Star editorial: Necessary reforms on international students and CILA statement

2024/01/25 Leave a comment

Even the Star supports these restrictions:

After weeks of foreshadowing, the federal government moved this week to cap the number of international student visas over the next two years. File this policy change in the “better late than never” category.

The number of international students flowing to this country has grown by such epic proportions it is difficult to reach any conclusion other than the federal Liberals were simply sleeping on this file. There have been no shortage of red flags, from Statistics Canada reports warning of the strain on affordable housingand access to social services to provincial auditors warning of an unhealthy dependence on international student fees by post-secondary institutions which are being underfunded.

Over the past two years, the number of international students in this country jumped from 617,000 to more than a million. About a third are in public universities but the overwhelming majority are in public colleges or private schools, often offering substandard education and a backdoor route to permanent status in this country. Immigration Minister Marc Miller, in announcing he is cutting the number of study permits by 35 per cent to 364,000 this year, is right to target the shady operators who are preying on international students and not doctoral and postgraduate international students at public universities. Miller says hundreds of the private schools should be shut down.

“It is not the intention of this program to have sham commerce degrees and business degrees that are sitting on top of a massage parlour,” Miller said in making his announcement.

There are a number of threads to unravel from this announcement. First and foremost, as the minister stressed, this is not an indictment of foreign students. They are hardly responsible for a housing crunch or fears over access to stretched social services. International students were more likely the victims, living in crowded, substandard housing, dealing with a much more expensive country that they had anticipated and receiving diplomas which Miller says were being churned out like “puppy mills.” It was creating reputational damage to this country.

But these students would not be in this country without federal approval, so Miller is correcting a problem that his government largely created. According to a memo obtained by The Canadian Press, the Trudeau government was warned in 2022 that there was a widening gap between immigration and housing supply, largely driven by the increasing number of international students and temporary foreign workers admitted to this country.

This cap will be most acutely felt in Ontario, home to 51 per cent of international students. The Doug Ford government has twice been warned about a reliance on international student tuition fees, once in November by his own panel on colleges and universities, and in 2021 by the auditor-general who warned him not to increase a dependency on foreign student fees without a post-secondary education plan in place. The panel reported in November that the Progressive Conservatives had the lowest per student post-secondary funding in the country following a tuition cut and freeze that meant colleges and universities had reached the point at which revenue from international student tuition fees was “fundamental to the sector’s financial sustainability.” Now Ford is forced into some tough decisions. He will have to decide what schools can bring in international students and what schools should be eliminated, while protecting universities in financial trouble.

Finally, the Liberals – and all governments at all levels – must handle matters of immigration, including temporary foreign workers and international students, with utmost delicacy. To their credit, Canadians have held together on a consensus on the accommodation of immigrants. And to their credit, Canadian politicians have largely resisted any base urge to exploit frustration and anxiety in this country by playing the immigration card.

But the numbers are increasing. Some 500,000 immigrants will arrive next year and this country is going through a population boom during challenging economic times. Immigration will dominate much of the upcoming U.S. presidential election and delicacy is not a feature of debate to the south, particularly from Republicans.

It would not take much to bust that Canadian consensus. We trust our politicians to be vigilant on that score.

Source: Necessary reforms on international students

Sensible recommendations in CILA’s statement on Canada’s international student caps

CILA wishes to use this opportunity to highlight other means to better protect international students and promote the integrity of our higher education and immigration systems:

  • Federal and provincial governments must work together to identify how to fund our higher education system in a more sustainable fashion so that colleges and universities are not so reliant on international students to fund their operations.
  • The federal government needs to set more realistic expectations to international students about the feasibility of obtaining permanent residence following graduation. The federal government, in concert with colleges, universities, and immigration consultants continue to tout Canada’s TR to PR pathways, when the reality is attaining PR is a very competitive process that is far from a foregone conclusion.
  • IRCC may wish to consider increasing the English- and French-language proficiency requirements so that approved international students are better equipped to succeed in Canadian classrooms, the economy, and society.
  • Re-introduce the Post-Graduation Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) to international graduates so that employers with genuine labour shortages can obtain work permits for international graduates with in-demand skills. This can also help such international graduates improve their odds of transitioning to PR.
  • Better regulate the conduct of immigration consultants in Canada and overseas to deter them from engaging in unethical behavior or with unauthorized agents that exploit international students.

