cap 

2024/01/20 Leave a comment

No surprise and self-serving for the most part:

Canadian postsecondary schools are warning that a federal cap on international student visas could have unintended consequences that will hurt institutions under financial strain and risk damaging the country’s image as a study destination.

…

Larissa Bezo, president of the Canadian Bureau for International Education, said Ottawa must avoid what she called “simplistic, short-term solutions” that would damage Canada’s reputation as a welcoming, attractive country to international students. [as if the current policies are not already doing so]

Source: Canadian universities raise alarm over international student visa cap

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Miller to provinces: If you can’t fix international student rackets then feds will

2023/10/30 Leave a comment

Some stronger messaging from the feds:

The federal government is prepared to crack down on dubious post-secondary institutions that recruit international students if provinces aren’t up to the task, Immigration Minister Marc Miller warned Friday.

Miller made the comments as he announced new rules to curb fraud and “bad actors” in the international student program, following an investigation this summer into more than 100 cases involving fake admission letters.

Provinces are responsible for accrediting schools that can accept international students, which include both public universities and colleges as well as private institutions.

In his final months in the role former immigration minister Sean Fraser raised concerns about the number of private colleges in strip malls and other venues that rely on international student tuition, but in some cases offer a meagre education in return.

Several advocacy groups, including the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change have highlighted cases of student exploitation by some of those intuitions.

Miller said Friday the international school program has created an ecosystem that is “rife with perverse incentives,” and that is very lucrative for the institutions and for provinces that have underfunded their post-secondary schools,

“The federal government is coming forward and opening its arms to our provincial partners, territorial partners, to make sure we all do our jobs properly,” Miller said at a press conference at Sheraton College in Brampton, Ont. Friday.

“If that job can’t be done, the federal government is prepared to do it.”

The immigration department counted 800,000 active study permits at the end of 2022, a 170 per cent increase over the last decade.

“What we are seeing in the ecosystem is one that has been chasing after short term gain, without looking at the long term pain. And we need to reverse that trend. But it will take time,” he said.

Ontario in particular has “challenges” when it comes to the accreditation of post-secondary intuitions, but it is not the only one. Miller did not elaborate on what those specific challenges are.

The Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities did not answer specific questions, but said in a statement the provincial government will “again ask for a meeting with the new federal minister to discuss the planned changes once they’ve been communicated with ministry.”

Sarom Rho, an organizer with the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said the “fly-by-night colleges” are sometimes partnered with public institutions. But even those can be exploitative, she said.

She said she is working with a group of students who paid tuition up front to one of those intuitions, but were asked for more money just weeks before class enrolment began.

“The school said, ‘Well, if you don’t have the money, you can go back home, earn some and come back,'” Rho said Friday.

She said the federal government must take up the accreditation of colleges and universities that accept international students.

“They are aware of the substandard nature of these institutions, these fly-by-night private colleges,” she said.

Also on Friday Miller announced new rules in the federal government’s jurisdiction to address fraud and “bad actors” in the international student program.

Miller’s department plans to set up a system to recognize post-secondary schools that have higher standards for services, supports and outcomes for international students in time for the next fall semester.

The standards could include adequate access to housing, mental health services, and a lower ratio of international to Canadian students, Miller said, though the criteria hasn’t been finalized.

Details about how exactly recognized schools and institutions would benefit under the new system will be released later, the minister said. As an example, he said applicants for those schools would be prioritized when it comes to processing their study permits.

“Our goal here is to punish the bad actors to make sure that they are held accountable, and reward the good actors who provide adequate outcomes for the success of international students,” the minister said.

The details of that system will be important, Rho said, especially since students often fear speaking out because of their precarious status in Canada.

“Migrant student workers should not be caught in this … carrot and stick system,” she said.

“What will happen to those who do go to the schools that are ‘bad actors?’ They will also be punished. So instead, what they need is protections and equal rights.”

The department is also looking to combat fraud by verifying international students’ acceptance letters from Colleges and Universities.

