Khan: Ontario’s keffiyeh ban dares to define the scarf’s meaning for everyone, Regg Cohn: Israel and the UN have allowed the kaffiyeh. Why does Queen’s Park need to ban it?

2024/05/08 Leave a comment

More commentary. Not in favour of this kind of one-off decision. If the legislature chamber is going to allow this, it needs to revise the policy to allow symbols with significant political meaning in a consistent manner:

….The ban is a betrayal of the ideals of the Emancipation Act that Mr. Arnott proudly co-sponsored – namely, upholding the “ongoing struggle for human rights.” After calling on independent MPP Sarah Jama to leave the House for wearing a keffiyeh, he sent an official to deliver the message in person. In an iconic photo, a white man leans over the desk of Ms. Jama, a Black woman clad in a hijab and a keffiyeh, and seated in a wheelchair. Let’s hope the Ontario Black History Society, recognized in the Emancipation Day Act, chronicles this shameful event and sends a letter of protest to Mr. Arnott.

Ontario MPPs had two opportunities to reverse this ban by unanimously voting against it. Yet Robin Martin and Lisa MacLeod, two PC MPPs, supported the ban,keeping it in place. It’s reminiscent of the case of the town of Saint-Apollinaire, Que., in 2017, when 19 naysayers were enough to nix plans for a Muslim cemetery run by the Islamic Cultural Centre, which also operated the Quebec City mosque where six worshippers were massacred just a few months before. That vote was rooted in ignorance and prejudice. Plus ça change.

Premier Doug Ford says he personally opposes the keffiyeh ban. But by declining so far to put forward a government motion to end it, he is failing to stand firmly for the basic human rights of all Ontarians. Now it’s up to the rest of us to strive toward a just society with human dignity at its core.

Source: Ontario’s keffiyeh ban dares to define the scarf’s meaning for everyone

From Martin Regg Cohn:

…Put another way, if it walks and talks like a political protest, it’s a protest. When so many people of all backgrounds suddenly don the Palestinian kaffiyeh, it’s no longer merely cultural or sartorial but political.

Yet even if the Speaker was speaking the truth — and Stiles was surely straining credulity by claiming the kaffiyeh isn’t political at this point — Arnott made the wrong call. Technically, he’s right, but practically his ruling was unenforceable and unsupportable.

Which is why no party leader supported him last month — not just Stiles but her Green, Liberal and Progressive Conservative counterparts asked him to reconsider. Yes, even Premier Doug Ford, mindful of a hard-fought byelection last week with many Muslim voters, echoed the NDP’s call.

The Speaker reminded them all that he is merely their servant, and that they are free to overrule him. But when MPPs were asked to give unanimous consent to permit the kaffiyeh, a number of Tories demurred, leading to the present standoff….

Source: Israel and the UN have allowed the kaffiyeh. Why does Queen’s Park need to ban it?

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Jonathan Kay: Just ignore Sarah Jama’s keffiyeh. Next she’ll be wearing a turban, Kaveh Shahrooz: The Queen’s Park keffiyeh kerfuffle proves the wisdom of keeping political symbols out of the legislature

2024/05/03 Leave a comment

Two contrasting views on the right, starting with Kay:

…If legislators at work are to be governed by a rule that forbids political symbols, then that category should be defined narrowly — which means permitting any symbol, such as a keffiyeh, whose use doesn’t necessarily convey a political meaning. In a liberal society, it is much more important to guard against false positives than false negatives when defining classes of banned expression. And Jama’s antics shouldn’t be seized upon as an excuse to err in an illiberal direction.

One reason I’m wary of any kind of keffiyeh ban is that we’re just coming out of a period of progressive social panic in Canada, during which even the mildest articulation of conservative viewpoints, or display of traditional Canadian symbols, was denounced as a “dog whistle” for white supremacy or some such. (To take one particularly ludicrous example: Recall that in 2022, an “anti-racist” group got a six-figure grant from Justin Trudeau’s government so it could author a report denouncing the Red Ensign flag — Canada’s national symbol until about 60 years ago — as a coded endorsement of white supremacism.) We’re all sick of this type of phobic mindset being displayed on the left, and I’m wary of conservatives copying the worst habits of their enemies now that the cultural tide is starting to turn.