CILA acknowledges the significant growth in Canada’s international student population has created significant integrity challenges and believes it is incumbent on governments across Canada to do more to provide both Canadian and international students with a better experience. CILA hopes such efforts will lead to a more sustainable path forward for Canada’s international student program. International students enrich Canada in many ways and are key to our global competitiveness. As such, it is imperative Canada get its international student program back on track so we can sustain the economic and social benefits that international students bring for many decades to come.

Source: Source: CILA’s statement on Canada’s international student caps

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Ottawa’s delayed strategy on foreign students

2023/12/16 Leave a comment

Even the Star is critical:

Foreign students didn’t create the country’s current housing shortage. Blame should also not fall on the shoulders of temporary foreign workers, refugee claimants or new immigrants to this country.

Blame rightly falls to governments that failed to see the flashing warning signs of a housing shortage for years and a federal government that has put out the welcome mat to new arrivals and essentially had them sleep on the floor.

But the mushrooming number of international students pouring into this country has been a contributing factor to our housing woes and from a political perspective, they had become a problem for the federal Liberals. If potential voters saw them as a problem, the Liberal had to act. But they had to act carefully so as not to appear to be scapegoating others for their policy failures.

So first steps to curb their numbers are welcome. If the Liberals can sell the changes as a way to protect the well-being of future students, so much the better from a political standpoint. Still, it falls into the category of a move that was long overdue, a tiny fix to a problem long ignored.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller is vowing to crack down on the exploitative practice of luring students here with promises of backdoor permanent resident status. But he cannot move too aggressively, mindful of the fact that international students are a rich vein of revenue for Canadian universities. Here, there must be pressure on universities and colleges to properly support the students who contribute so much to their bottom line.

International students contribute $22 billion annually to this country’s economy and supporting an estimated 200,000 Canadian jobs. He also cannot price a post-secondary education out of reach of students of limited means and make a Canadian degree attainable only to the elite.

Under his revised measures, students will need to show they have at least $20,635 to cover living expenses in this country, in addition to what they need to cover a year’s tuition and travel costs. That’s a significant hike from the current threshold of $10,000, a figure untethered to reality which has not been revised upward for two decades. Miller also plans to reduce the number of hours international students can spend doing paid work, allowing the 40-hour limit to continue only until the end of April, 2024 at which time it is likely to be cut to 30 hours or less. The minister quite rightly argues that working 40 hours per week while studying here is “untenable.”

He also says he will crack down on a system which he likened to the diploma equivalent of “puppy mills” in which diplomas are churned out without providing a legitimate student experience and profit is made on selling “backdoor” entry points to permanent Canadian residence. He’s right. But it must be noted that this has been allowed to fester under the Liberal watch.

Immigration levels hit record highs under the Liberals. Miller has recently announced a freeze on that level beginning in 2026, but his government will welcome 485,000 permanent residents in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025. When the Liberals were elected in 2015, the immigration intake was set at 265,000 per year. Canada’s population hit 40 million last summer, part of the largest year-over-year percentage increase in population in 66 years, with the country on a path to double its population in 25 years. The 2.2 million non-permanent residents living in this country on July 1, 2023, comprised largely of temporary workers and international students, was up 46 per cent over the previous year.

According to documents cited by the Globe and Mail, the government anticipated 949,000 foreign student applicants this year, a number expected to rise to about 1.4 million by 2027.

Freezing immigration levels and limiting the number of international students will help ease the pressure on housing, although those who are struggling with soaring rents or are unable to buy a home are unlikely to see the benefits before the next election. The only solution is to expedite the construction of housing and the Liberals have – again belatedly – begun to act on that. Other measures, while welcome, are really just tinkering on the edges.

Source: Ottawa’s delayed strategy on foreign students

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Star editorial: Canada needs immigrants. It also needs a plan for the influx of new Canadians.

2023/11/13 Leave a comment

Even the Star is critical of the government’s approach to immigration.