The extra verification is a reaction to a scheme that dates back to 2017, which saw immigration agents issue fake acceptance letters to get international students into Canada.

The department launched a task force in June to investigate cases associated with the racket. Of the 103 cases reviewed so far, roughly 40 per cent of students appeared to be in on the scheme, while the rest were victims of it.

The task force is still investigating another 182 cases.

“The use of fraudulent admissions letters has been a major concern for my department this year and continues to pose a serious threat to the integrity of our student program,” Miller said, adding that international students are not to blame.

The new rules come as a welcome development to the National Association of Career Colleges, the group’s CEO said in a statement Friday.

“We welcome the opportunity to work with the federal government to improve our international student system by building greater trust and security, supporting Canadian communities, and ensuring that Canada’s immigration programs are student-centred,” the CEO, Michael Sangster said in a statement.

Source: Miller to provinces: If you can’t fix international student rackets then feds will

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Integrity of immigration system at risk as international student numbers balloon, minister says

2023/08/28 Leave a comment

Smart communications to link to integrity issues but test will be what he and the government does about it. Too late for the upcoming academic year and the education associations are already protesting:

Immigration Minister Marc Miller says the concern around the skyrocketing number of international students entering Canada is not just about housing, but Canadians’ confidence in the “integrity” of the immigration system itself.

Canada is on track to welcome around 900,000 international students this year, Miller said in an interview that aired Saturday on CBC’s The House. That’s more than at any point in Canada’s history and roughly triple the number of students who entered the country a decade ago.

That rapidly increasing number of international students gained increased attention this week when the country’s new housing minister, Sean Fraser, floated the idea of a possible cap on the number of students Canada brings in.

Fraser framed a cap on international students as “one of the options that we ought to consider” during a cabinet retreat earlier this week in Prince Edward Island.

Miller, who took over from Fraser at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, told guest host Evan Dyer that the rising number of students was a concern for housing, though he says it is important not to overstate that challenge.

“It is an ecosystem in Canada that is very lucrative and it’s come with some perverse effects: some fraud in the system, some people taking advantage of what is seen as a backdoor entry into Canada, but also pressure in a number of areas — one of those is housing,” he said.

But Miller shied away from committing to the idea of a hard cap on the number of students entering Canada.

“Just putting a hard cap, which got a lot of public play over the last few days, is not the only solution to this,” he said.

“Core to this is actually trying to figure out what the problem is we’re trying to solve for. It isn’t entirely housing, it’s more appropriately the integrity of the system that has mushroomed, ballooned in the past couple of years.”

Miller said there were a number of “illegitimate actors” who were trying to exploit the system, which was eventually having a negative effect on people trying to come to Canada for legitimate reasons. Miller referred to one high-profile instance last month of an international student found sleeping under a bridge.

He said he would not get involved with “naming and shaming,” but said his focus was on some private colleges. Work would need to be done to tighten up the system, he said, to make sure institutions actually had space and suitable housing for people who are being admitted. Miller also said closer collaboration with provinces was key to solving the problem.

Cap opposed by major universities

In a statement to The House, the National Association of Career Colleges said “regulated career colleges provide efficient, high-quality, industry-driven training for domestic and international students to produce the skilled workers Canada most desperately needs.” That includes workers in the construction trades that build housing, they said.

Philip Landon, interim president and CEO at Universities Canada, also pushed back on the idea of a cap, seeking to position major universities as part of the solution to the problem.

“I think we can say that the housing situation is a crisis for Canadians broadly,” Landon said in a separate interview with The House. “I do not think that the blaming newcomers or international students … is the right way to go.”
With Canada facing an acute shortage of affordable housing, the federal government is considering putting a limit on the number of international students it allows in each year.

Speaking to The House, a number of international students in Ottawa pushed back on the idea that people like them are making housing unaffordable. In fact, said Rishi Patel, a student from Zambia, international students often have a more difficult time finding housing than domestic students as they often lack credentials.

