I had the opportunity to present as a witness last evening with the Standing Committee on Immigration and international students were an important topic that was discussed. I don't have any specific stats for you. I know that in Atlantic Canada we have the fastest growing international student population.
As a chamber of commerce and as the collective chambers of commerce, we are pleased to co-sponsor a resolution that focuses on some of the barriers that international students are seeing to access pre-grad work experience. That could be everything from not being eligible for the Canada summer jobs program to having to get additional work visas for co-op terms. More and more employers are looking for that pre-grad experience for employment.
The other barriers, post-grad, are related to accessing permanent residency and citizenship, whether it be time accounted for or.... But I think there's a lot of positive and I think it's one of the biggest opportunities that we have for retention and recruitment of international students in the region who are Canadian-educated. A few barriers still exist in encouraging them to stay, not just in the region.
I have to acknowledge, obviously, that the Atlantic immigration pilot has an international stream and I'm sure, although it was just launched in March, we hope to see some further results of that in the next school year.