Money quote: “On the larger immigration question it must come to grips with the reality that bigger isn’t always better when there’s no strategy.”

Marc Miller characterized it as a mere piece of housekeeping. Canadians were telling his Liberal government, he said, to “be a little more organized” and plan a little better when it comes to immigration policy.

But Canadian immigration policy needs a rethink, not just better organization. While the federal immigration minister rightly says Canadians are not xenophobic, they are paying more attention to immigration than they have in recent years. As Miller concedes, it’s time for the Trudeau government to pay more attention as well. It’s time to tailor the number of immigrants to our needs because in recent years Liberal immigration policy has been a set of numbers in search of a coherent strategy.

The numbers are not just big – they are historic.

Miller will stay the course for the life of his government, sticking to previously announced plans to welcome 485,000 permanent residents in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025, but will freeze that number for 2026. When the Liberals were elected in 2015, the immigration intake was set at 265,000 per year, but under its steadily increasing levels in non-pandemic years, 98 per cent of the country’s population increase now comes from international migration, Statistics Canada reports.

The real numbers eclipse permanent resident targets. Canada’s population hit 40 million last summer, part of the largest year-over-year percentage increase in population in 66 years, with the country on a path to double its population in 25 years. The 2.2 million non-permanent residents living in this country on July 1, 2023, comprised largely of temporary workers and international students, was up 46 per cent over the previous year. They now outnumber Indigenous Canadians.

Miller agrees his government has become “quite addicted” to temporary foreign workers and mused about capping the number of international students in this country, now estimated at 900,000. The temporary workers too often find abusive working conditions. Students are too often lured to private colleges with fraudulent claims only to receive substandard education and false hope.

Miller has promised renewed scrutiny on those issues, but the larger picture also needs greater scrutiny. Yes, we are getting older and workers are needed, including those who can fill what the government estimates is a shortfall of 100,000 needed to build homes. But those workers, too, need some place to live, adding more pressure on the market. The Liberal argument that growing immigration means a growing economy is also being questioned, because Canadians’ personal standard of living has not grown with an influx of new arrivals.

None of this is the fault of immigrants, temporary workers or international students. It is a fault of lack of government planning. Canadians facing financial stress are right to worry that a glut of workers available through immigration will drive down wages. They are correct to be concerned about more stress being put on the country’s health care system and social services. They have seen refugees sleeping on the streets in Toronto.

Canada’s worker to retiree ratio of three-to-one and a low birth rate will put greater stress on our social programs, necessitating the open-door policy, Miller says. He has begun work to better integrate federal policy with the needs of provinces who deliver services for newcomers and will upgrade services in smaller centres in the hope that more will settle outside Canada’s three largest cities. All this will take time.

A recent Environics and Century Initiative poll found 44 per cent of Canadians agreed to some degree that there was too much immigration in Canada, the largest one-year jump in that view since the annual survey started in 1977. Importantly, 42 per cent of respondents said immigrants made their community a better place and only nine per cent felt newcomers made things worse.

This country is indisputably enriched by immigrants. The Liberal government must guard against Canadians scapegoating immigrants as they face increased financial stress. It must get a handle on the ever-increasing number of temporary workers and international students in this country. On the larger immigration question it must come to grips with the reality that bigger isn’t always better when there’s no strategy.

Source: Canada needs immigrants. It also needs a plan for the influx of new Canadians.

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ICYMI: Star editorial – An influx of international students is straining the system. But don’t blame the students.

2023/09/02 Leave a comment

Good editorial, making the necessary linkages between the various responsibilities behind the “lucrative” incentive that has brought us to where we are today. And whether it is caps or “systematically manag[ing] international student intake, the net result will have to be fewer but higher quality international students:

It must once have seemed like a simple matter. Invite international students to attend Canadian universities and colleges and in the process gain a lucrative source of revenue to help fund those systems.

Now, however, it has become something of a Gordian knot. With about 900,000 international students expected to enter Canada this year, landing in the middle of a persistent housing crisis, tackling one element of this issue exacerbates a problem elsewhere.