One of those bad habits is catastrophizing. When I first mentioned on social media that I thought Jama should get her way on the keffiyeh issue, I got a chorus of pushback to the effect that she was channelling antisemitism — because what else except Jew-hatred would motivate anyone to take up the keffiyeh in the shadow of 10/7? To allow her to continue dressing in this way, the claim goes, is to make Jews across Ontario feel unsafe.

But I doubt that Jama is any kind of true bigot (even if the stridency of her anti-Israeli statements raises the possibility). What seems more likely is that she’s one of those serial activists whose focus will flit from cause to cause over the years, based on what’s in the news and what brings out the cameras. Once Gaza cools down and other conflicts take centre stage, who knows? We may see Sarah Jama in a turban, or a Ukrainian vyshyvanka, or perhaps even some kind of fez.

Whatever adornments Jama chooses, the best course is to simply ignore them, and leave it to Hamilton Centre voters to assess her wardrobe choices in the next election.

Source: Jonathan Kay: Just ignore Sarah Jama’s keffiyeh. Next she’ll be wearing a turban

Contrary view by Kaveh Shahrooz:

…The legislature holds a unique place in our polity and should aspire to more. While it should serve as the forum for political disagreement and debate, it should not itself be seen as partisan. And it should elevate our public discourse, instead of becoming yet another force that reduces nuanced topics to signs, pins, stickers, and placards. 

Opposing the keffiyeh for its alleged bad meaning naturally draws out the battle over that meaning, and invites another battle over the freedom of expression. It also invites future fights about the meaning of every other symbol that MPPs will hereinafter try to bring into the legislature. Is the Ukraine pin a good or bad symbol? The Black Lives Matter badge? What about the MAGA hat? Open this door just a little and we will be mired in a thousand battles about a thousand causes, logos, and signs.

The solution, then, is not to engage in a futile line-drawing exercise which will leave many stakeholders unhappy much of the time. Instead, it is to maintain the existing nearly blanket ban on political symbols. (I say “nearly blanket” because symbols like the Remembrance Day poppy are now permitted at Queen’s Park. But even that required a special exemption.) The ban avoids the problem altogether, allowing our core deliberative body to remain a place for reason above passion. 

We will likely never agree on the precise meaning of the keffiyeh (though we should at least strive to be honest in its interpretation; something the “it’s just a cultural symbol” crowd is not doing.) 

But we should agree that some corners of our society should be reserved for deliberation and debate instead of cheap appeals to emotion and tribalism. What better place for that than Queen’s Park?

Source: Kaveh Shahrooz: The Queen’s Park keffiyeh kerfuffle proves the wisdom of keeping political symbols out of the legislature

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Phillips: Kaffiyeh ban unites all leaders, who are aware of Muslim voter influence in Ontario

2024/04/27 Leave a comment

Hard to maintain the argument that the kaffiyeh is primarily cultural given context, the statements of Sara Jama and the nature and discourse of protests. And as to Phillips using turbans and kirpans as a counter example, these are primarily religious, even if for some they also have a political significance.

Being sensitive to community concerns does not necessarily mean agreement given conflicting concerns among communities, as the current Jewish Palestinian tensions illustrate, and thus Speaker Arnott made the right call which needs of course, to be implemented with rigorous consistency for all political symbols:

The Speaker of Ontario’s legislature, Ted Arnott, has done something rare: he’s managed to get the leaders of all four parties at Queen’s Park united on a controversial issue.

Of course, they’re united against him — specifically against the ban he’s imposed on wearing Palestinian kaffiyehs in the provincial parliament, indeed anywhere in the legislative precinct that he oversees.

His decision has ignited a fierce debate: is the kaffiyeh, the checkered head scarf worn by Palestinians since time immemorial, cultural or political?

The answer to that binary question must be yes. It’s both — depending. The kaffiyeh has long been a cultural symbol of Palestinian identity. But wearing it has become more political, especially since the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel war last October.

That’s basically what Arnott said when he announced his ban. Wearing kaffiyehs “at the present time in our assembly,” he said, has become political. Arnott presumably thinks he’s just being consistent by banning kaffiyehs in line with established rules against wearing anything that “is intended to make an overt political statement.”

