Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to start by thanking the members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for inviting me to appear before you today. It's a pleasure to be here.
As vice-chair of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, I would like to thank once again and extend my appreciation and U15's appreciation, and in general the entire Canadian university community's appreciation, for the work that Minister Alexander and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration did during the recent labour dispute. Their efforts ensured that with only a few exceptions, international students were able to be on campus and in class for the beginning of the semester. The arrival and continued ability of international students to attend Canadian universities are essential for our operations and for Canada's economy. A Department of Foreign Affairs report determined that international students contribute $8 billion to the Canadian economy each year, by no means a small or insignificant number.
Today, I would like to focus on questions 1 and 3 of your committee's study, as neither my university nor the U15 have an opinion or issue regarding question 2. For the purposes of keeping to the eight minutes I have been provided to speak, I'm going to focus on two issues that speak to the integrity of the system: the classification of who are immigration representatives and the review of the international student program.
About two and a half years ago, the government enacted measures to strengthen the immigration and refugee identification processing system in Canada. The Government of Canada reduced the ability of organizations and individuals to defraud the system and applicants, a step wholly and completely supported by Canadian universities. An unforeseen, however, and unintended consequence of this action was that the department determined that university employees who provide immigration advice to international students or staff are considered to be paid immigration representatives and are therefore within the scope of section 91 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Under these provisions, individuals who receive a fee or other type of consideration for providing immigration advice must be authorized to do so. Authorized representatives must be one of the following: lawyers and paralegals who are members in good standing of a Canadian provincial or territorial law society; notaries who are members in good standing of the Chambre des notaires du Québec; or immigration consultants who are members in good standing of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council, or, in short, ICCRC. University staff are considered to fall under this regulation.
This had an unfortunate effect of increasing the work of CIC personnel, since our staff were not able to provide information to potential international students. To better understand where a solution to this situation may lie, the government has asked AUCC, our sister association, to gather information on how the regulation has impacted our staff, including developing a list of what activities international student advisers can no longer undertake.
In addition, the AUCC has been encouraged to work with ICCRC to determine whether the organization would be willing to develop special educational programs targeted at university staff. We understand that the ICCRC is an arm's-length entity from the government, and I understand AUCC looks forward to working with them to address the unique nature of our situation while maintaining the integrity of our system.
The second issue I will mention in my presentation about the integrity of the system is the proposed regulatory changes to the international student program. It is our understanding that the new regulations are intended to improve programming integrity and accountability and to enhance Canada's reputation as a destination of choice for international students.
If implemented, key changes will include new requirements for international students to both attend a designated learning institution—this could be a university or college, any learning institution—and actively pursue studies while in Canada. So there are two requirements. One, they have to be registered with a learning institution, but the second one is even more important: they must pursue their studies while in Canada. Institutions will be required to take on a reporting role to support these changes. The nature of this role is still under discussion between the federal and provincial or territorial governments.
We are, as post-secondary education institutions, very supportive of any activity taken by the government to enhance our standing as a place to study, and we look forward to working with them on this initiative and on other potential elements of the international education strategy.
As for the third component of your investigation, I think it's important to note that our system has both strengths and weaknesses when it comes to our peer countries. I can tell you that there are many American businesses that are very envious of our PGWPP, or post-grad work permit program, which allows students to apply to stay in Canada to find work after the completion of their studies.
In addition, I would be remiss if I did not mention the 2013 government announcement of $42 million over the next two years to be invested to support enhanced processing capacity with the temporary residents program. This includes study permit processing. This is very positive, and it is certainly news welcomed by my colleagues in the university sector.
Processing times for both study permits and temporary resident visas—for example, to attend interviews for faculty positions—continue to be a primary area of concern for universities. Average processing times, defined as the amount of time needed to process 80% of all cases within a given time period, vary significantly between visa offices and are impacted by staff resources and caseload complexity, such as incidence of fraud and level of security risk.
Among the top 15 source countries for international students, study permit processing times vary from as low as two weeks, for example, for India, to as many as 18 weeks in the case of students from Nigeria. I think it would be fair to say that Canada is somewhere in between, with visas being processed in around 60 days. That's a lot of time when we hear that Australians can get a student visa turned around in 20 days and the U.K. even less. I certainly think there's work we can do when it comes to speeding up the processing time, increasing the ability of students to apply online, or creating more streamlined parameters. We recognize that it is not an easy or quick process; however, we look forward to continue to work with the government on identifying best practices internationally, modifying them to work here, and doing our part to help make the system run more efficiently.
Again, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for your time, and I look forward to your questions.