The students often feel gouged, lack adequate supports, are subject to exploitation and can end up in dire or unsafe circumstances.

The issue demonstrates how inter-connected this challenge is, affecting not just education and housing, but also employment and immigration policy. There are many vested interests and not all of them put a priority on the students.

The post-secondary system has become economically dependent on these students because of the higher tuition they pay. In Ontario they accounted for 30 per cent of college enrolment in 2021 but 68 per cent of tuition.

So, too, have employers, many of them in the service sector who rely on student labour. Earlier this year the federal government temporarily eliminated the 20-hour-a-week limit on work by international students.

Meanwhile, many students are attracted to Canada by the prospect of gaining permanent residence through acquiring a Canadian education and work permit — a fast track exploited by some.

In all, it is a knotty problem not easily untangled. Cutting it will involve some pain and no small jurisdictional wrangling.

At the federal cabinet retreat in Charlottetown last week, Housing Minister Sean Fraser floated the notion of a cap on foreign students. But what at first blush might seem the easiest solution would merely bring its own set of problems, not least of which would be rationing international students among schools and effectively creating financial boons for some and crises for others.

Some schools have already objected to the idea of a cap, saying that building more student housing is a better way to ease demands for rental accommodation.

Part of the solution must involve schools doing a better job to ensure the well-being of the students whose tuition money they happily accept. As Fraser said, if schools are going to recruit record numbers of international students, they are going to have to do a better job of housing them.

The immigration department has said the federal government will need to have discussions with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over education, about the pressure on cash-strapped post-secondary institutions to use international students as cash cows.

As well, Fraser said, attention must be paid by provinces to separating legitimate educational institutions from the exploitative private schools that have sprung up to cash in on international students. The partnerships between public and private colleges to to educate international students and then provide access to a postgraduate work permit is overdue for closer scrutiny.

But there will be no quick fix. The problem is sufficiently complex to require a set of solutions.

They suggested a process to more systematically manage international student intake and to reset expectations of applicants about their ability to come to Canada and what a student visa promises.

Governments and schools must take responsibility for recruiters they contract who have marketed the international student program as an easy pathway to immigration.

“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,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told CBC’s The House.

But it is a problem largely of our own making, born of that word “lucrative.” It is a discredit to Canada, to the provinces responsible for education, to employers, to post-secondary institutions themselves that happily take their money, that students aren’t better supported.

Source: An influx of international students is straining the system. But don’t blame the students.

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Star Editorial: Ottawa is changing its temporary foreign worker program. It’s not clear this will help workers

2023/08/21 Leave a comment

Related editorial on the Recognized Employer Pilot along with advocating for open work permits to reduce abuse:

In early 2020, many Canadians noticed the once lush produce sections of their grocery stores were increasingly barren.

What many Canadians didn’t notice is the reason for the absence of fresh fruits and vegetables: COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant farm workers across Canada, including in southern Ontario.

The outbreaks, and their effect on food supply, reveal the value and vulnerability of the migrant workers, many of whom are hired through Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

The program, which is set to be altered this September, permits employers to hire foreign workers when no qualified Canadians are available. The initiative has proven wildly popular, and successful applications have increased exponentially in recent years. But so too have accusations of abuse, of workers enduring unsafe workplace and living conditions.

Temporary labourers frequently work long hours for low pay and limited benefits, and they often live in employer-supplied, cramped quarters replete with shared sleeping and washroom facilities — the very conditions that increase the risk of infectious disease outbreaks and other health threats.

Consequently, for the welfare of the workers Ottawa needs to ensure that changing the program doesn’t increase the abuse that has long plagued the regime.

For its part, the federal government insists the alteration, known as the Recognized Employer Pilot, will do the opposite. According to Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault, the pilot will reduce the administrative burden on employers who “demonstrate the highest level of protection for workers,” and allow them to receive permits lasting three years, rather than the current 18 months. The change will come first to employers in agriculture, then to all others starting in January.

Rewarding responsible employers could help to protect both workers and ease the paperwork, and Ottawa has also promised to conduct more rigorous assessments before permits are issued. But three years is a long time, long enough for workplace and living conditions to deteriorate dramatically.