“I just came to Canada. I don’t have any credit checks yet. I don’t have any employment references,” he said.

Mike Moffatt, an assistant professor at the Ivey Business School who specializes in housing policy, agreed with that sentiment when he spoke in P.E.I. earlier in the week.

“This is a systemic failure, I would say, of both the federal and provincial government and as well that the higher education sector in which I work to ensure that there’s enough housing for both domestic and international students.”

“Domestic and international students are the biggest victims of this, not the cause of it,” he said.

Housing has become a top political issue federally, with the Tory opposition hammering the government as Canadians struggle with the cost of living.

“We as Conservatives will make sure that international students have homes, health care and when they want it, jobs so that we can get back to a system that supports our universities, attracts the world’s brightest people, helps the demographics of our country but does not leave people living in squalor,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said.

Talking with Dyer, Miller said the focus of his department was on ensuring the system was working properly for those trying to come to Canada.

“What we don’t want to see is hopes dashed based on a false promise,” Miller said.

Source: Integrity of immigration system at risk as international student numbers balloon, minister says

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Quebec rejects cap on student visas floated by Ottawa to address housing crisis 

2023/08/24 Leave a comment

Expect other provinces will join the chorus given all rely on international students to fund post-secondary education. Education organizations already also chiming in:

The Quebec government says it won’t accept a cap on the number of international students it can admit, rejecting one of the options the federal government is considering as part of a plan to tackle a national housing crisis.

Universities and colleges, meanwhile, said they were surprised and troubled, respectively, by the suggestion, which was first raised by Housing and Infrastructure Minister Sean Fraser at a Liberal cabinet retreat in Charlottetown on Monday.

Quebec’s reaction indicates that attempts to limit international student admissions could create conflict with the provinces. They have jurisdiction in areas of education and their postsecondary institutions have come to rely on lucrative international tuition fees.

“Quebec does not intend to impose a cap on the number of foreign students in its jurisdiction. Although issuing study permits is the responsibility of the federal government, education is the exclusive power of Quebec. It’s up to Quebec and its educational institutions to determine the number of people they can accommodate,” said Alexandre Lahaie, a spokesperson for Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette.

Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller confirmed his government is strongly considering a cap on the number of international students Canada accepts. But Mr. Miller stressed that such a measure alone won’t fix the housing crunch.

“This will be a multipronged approach. A cap is something we’ll definitely entertain,” Mr. Miller said on Tuesday.

The number of international students in Canada soared past 800,000 in 2022, more than twice as many as when Justin Trudeau’s government took office in 2015. Some experts have said the influx of students in need of lower-cost rental accommodation has contributed to rising rents in some cities, at a time when construction of new housing has been inadequate.

More than half of all international study permits issued in 2022 went to students at Canadian colleges, a sector that has surpassed universities as the top destination for international students.

In a statement, Colleges and Institutes Canada, which represents publicly funded colleges, said it is “troubled” by the suggestion of a cap on international enrolment.

“Although implementing a cap on international students may seem to provide temporary relief, it could have lasting adverse effects on our communities, including exacerbating current labour shortages. Furthermore, we want to emphasize that students are not to blame for Canada’s housing crisis; they are among those most impacted,” Colleges and Institutes Canada said in a statement.

Michael Sangster, president of the National Association of Career Colleges, which represents private colleges, said his members are willing to work with a cap, if that’s what the federal government decides, or with a trusted institution model, another proposal the federal government has floated that could see institutions with a good track record receive preference in permit processing.

“The students that are coming to our institutions, many of them are training to become tradespeople to build the homes we need. So we’re in a bit of a catch-22 right now, but we want to be part of the solution,” Mr. Sangster said.

Philip Landon, interim president of Universities Canada, an umbrella group representing nearly 100 institutions, said the idea of a cap on international university students is concerning and something universities don’t believe is necessary.

“Universities seek to attract talented students to Canada and have been doing so in a responsible way with responsible growth rates,” he said.

Mr. Landon called on the federal government to make low-cost financing available to universities to allow them to build more residence spaces.