But what an unnecessary mess he’s created. This was a non-issue at Queen’s Park until Arnott issued his ban, apparently in response to a complaint by one unidentified MPP. It’s not as if there was a rash of kaffiyeh-wearing in the legislature. The only member who regularly wears one is independent Sara Jama, who was thrown out of the NDP caucus last year for her stand on the Mideast conflict.

Now we have the spectacle of Jama being told to leave the chamber for wearing a kaffiyeh. And a group of Arab-Canadian lawyers denied entry to the legislature when they wore kaffiyehs to a meeting with NDP Leader Marit Stiles.

I’m with the party leaders (including Premier Doug Ford) on this one. No doubt there’s a political dimension to wearing a kaffiyeh these days, but the long-established cultural tradition can’t be denied either. Why make an issue out of it at a time when feelings are running so high? Remember the fuss years ago about turbans and kirpans worn by Sikhs? In hindsight it seems like a fight about nothing.

Focusing on the kaffiyeh raises questions of consistency as well. What about wearing a tie or scarf in Ukrainian national colours? One of the Conservative MPPs who refused unanimous consent to overturn Arnott’s decision, Robin Martin, wore a necklace in the legislature emblazoned with “bring them home” in solidarity with Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Good for her, but wasn’t that also “political?”

Some have made much of the fact that party leaders opposing the ban may not be acting entirely for principled reasons, given the byelection set for May 2 in Milton where Muslim voters could make the difference.

I find it hard to be shocked by the notion of politicians acting for political reasons, and in this case the lesson to be drawn is “get used to it.” What’s happening in Milton is just a taste of how Muslim voters may have an impact in key ridings in the next federal election.

All provincial parties are courting Muslim voters in Milton, where 23 per cent of the population identified as Muslim in the 2021 census. The Liberal candidate, Galen Naidoo Harris, who isn’t Arab or Palestinian, has even made a point of wearing a kaffiyeh in social media postings.

Muslim voters are already an important factor in our politics. An organization called The Canadian-Muslim Vote identified more than 100 ridings in 2021where the Muslim vote exceeded the expected margin of victory. Many (including Milton) are in the GTA and will be fiercely fought over in the next federal election.

All the more reason for political leaders to be sensitive to the concerns of Muslim voters, as they’ve learned to be sensitive to the concerns of Sikh, Italian, Ukrainian, Jewish, you-name-it voters who aren’t shy about mobilizing their communities around issues that matter to them.

Banning the kaffiyeh is that kind of issue for an increasingly influential slice of voters. There are good reasons of principle to drop the ban. The politics of it point in that direction too.

Source: Kaffiyeh ban unites all leaders, who are aware of Muslim voter influence in Ontario

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

Ontario Legislature bans keffiyehs, premier calls for reversal: Need for consistency

2024/04/22 Leave a comment

This story continues to evolve, with the lack of unanimous support to overturn the speakers decision.

What has been lacking in the various discussions and limited op-eds is how does one decide objectively what should be considered as primarily identity vs what is primarily political in nature and the degree to which context plays a role. And how to apply any criteria objectively given that most identities also have political aspects and vice versa.

Religious symbols, while not without political significance to some, are primarily about identity.

Should members be allowed to have scarves or visible symbols with the colours of the Ukrainian flag? The Israeli flag? The Khalistan flag? The Russian flag etc?

Certainly, in the current political context, all could be argued as being interpreted as being more political in nature than just expressions of identity and the speaker made, IMO, the right call but needs to ensure consistency in any rulings:

The Ontario Legislature has banned the wearing of keffiyehs with its speaker saying the scarves are a “political statement,” while the premier along with opposition leaders are calling for a reversal of the move.

In an email on Wednesday, Speaker Ted Arnott said the legislature has previously restricted the wearing of clothing that is intended to make an “overt political statement” because it upholds a “standard practice of decorum.”

“The Speaker cannot be aware of the meaning of every symbol or pattern but when items are drawn to my attention, there is a responsibility to respond. After extensive research, I concluded that the wearing of keffiyehs at the present time in our Assembly is intended to be a political statement. So, as Speaker, I cannot authorize the wearing of keffiyehs based on our longstanding conventions,” Arnott said in an email.