Government inspectors do monitor employers’ compliance with regulations, but that oversight has itself been substandard. In response to the COVID outbreaks among farm workers, federal Auditor General Karen Hogan issued a scathing report accusing inspectors of failing to ensure employers followed regulations.

If the pilot program is to be successful, then, it must be accompanied by improved, vigilant monitoring of employers’ compliance with safety standards throughout the three-year period.

That won’t, however, eliminate the problem that makes abuse possible: The power imbalance between employers and workers. That is the product of two factors — employer-specific work permits, and the tenuous immigration status of workers.

Employer-specific permits require workers to remain with the employer who hired them, which means some must make the impossible choice of suffering abuse or unemployment.

Aware of this, Ottawa introduced the Vulnerable Worker Open Work Permit program, which can grant abused workers a permit that allows them to move to a different employer. But the worker must first complain, something many are loath to do for fear of deportation or reprisals for employers.

In any case, by limiting open permits to those who have faced abuse, the program essentially treats abuse as a kind of hazing, an initiation rite workers must endure if they’re to gain entry to the exclusive club of open permit holders.

In contrast, if Ottawa granted open permits to all temporary workers, it would help to empower them as they could choose their employers — and abusive employers would have trouble retaining talent unless they cleaned up their act.

As for immigration status, the Star reported that workers pay income tax and employment insurance and contribute to the Canada Pension Plan, yet most remain “guests” in the country.

Most workers therefore live under constant fear of deportation, some for decades, which eliminates what little leverage they have with employers. Opening up new pathways for permanent residence would, on the other hand, help to equalize the relationship between employers and workers.

And when workers’ welfare and Canada’s food system are on the line, an equal relationship is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Source: Ottawa is changing its temporary foreign worker program. It’s not clear this will help workers

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Star Editorial: Helping new Canadians succeed

2023/01/09 Leave a comment

Of note. Even the Star is starting to question the government’s approach:

Immigrants have always enriched this country. Today, more than ever, they are also essential to sustaining a needed workforce as the Canadian population ages.

It speaks to the maturity of this country that a record number of immigrants were settled in Canada in 2022, giving this country the largest percentage of immigrants in the G7, without rancour, bitterness or xenophobic political arguments. An Environics poll found almost seven in 10 Canadians support the immigration policies of the Liberal government, double the support Canadians offered for newcomers 50 years ago.

While this country has benefited from the diversity, the energy and the talents of immigrants, the size of the wave that has been – and will be – settled by this Liberal government means it comes with challenges.

To understand the scope of recent immigration in Canada, consider the numbers:

  • In 2022, 431,645 new permanent residents were settled in this country, a record. Almost a quarter of them settled in the GTA and environs. For perspective, that is the equivalent of adding another city of Halifax. The government is aiming to welcome another 1.45 million immigrants over the next three years, essentially adding another city the size of Calgary.
  • According to the 2021 census, almost one in four (23 per cent) residents in this country are or have been a landed immigrant or permanent resident in Canada. This is the highest proportion in a century.
  • Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship estimate that by 2036 immigrants will represent up to 30 per cent of the Canadian population, jumping from 20.7 per cent in 2011
  • An Environics study of 2021 census data found that 79.6 per cent of the GTA population is first- and second-generation arrivals; in Vancouver the number is 72.5 per cent.

Ottawa is making up for an immigration downturn during the pandemic. Immigration now accounts for almost 100 per cent of Canada’s labour force growth and about 75 per cent of the population growth. And, as we age, younger skilled workers are needed in health care, manufacturing, information technology and the building trades. The government says the worker-to-retiree ratio is expected to be two to one by 2035. In the 1970s, it was seven to one.

But when they arrive, immigrants will find the Canadian dream comes with a significant sticker shock.

Where will they live? Higher mortgage rates and limited supply will mean the goal of home ownership would likely be as elusive for many new arrivals as it has been for long-time residents. If they turn to the rental market, they will find options limited because of a shortage of supply and people priced out the housing market renting longer. The average monthly rent for a two-bedroom condo in Toronto is $3,350 according to Urbanation, a real estate data analysis company. That is a 24 per cent increase in one year. Vacancy rates fell to 1.2 per cent, down from a pandemic high of 6.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2021.