Mr. Miller said the government is already in talks with postsecondary schools about what they can do to guarantee more housing availability. He said provinces also need to be at the table, as they’ve benefited greatly from the international student program.

He said it has become “very lucrative” for some schools, adding that the economic impact of international students in Canada is more than $20-billion a year. While he said much of that is good, there is also “some abuse in the system.”

The international student program is a temporary resident immigration stream that isn’t subject to the yearly caps or targets that Ottawa sets for permanent resident immigration streams.

Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Tuesday that the premiers have not raised the need for a cap on foreign students with him. He added that while they talk often about the need for more housing, the premiers have also made clear they need more immigrants to fill labour shortages, including in the construction industry.

Mike Moffatt, the founding director of the PLACE Centre at the Smart Prosperity Institute and one of the authors of a new report on housing supply, spoke to the federal cabinet behind closed doors on Tuesday.

He said the increase in foreign students has had knock-on effects in the housing market that have helped turn a rental crisis into a home-ownership crisis.

In the area around Fanshawe College in London, Ont., for example, neighbourhoods once occupied by young families have “turned into a sea of student rentals” bought up by investors, he said.

“Domestic and international students are the biggest victims of this, not the cause of it,” he said.

“This is a systemic failure, I would say of both the federal and provincial governments and as well the higher education sector.”

Source: Quebec rejects cap on student visas floated by Ottawa to address housing crisis

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No-shows, dropouts and asylum requests — these 10 schools have Canada’s highest rates of ‘non-compliance’ among international students

2023/01/13 Leave a comment

Time for their “designated learning institution” (DLI) status to be reviewed and possibly revoked. Back door immigration, not education stream.

Overly charitable to state that “While it would be unfair to cast doubt over the integrity and legitimacy of these colleges and universities” given that, at a minimum, they and governments are complicit in this abuse of the program.

Great that IRCC has identified this risk, what remains to be seen if IRCC acts on this by revoking their DLI or other measures to curb this abuse:

Ontario is home to seven of the 10 schools flagged by the Canadian government as having the highest rates of “non-compliance” when it comes to international students failing to show up for their registered courses, or instead applying for asylum.

The names of the so-called designated learning institutions, or DLIs — schools approved to host international students — were revealed in an internal report by the Immigration Department’s integrity risk management branch.

The list raises questions about Canada’s rapidly expanding international education industry, which has seen schools bring in hundreds of thousands of foreign students at significantly higher tuition rates than their Canadian peers, and whether it may be experiencing issues around compliance and enforcement.

Seven of the post-secondary schools on the list, compiled in November 2021, were private institutions while the other three are publicly funded universities: Laurentian University in Sudbury, Cape Breton University and Université Sainte-Anne, both in Nova Scotia.

The ratings of the schools were based on the percentages of “no show,” “no record” or “no longer registered/enrolled” among their enrolled international students. The list also cited the number of asylum claims made by enrolled students.

The overall potential non-compliance rates of the 10 schools ranged from 33 per cent to 95 per cent, compared to the overall average of just seven per cent among some 1,600 DLIs across Canada, according to the list obtained under an access to information request by immigration policy analyst and lawyer Richard Kurland.

Evergreen College in Brampton, renamed Eastview College in 2021, and the Academy of Learning College in Toronto topped the list, both scoring 95 per cent.

At Evergreen, where six asylum claims were traced, 274 of the 288 students were deemed non-compliant, including:

  • 132 no-shows, who were offered admission but never confirmed acceptance, registered but never attended class, or presented in class but stopped attending without telling school administration.
  • 140 “no records,” where the administration does not have a record of a letter of acceptance issued to this person or any record of the person being enrolled in the school, despite immigration records saying otherwise. Experts say such discrepancies can be the result of clerical errors. 
  • two who were dismissed, withdrew voluntarily or transferred to another institution.