Arnott’s email did not provide specifics on who drew keffiyehs to his attention or when.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in a statement on Tuesday night that he doesn’t support the ban and the decision was made by the speaker and nobody else.

“I do not support his decision as it needlessly divides the people of our province. I call on the speaker to reverse his decision immediately,” Ford said in the statement.

Keffiyehs are a commonly worn scarf among Arabs, but hold special significance to Palestinian people. They have been a frequent sight among pro-Palestinian protesters calling for an end to the violence in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war continues.

NDP, Liberal leaders also call for reversal

Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie also called for a reversal of the ban on Wednesday night.

“Here in Ontario, we are home to a diverse group of people from so many backgrounds. This is a time when leaders should be looking for ways to bring people together, not to further divide us. I urge Speaker Arnott to immediately reconsider this move to ban the keffiyeh,” Crombie said.

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles urged Arnott to reconsider the ban in an April 12 letter to the speaker, saying she considers it unacceptable.

“The Assembly has always permitted Members, staff and guests to openly celebrate their culture, including wearing traditional clothing that represents their history, culture or faith, and I don’t believe it is your intention to change that precedent,” Stiles said.

Stiles said MPPs have worn kilts, kirpans, vyshyvankas and chubas in the legislature, saying such items of clothing not only have national and cultural associations, but have also been considered at times as “political symbols in need of suppression.”

She said Indigenous and non-Indigenous members have also dressed in traditional regalia and these items cannot be separated from their historical and political significance. 

“The wearing of these important cultural and national clothing items in our Assembly is something we should be proud of. It is part of the story of who we are as a province,” she said.

“Palestinians are part of that story, and the keffiyeh is a traditional clothing item that is significant not only to them but to many members of Arab and Muslim communities. That includes members of my staff who have been asked to remove their keffiyehs in order to come to work. This is unacceptable.”

Stiles added that House of Commons and other provincial legislatures allow the wearing of keffiyehs in their chambers and the ban makes Ontario an “outlier.”

Suppression of cultural symbols part of genocide: MPP

Sarah Jama, Independent MPP for Hamilton Centre, said on X that the ban is “unsurprising” but “nonetheless concerning” in a country that has a legacy of colonialism. “Part of committing genocide is the forceful suppression of cultural identity and cultural symbols,” she said in part. 

Jama added that “state powers” have suppressed Indigenous cultural dress, language, ceremony and beliefs “as tools of genocide” at various points in Canada’s history.

“Seeing those in power in this country at all levels of government, from federal all the way down to school boards, aid Israel’s colonial regime with these tactics in the oppression of Palestinian people proves that reconciliation is nothing but a word when spoken by state powers,” she said.

Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, said on X that it is “deeply ironic” on that keffiyehs were banned in the Ontario legislature on the 42nd anniversary of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“This is wrong and dangerous as we have already seen violence and exclusion impact Canadians, including Muslims of Palestinian descent, who choose to wear this traditional Palestinian clothing,” Elghawaby said.

Arnott said the keffiyeh was not considered a “form of protest” in the legislature prior to statements and debates that happened in the House last fall.

“These items are not absolutes and are not judged in a vacuum,” he said.

Arnott added that he reminded the legislature in a statement on Feb. 22 of its standard practice of decorum, saying: “It has long been the established practice of this House that members should not use props, signage or accessories that are intended to express a political message or are likely to cause disorder. This also extends to members’ attire, where logos, symbols, slogans and other political messaging are not permitted.

“This Legislature is a forum for debate, and the expectation in the chamber is that political statements should be made during debate rather than through the use of props or symbols,” he said.

Source: Ontario Legislature bans keffiyehs, premier calls for reversal

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Immigration minister reveals Ontario’s drop in incoming international students. It’s not as steep as expected

2024/04/08 Leave a comment

The numbers:

Ontario will see the largest drop in study permits issued in Canada — down to just 141,000 this year from 239,753 in 2023 — under the federal government’s new cap on international students, according to official data revealed on Friday.

More than two months after announcing a plan to rein in the country’s out-of-control international enrolment growth, Immigration Minister Marc Miller released a statement detailing the finalized numbers of incoming post-secondary students each province and territory is projected to receive in 2024, as well as the formula behind the allocations.

