Thank you for that.
My next questions are for Professor Skuterud.
Professor, I don't know if you were able to listen to some of the testimony provided by the Immigration and Refugee Board, but I'll give you a few quotes from the minister just to give you time to think.
The immigration minister said the system is “out of control”, and then he was quoted in an article on September 22, 2024, as saying there was an “alarming trend” of more international students claiming asylum.
You wrote in the past that international students were being made to pay exorbitant tuition premiums in Canadian college programs, and you reflected on the value of obtaining an education versus the value of getting a spot to compete for permanent residency in Canada. You then noted that 130,000 former international students were on temporary visas with no realistic prospect of permanent residency.
We've seen the numbers at the Immigration and Refugee Board. The total volume of the backlog is over 250,000 as of the end of October. It was 218,000 at the end of July, which is an increase of 32,000 in the backlog in the last two months. Do you have any concerns about that? Can you expand on what you were saying originally about these 130,000 international students who have no prospect of getting permanent residency in Canada?