A spokesperson for Eastview said the “no record” numbers originated from fake acceptance letters that were issued under Evergreen’s name. The spokesperson said the administration had brought the issue to the attention of the Immigration Department but that no action was taken to address it.

The no-shows, she said, could be attributed to those who just came to the college looking for an acceptance letter so they could extend their work permit or to use it as a stepping stone to gain admission to another college.

“With the acceptance letter, they’re supposed to start with the program. But you know what, they do not. We can’t do anything with it,” noted the spokesperson, adding that some of the no-show students didn’t even bother to ask for refunds of fees and tuitions.

While it would be unfair to cast doubt over the integrity and legitimacy of these colleges and universities based on the data, experts say it does suggest some issues around compliance and enforcement.

“Some students may be bona fide or genuine students coming in and then they can fall through the cracks and then start not showing up to their classes. Could it be that they don’t really have the funds to actually pay for the next semester, so they don’t show up and start going under the table and underground?” asked immigration lawyer Lou Janssen Dangzalan.

“You’ve seen the reports of colleges doing strip-mall classes or theatre classes. That could dissuade an international student from attending classes. If I were an international student and paid so much money for tuition, I would be so demoralized attending classes. Basically that’s recorded as a no-show or no-record or no longer registered.”

Michael Sangster, CEO of the National Association of Career Colleges, said he could not comment on specific cases, but said its 450 provincially regulated members work closely to ensure students are supported and have the skills training needed to succeed.

“As all post-secondary institutions experience, there are many personal reasons why prospective students may ultimately make the decision not to pursue their studies, particularly over the last three years,” he said in a statement.

Other private colleges that made the non-compliant list included the Academy of Learning Career and Business College in Owen Sound, with an 87 per cent rate; Flair College of Management and Technology in Vaughan (82 per cent); Canadian Institute of Management and Technology in Ontario (62 per cent); BITTS International Career College in Mississauga (60 per cent); and Pacific Link College in Surrey, B.C. (47 per cent).

The Star reached out to all 10 institutions on the list. Four had responded by time of publication.

Sandip Dhakecha, Flair College’s campus administrator, said some private institutions do have lower admission criteria than their publicly funded counterparts. Sometimes, international students stop showing up when they realize their programs won’t earn them postgraduate work permits and coveted permanent residence in Canada.

“This is a pressing issue for us also because, you know, it looks bad on our name. We want to provide the quality education. But the thing is, we don’t have any control over our students,” he explained. “If a student comes before the program starts and asks for a refund, we 100 per cent refund them.”

In a statement to the Star, BITTS International said it was surprised by the report because it always follows all procedures for reporting and registration as required by different federal and provincial ministries of all DLIs.

“The non-compliance percentage of students are (those) who obtain their admissions at BITTS and then never continue with their enrolment and full-time studies. Many of these students obtain multiple admissions and then enrol where they find it convenient,” it said.

“Whatever information, that has been obtained in this report, we would like to review all of it, in detail, and respond accordingly.”

At Laurentian University, which has a 39 per cent non-compliant rate (with 321 of the 828 students potentially breaching the rules), registrar Serge Demers said post-secondary classes don’t take attendance and the registration system has become a proxy to monitor students.

“We’re talking about people who are not here, so it’s difficult to ask them why they’re not here,” said Demers. “There’s all of these levels of privacy that exist. In a world where everyone was in good faith, we wouldn’t need this system. I think the system is in place because there are people that are working their way through the cracks.”

A total of 197 asylum claims were reported from students enrolled in the top 10 DLIs — an issue that Dangzalan blames partially on the fact that not all international students have access to permanent residence, as often marketed by unscrupulous recruiters.

“If you run out of your postgraduate work permit, you are able to get a work permit while you’re waiting for your refugee determination,” said Dangzalan. “It’s an offshoot of the problem of overmarketing Canada. The system is just overwhelmed and now they’re trying to use alternative avenues to stay and remain in Canada.”

Source: No-shows, dropouts and asylum requests — these 10 schools have Canada’s highest rates of ‘non-compliance’ among international students

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