“These results will help me make decisions on allocations for 2025,” Miller said in a statement. “We will continue to work collaboratively with provinces and territories to strengthen the International Student Program and to provide international students with the supports they need to succeed in Canada.”

Across Canada, 291,914 new study permits are expected to be issued this year, representing a 28 per cent decline from 404,668 in 2023. The numbers exclude those to be granted to students enrolled in primary and secondary schools, as well as graduate programs, exempted from the cap.

The overall cut is not as deep as anticipated when Miller in January announced plans to reduce the number of new study permits issued by 35 per cent from 2023’s level, to 364,000. 

However, Ontario remains the single biggest loser and will see a whopping 41 per cent drop in new study permits issued under the cap, followed by British Columbia, which is set to receive 18 per cent fewer international students, going to 49,800 from 60,864 in 2023. 

Spike in international students mostly from Ontario schools, data reveals

Federal study permit documents obtained by CBC News reveal a handful of Ontario colleges and universities account for the greatest share of Canada’s steep growth in international students — not private colleges. And now those same institutions have the most to lose from a new cap on study permits.

Four other provinces will see a 10 per cent decline: Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

Meanwhile, other provinces will now have more spots available if they wish. Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and Saskatchewan can see a growth of 10 per cent in intake while Nunavut, Yukon and the Northwest Territories will have room to grow as they all received fewer than 100 study permits last year.

“We are protecting the integrity of our province’s postsecondary education system by attracting the best and brightest international students to Ontario to study in areas that are critical to our economy,” Jill Dunlop, Ontario’s minister of colleges and universities, said in a statement.

“We have been working with postsecondary institutions to ensure international students are enrolled in the programs to support a pipeline of graduates for in-demand jobs.” 

Based on what he called a “net zero growth” formula, Miller said the national cap is based on the volume of expiring study permits this year. This means that the number of international students coming to Canada in 2024 equals the number of students whose permits expire this year. 

Miller initially suggested that the study permit allocations would be based on each province’s relative population size. Ontario would have seen its international student intake in 2024 dropped by 62 per cent under that model.

On Friday, he said other factors were considered before the numbers were finalized.

“For provinces that would receive more international students in 2024 than in 2023 based on population share, we adjusted their allocation to limit growth to 10 per cent compared to 2023,” he said. 

“For provinces that would receive fewer international students in 2024 than in 2023, we adjusted their allocation to lessen the negative impact in the first year and support broader regional immigration goals.”

Factoring in that 60 per cent of study permit applications are approved, the Immigration Department will process a total of 552,095 applications to reach the 291,914 target. Given study permit approval rates vary across provinces, Miller said he also topped up allocations for those with below-average approval rates.

As a result, Ontario’s public post-secondary institutions can take in as many as 235,000 applications in 2024, given that the province has decided to give almost all its allocated spots to the 24 colleges and 23 universities that are funded by taxpayers.

Miller warned that there are still other factors that may influence the actual number of international students arriving this year that are beyond the department’s control. For instance, provinces and territories with room to grow may not end up using all spots, while approval rates may fluctuate.

Critics say the government’s adjustments were welcomed as finalized numbers help provide much-needed clarity for international students considering studying in Canada.

“The government has acknowledged that approval rates have historically been inconsistent across provinces and has buffered those numbers accordingly through one-time allocation top-ups to provinces like Saskatchewan,” said Meti Basiri, CEO of ApplyBoard, a Kitchener-based online marketplace for learning institutions and international students.

“It has raised the allocations for provinces that would otherwise have seen the most significant restrictions. The impact on Ontario in particular will still be significant, but the adjusted allocations will ease the transition.” 

Source: Immigration minister reveals Ontario’s drop in incoming international students. It’s not as steep as expected

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

ICYMI: Federal minister calls ‘garbage’ on Ontario’s complaints it was blindsided by international student cap

2024/03/04 Leave a comment

Not diplomatic but he is a relatively direct speaking politician and largely correct on this and some of this other comments like “puppy mill” colleges:

Immigration Minister Marc Miller said his government gave provinces ample notice that international student numbers would be capped and any suggestion otherwise is “complete garbage.”