Immigration will continue to fuel demand for rental properties, but a slowdown in the number of building projects underway now point to a shortage of housing in four to five years, experts say.

There is also evidence that Canada is wasting the skill of immigrants, particularly in the health care field. Statistics Canada found that only 36.5 per cent of immigrants trained abroad as registered nurses were working in that field here and only 41.1 per cent of new arrivals with foreign medical degrees were working as doctors. Bureaucratic and professional barriers leave too many languishing in fields other than medicine at the very time additional healthcare professionals are urgently needed on the frontline.

The federal government has invested $90 million to streamline the recognition of foreign medical credentials. The Ontario Medical Association has called for more spots in residency programs needed for training of physicians here and a provincial “ready-assessment” program that would more quickly integrate physicians trained abroad into the provincial system. It’s welcome as well to see political pressure to speed the approvals of foreign-trained doctors and nurses.

There is also the question as to whether the federal government has overestimated the impact immigrant labour will have on the workforce. Immigrants will not fill every labour force void and bringing in new labour to certain sectors could blunt opportunities for real wage gains for those already employed.

The record immigration numbers are welcome. But governments cannot simply point to the numbers as the cure for so many of our ills. They must rise to meet these challenges, from housing to employment barriers. Governments must invest in the programs that help newcomers get settled in communities, find their sense of belonging and realize the dream that motivated their move here in the first place.

In so doing, they will not only be helping immigrants, they will be helping all Canadians.

Source: Star Editorial: Helping new Canadians succeed

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Let non-citizens vote in municipal elections: Editorial | Toronto Star

2015/05/20 1 Comment

I don’t agree with The Star’s position.

Citizenship take-up should be encouraged and municipal voting for non-citizens may result in less incentive to become citizens. I have never seen any convincing evidence that municipal voting for Permanent Residents will significantly increase voter participation and visible minority representation.

The revisions to the Citizenship Act along with previous changes, making it harder for some visible minorities to become citizens, and with an overall decline in citizenship uptake, do however weaken the case against allowing non-citizen municipal voting:

Toronto Mayor John Tory doesn’t want people who aren’t Canadian citizens to vote in municipal elections. It’s a reasonable stand, but he should change his mind.

We did.

In 2005 the Star was firmly opposed to giving non-citizens the right to cast a municipal ballot, arguing that this was a well-intentioned proposal that would unfortunately dilute the privilege of citizenship.

Tory expressed similar sentiments this past week at a Ryerson City Building Institute forum organized to explore ways of bridging urban divides. Giving non-citizens the vote was suggested as a way to open up the democratic process and help more visible minority candidates win elected office.

Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie and Ajax Mayor Steve Parish welcomed the idea. But the Star’s David Rider reports that Tory expressed reservations, including doubt that this change could actually boost the diversity of municipal councils.

As far as getting more minority people elected, the reform is at least worth a try. Not much else has worked so far. But even beyond that, change is a matter of fairness. On this ground alone, the right to vote in municipal elections should be extended to all permanent residents — citizens and non-citizens alike.

It’s estimated that more than a quarter-million newcomers live, work and play in Toronto. They volunteer in support of local causes, send their children to local schools, pay local taxes, and support local businesses. Yet they’re barred from the ballot box, denying them a say in how this city is run, because they’re not Canadian citizens.

At least 40 other countries allow non-citizens to vote at the municipal level, and it’s time Toronto did too. The province would need to amend the Municipal Elections Act to bring this about and it would be a big help if Toronto’s mayor were a firm advocate of change.

Citizenship would remain a privilege associated with voting in federal and provincial elections. This would still be something special. It makes sense to set a lower requirement for voting at the municipal level, where the issues aren’t national security or foreign policy concerns but more mundane matters such as garbage collection, water bills, transit fares and whether the Gardiner Expressway is torn down.

Non-citizens have become a vital component of Canada’s largest city, helping to make it one of the most diverse places in the world. These people should no longer be written off on Election Day.

Let non-citizens vote in municipal elections: Editorial | Toronto Star.

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