Tory bill leaves international students in distress

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/09/2016 (3288 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

International students are sometimes pointed out as “ideal” immigrants for Canadian communities.

The idea is that it should be easy for them to integrate to Canadian society because they have the language, they are immersed in a dynamic community, they are job ready and learned their profession in a Canadian institution, and they develop community relationships faster than any other immigrant from a different stream. They might have also worked during school years so they would have Canadian work experience.

Immigration Minister John McCallum recognized this when he said last June that, “I have not had one person disagree with me when I say international students are a very fertile recruiting stream for us. They’re young, educated, they speak English or French. They know something about our country. They’re exactly what we need for the future.”

According to a 2015 survey by the Canadian Bureau for International Education, more than half of international students are willing to stay and make Canada their home once they graduate.

Unfortunately, after an immigration overhaul by the Stephen Harper government in January 2015, it is very difficult for international students to become permanent residents. Specifically, it is the controversial Bill C-24 that is making the life of international students in Canada harder.

The changes forced international students — who were previously in the Canadian Experience Class category — to compete in a pool in the Express Entry system alongside other immigrants with more advanced degrees and better work experience who are applying from abroad. Why should a student who has paid international tuition fees and has more Canadian experience be put in the same pool than someone applying from abroad?

What would make sense is to recognize the advantages an international student would have in successfully joining the workforce because they have passed a few filters. They have passed strict language tests and they don’t have to go through a long process of credential recognition.

Instead, the new system makes it really hard for international students to find work. Students have now a harder time under Express Entry because they usually lack a Labour Market Impact Assessment filed by an employer to show whether a foreign worker is needed to fill a job. While not required to apply for permanent residency, having an LMIA automatically gave a substantial boost to the number of points the applicant received under the Express Entry system. International students must also find work before their post-graduate work permit expires. International students can no longer give prospective employers clear answers about their immigration status when the Express Entry system picks only a limited number of applicants per period. The old system guaranteed an international student eligibility if they could find a full-time job in their field. Now there is a risk for the employer in hiring someone who might face immigration challenges.

The physical presence requirements also became more difficult when the government decided to make the time lived in Canada while studying and working as an International student not valid towards the 1,460 days needed before being eligible to apply for permanent residency. Under the older system, some of the time a student lived in Canada would count. It just made sense that a students who is renting a place, developing community ties, paying taxes, paying double the amount of tuition, working and spending money in the country was able to count all those years toward the physical presence requirement, but not for Harper’s government immigration policy-makers.

Political change seems to be the answer to these issues because Justin Trudeau’s government is changing immigration policies once again. John McCallum noted last March that Canada has been excluding “the cream of the crop in terms of potential future Canadians” under the Express Entry program. He then promised immigration policy that would be friendlier to international graduates of Canadian post-secondary institutions.

The Liberal government is actually working on fixing the issues, but bureaucratic hiccups have delayed changes from becoming a reality.

Meanwhile, more than 100,000 international students enrol in Canadian universities every year without a clear picture of their future if they wish to stay in Canada.

The current situation is not fair for international students, but it’s also against the federal government’s own Advisory Panel on Canada’s International Education Strategy. The panel’s 2012 final report recommended that Canada double the 239,000 international students it receives within a decade to build the country’s future prosperity. As of 2014, Canada had 336,000 international students, nearly 80 per cent of them at the post-secondary level.

International student tuition can reach beyond $40,000 a year for some programs. Many students are happy to invest that money in exchange for an opportunity to stay in a country that is self-promoted as a welcoming land in search of the right immigrants.

» Jaime Chinchilla is part of Brandon’s Latin American community and a member of the popular Son Latino Band. His column appears monthly.