This after Ontario’s College and Universities Minister Jill Dunlop told the London Free Press Monday she was “very disappointed” with what she said was the federal government’s “unilateral decision, without any consultation” to limit international students.

“This was dropped on us,” Dunlop said.

Miller announced a cap on international student numbers earlier this year. Universities and colleges across the country have brought in increasing numbers of international students in recent years, rising to nearly 900,000 this year.

On Tuesday, Miller rejected any suggestion provinces weren’t fully informed.

“That’s complete garbage,” he said. “We said quite clearly they need to get their houses in order. We spoke specifically about Ontario that has the largest number of international students. They should have known it. They’ve had auditor general reports. We’ve spoken quite publicly about it.”

Miller said his government invited provincial counterparts to meetings that they did not attend.

“It’s beneath me to share text messages with journalists, but the reality is that there was communication that just was never followed up on,” he told reporters….

Source: Federal minister calls ‘garbage’ on Ontario’s complaints it was blindsided by international student cap

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Empty desks, international students and the quest for Canadian work permits 

2024/02/26 Leave a comment

Excellent reporting on what the private colleges and those in partnership with public colleges looks like in practise. More reporting like this is needed, and one has to ask where the federal and provincial governments were in allowing this to develop, along with those immigration advocates and academics who largely neglected this growth.

Major policy and program fail:

On a desolate industrial park off a highway north of Toronto stands the Vaughan campus of Flair College of Management and Technology. The boxy façade of the business college is adorned with images of students cooking, at a computer screen, or wearing virtual-reality goggles. Yet the only sign of real life is a woman smoking a cigarette on the steps next door. It is a school day in late January, but the college doors are locked.

Flair’s other campus is in a Brampton strip mall that advertises an optometrist, a dental hygienist and a vascular institute. This at least looks open.

There are two pieces of paper taped to a wall. One directs the visitor downstairs to a busy clinic offering “Immigration Medicals,” the other to Flair College, toward a suite in the basement where no one has quite bothered to move in. Only one room, as big as a decent-sized bedroom, resembles a classroom with chairs and a desk at the front, where a woman sits glued to her phone.

The women’s washroom has no soap or bathroom tissue. There are two television boxes and a desk in an empty office that looks as if it has never been used. One classroom is empty, except for a couple of desks stacked against the wall. There are no students, just a queue from the immigration medical clinic snaking into the corridor…

Source: Empty desks, international students and the quest for Canadian work permits 

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Regg Cohn: How shamelessly has Doug Ford ground down Ontario’s colleges and universities? Let me count the ways

2024/02/14 Leave a comment

Excellent analysis, including how colleges are treated differently than universities and the resulting incentive for their more rapid growth in international students:

The education of Doug Ford comes at a high price.

Not for him — the premier is doing just fine.

But under his stewardship, post-secondary education has spiralled from crisis to catastrophe. It is a disaster of Ford’s own making, with implications that go far beyond Ontario’s colleges and universities.

Here’s the problem with the premier’s post-secondary playbook: He’s been playing with other people’s money — a shell game — while gambling on the outcomes.

What looked like a good deal for Ford has become a bad bet for the entire province. The chaos over surging foreign enrolments on campus, amped up by the premier, has created panicky headlines.

But if you dig a little deeper, the crisis has also created an unsavoury windfall for the province: A “head tax” on foreign students, on top of a shell game for colleges, which together buff up the provincial treasury by hundreds of millions of dollars.

That’s on top of the savings for Ford’s Progressive Conservatives by freezing funding for higher education in Ontario at a time of rising inflation (disclosure: I’m a senior fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University and also at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy).

Upon taking power in 2018, Ford ordered every post-secondary institution to cut tuition by 10 per cent — without making up the shortfall. Those fees have been frozen ever since, while government funding stagnated year after year — inflation be damned.

Ontario’s colleges, left to fend for themselves after the tuition cut and freeze, were encouraged to make up the difference by recruiting high-paying foreigners with abandon. The inflated cash flow propelled all but one of Ontario’s 24 colleges into sudden surpluses worth more than $660 million in 2022.

Conveniently, that windfall benefited Ford’s Tories because the colleges’ balance sheets show up on the books of the provincial treasury. That’s a sweet deal for Ford and his surplus-addicted finance minister, Peter Bethlenfalvy.

But the province’s universities, most of which resisted the temptation to feast on foreign students — are now in dire financial straits, with 10 of 23 now running deficits.

Happily for Ford’s Tories, those university deficits are seemingly not the province’s problem — neither fiscally nor politically. That’s because any university’s red ink doesn’t show up on the province’s balance sheet, since they are deemed autonomous institutions (unlike colleges which report directly to the government).

It’s an accident of history that manifests as an accounting quirk. But it amounts to a handy political payoff for the premier.

Moreover, Ford’s Tories have been shamelessly milking foreign students with a de facto “head tax,” which is dressed up as an international “recovery fee” for every warm body lured to Ontario. It’s not a massive amount — more than $140 million a year — but it’s profiteering all the same.

Campuses are at the breaking point. Communities are at the boiling point over housing shortages exacerbated by an unplanned foreign influx.

Forced into action by the province’s inaction, the federal government imposed a cap on foreign students and work permits last month. With cascading abuses, Ottawa had little choice but to act — Ontario broke the system, and now Queen’s Park has to take responsibility for fixing it.

The boom will fall especially hard on Ontario, which already fills 51 per cent of the permits with only 39 per cent of the population. And it will hit universities harder than colleges and private educational institutions, which cornered an outsized share of permits driven by a strategy of greedy growth.

Will the government play hardball with universities when it comes to those scarce international permits, in order to protect the foreign cash flow of colleges who are already Ford’s preferred partners for his policy of promoting the skilled trades?

Last year, it seemed the premier had seen the light. The Tories set up a fancy-sounding Blue Ribbon Panel on Post-secondary Education that quickly focused on fixing the distorted bottom line with straightforward advice:

Stop cutting tuition and stop freezing funding.

“The sector’s financial sustainability is currently at serious risk, and it will take a concerted effort to right the ship,” its report warned in November.

The outside panel recommended a one-time tuition hike of five per cent in 2024-25, followed by increases of two per cent (or higher, tied to inflation) thereafter. By the panel’s calculations, it would take a tuition increase of 25 per cent to make up for lost monies — politically unpalatable, so it urged the Ford government to increase funding by about 10 per cent with subsequent increases of at least two per cent (plus inflation).

Its report urged the government to confront its growing addiction by moving to “reduce or eliminate the student recovery fee for international students paid by colleges,” amounting to $750 a year.

Ford’s reaction? Pull out the populist playbook:

“I just don’t believe this is the time to go into these (Ontario) students’ pockets, especially the ones that are really struggling, and ask for a tuition increase,” he told reporters last month, calling instead for more “efficiencies.”

Let’s not confuse efficiencies with distortions. By profiting from the penury of post-secondary institutions — boosting his own bottom line while starving universities and contorting colleges — Ford is giving the province a costly lesson about false economies.

Source: How shamelessly has Doug Ford ground down Ontario’s colleges and universities? Let me count the ways

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HESA: How bad is it going to get in Ontario? Really bad. 

2024/01/31 Leave a comment

Usual frank and insightful analysis:

This isn’t just cluelessness. The Ministry here isn’t even clueful with respect to understanding how to even get a clue in the first place. The cluetrain? It has left the shed but there’s nobody on board (ok I will stop now).

So, all of this is bad, certainly, but it’s arguably not as bad as Colleges Ontario’s 1326-word statement responding to the federal changes, which is a masterclass in failing to read the room. Go on, read it. Utterly self-centered, all about protecting their revenue schemes, no sense whatsoever that the whole reason this scenario is occurring is that they lost social license to keep bringing in more international students and that the public has serious (albeit not necessarily well-founded) views about the quality of PPPs and the quality assurance. Tone-deaf is putting it mildly.

(Of course, Colleges Ontario is a membership organization, and when it comes to membership organizations, they necessarily go with the lowest-common denominator. My guess is that there a few colleges that probably know this statement was a bad idea, but the ultras won out.)

(Also: I am taking bets on when the rest of the sector decides to throw Conestoga under the bus for ruining the international student thing for everyone else. Issuing acceptances for 34,000 study permit students in 2023 alone—in a city with under 400,000 students—was an absurd cash-grab with no thought as to impact on the local community. As soon as the distribution of spots starts, you know the other colleges are going to argue hard against Conestoga getting a share of 2024 visas based on its 2023 share. Should be amusing).

Meanwhile, Ontario universities had not issued a joint statement as of Sunday evening (when this blog was written) but as near as I can tell, the universities’ position is going to be “colleges created this problem, any balancing of student visa numbers should be done on their backs, not ours.” Which has a certain truth to it but is a long way from the full truth (within the university sector, you can expect Algoma will attract antagonists the way Conestoga does in the college sector, albeit on a more modest scale).

In other words, everything here in Ontario is a mess. It will be an interesting to compare Ontario’s…omnishambles…what British Columbia’s plan looks like. My understanding is that it will be published Monday (tomorrow for me, yesterday for you). I apologize in advance that due to extensive work commitments this week, I won’t be able to cover the BC announcement until next week. ‘til then: keep your eyes peeled. These files are moving fast.

Source: HESA: How bad is it going to get in Ontario? Really bad. 

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Regg Cohn: Blame Doug Ford for turning a blind eye to student immigration abuses

2024/01/29 Leave a comment

Reminder of the Ontario government’s role in exacerbating the problems:

….

There’s plenty of blame to go around — federal and provincial, Liberal and Tory, public and private, educators and entrepreneurs.

What makes Poilievre’s public musings so amusing — or laughably unserious — is his political gamesmanship about all those gaming the system. The Conservative leader stressed that visa seekers “are not to blame for (Miller)’s incompetence.”

By posing so earnestly as a protector of foreigners, Poilievre is being too clever by half. While some innocent foreigners might be misled by middlemen, many other migrants know precisely what they’re up to by leveraging student visas to get a job, not an education.

Let’s not insult the intelligence of voters or visa holders about motives. Any approval process based on rules and regulations is open to manipulation — not least an immigration, accreditation and visa system anchored in an overcomplicated federal-provincial framework of overlapping jurisdictions where people fall through the cracks (and seek cover).

Post-pandemic, all that pent-up demand for catch-up visas led everyone to lower their guard, not least the previous immigration minister, Sean Fraser. As his successor, Miller repurposed the term “puppy mills” to describe the fly-by-night immigration and education workers that operate “on top of a massage parlour.”

Henceforth, each province will be assigned work permits in proportion to its population. Ontario will be especially hard hit, as it already fills 51 per cent of them with less than 39 per cent of the population.

The problem has been a long time in the making, but the Ford government had eyes only for traditional puppy mills — the ones that breed puppies — when it announced a crackdown last month: The Preventing Unethical Puppy Sales Act, or PUPS Act, will impose a minimum fine of $10,000 for breeders in the business of abusing animals when it is debated in the legislature next month.

But there’s been no similar alarm or alacrity so far from Ford’s Tories when it comes to outfits that exploit foreigners and dupe our own governments.

While Quebec and B.C. have gotten out ahead of the student visa issue, Ontario allowed problems to fester. On Ford’s watch, an entire industry has arisen — an education-immigration complex akin to the old military-industrial complex that raised alarm bells in America decades ago.

There was easy money — lots of it — to be made off of affluent foreign students, and Canadian universities or colleges understandably wanted a piece of the action. But you can have too much of a good thing when a surge of overseas students overwhelms classrooms, campuses, communities, housing and job markets.

A few universities and most colleges got greedy — counting on high-fee foreign students for one-third or even one-half of their tuition revenues. Meanwhile, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government got stingy.

Five years ago, Ford’s Tories announced a 10 per cent cut in tuition for domestic students, and have kept them in the deep freeze ever since, while keeping overall subsidies unchanged even as more local students showed up in class. No wonder so many public colleges responded to those foregone revenues by counting on foreign students to make up the difference — leaving them vulnerable to precisely the kind of crackdown coming from Ottawa.

…We set targets, see trends, change course and plug the gaps. This is a country that will always need immigrants, always look after refugees, always benefit from foreign students, always need to learn from its mistakes — federal but also provincial and, yes, institutional — without pressing buttons or yanking chains.

Source: Blame Doug Ford for turning a blind eye to student immigration abuses

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