Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 18th, 2024

[Maxime Colleret]

I thank the member for the question.

The economist Pierre Fortin, whom you quoted, is absolutely right to say that universities in Quebec have a recurring underfunding problem. In fact, just last year, the Université du Québec submitted a brief on the budget envelope to the Government of Quebec. In that document, we talked about a historic shortfall of $100 million that we had to make up just to get funding equivalent to that of the other universities. Every year, all universities accumulate a significant shortfall.

That said, I would still like to point out that, for the Université du Québec network, we charge about $21,000 a year for international students. For a Quebec student, we get about $18,000 a year. However, we have to take into account the costs associated with educational tools, as well as support and integration measures for international students. We need to dispel the cash cow myth, if I may call it that. International students bring in an enormous amount of money for university establishments, at least they do in the Université du Québec's case.

It's still relatively hard to say what the federal government could do to improve the situation. I know that the Quebec government is currently looking at this issue, which makes things even more complex. The federal government and the Government of Quebec are both taking action, so we're currently stuck between the two, that is to say between the federal government and Government of Quebec measures.

Certainly, if we want to improve the situation, if we want to keep the situation viable at universities, at the very least, the federal government should take the Quebec context into consideration and exclude graduate studies from the cap.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Mr. Colleret and Mr. Chiang. We went over time on this one.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, go ahead for one minute.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Colleret, you told us earlier that about 50% of international students at your university do graduate studies.

To what extent will the federal government's measures have an impact on research at your establishments?

[Maxime Colleret]

Yes, 50% of our international students study at the graduate level. However, according to a figure that I think is even more telling, 8,000 international students are studying at the graduate level, which means they make up 40% of our graduate students, at the Université du Québec and all universities combined.

Scientific research depends on the presence of graduate students. The professors work with these students. They're the ones who do the research in the labs, in collaboration with the professors. Quebec's entire innovation and knowledge advancement system depends on the presence of international students.

This is all the more important because, in some programs at the Université du Québec, for example, professors aren't able to initiate research projects because there aren't enough students in the laboratories. If we were to reduce our number of international graduate students by 40%, we would still find ourselves with a glaring issue in terms of innovation and scientific research in the university environment, particularly at the Université du Québec.

The measure doesn't say that we're going to cut off all access for international students. However, we don't know at this point what's going to happen. Things aren't clear.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

It was—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you're already at one minute and 21 seconds.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Colleret.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

We'll go to MP Kwan for one minute.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to go back to Dr. Emery.

I remember when the government announced the Atlantic provinces special immigration measure. Given that this is where we are now with this situation, do you have any recommendations for how the government should adjust their plans, especially in addressing the problems that you anticipate for rural and smaller communities?

[Prof. Herb Emery]

I think that the big missing discussion is a statement of the goals you're trying to achieve with this type of immigration policy.

In a lot of the discussion that even we've had this afternoon, it's been about numbers and absorptive capacity, but not so much about what we're trying to achieve. Is it innovation? Is it labour supply? Is it growing the high-skill population? If you don't know what goal you're trying to achieve, then I don't know what we can actually recommend. If the goals were to bring in lower-skill labour for the short term and to boost up some university finances, it was working well, and putting the cap in was probably a mistake. If the goals were long-run population development and skills development, it probably needed to be more tailored to where the labour market needs are and which innovation system you're trying to seed, but that's not the discussion we're having.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, members.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Chair, I'd like to ask—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Yes, Mr. Morrice.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Chair, I'm asking for unanimous consent from colleagues for a minute and a half to ask questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Are all in favour?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

We're all good, so I will give Mr. Morrice one and a half minutes.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, colleagues.

Professor Worswick, I want to share with you why this is of particular interest to me. When the temporary resident population went from 786,000 to three million, you called that “going off the rails”. In my community, there's a college that has raised their population of international students from 760 and some to over 30,000 within a decade. That has had significant impacts on my community. You spoke about the ability to absorb. The ability of my community to absorb that population growth has been challenged.

Over a year ago I put forward a number of measures that I was able to work with the minister on. Four of them have been put forward, but a number haven't, and I'm looking to continue to build support for these. I'd like to put one of those to you, which is that, for designated learning institutions that have more than 15% of international students who never actually enrol in a course, there would be, maybe, a limiting of visas from IRCC to those DLIs. That's something a number of countries around the world have already done, but Canada hasn't yet. Is that something that's on your radar already, and is there a comment you'd like to share with the committee on a proposal like that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

You have eight seconds, Professor Worswick, to respond.

[Prof. Christopher Worswick]

It seems like a very good idea to me. I think there's a real concern that our international student program at times is turning into a de facto temporary foreign worker program, which is not the intent, so I would support what you told me about it, anyway.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much.

On behalf of the committee members, I thank Professor Emery, Professor Worswick and Monsieur Colleret for their input for the committee members here. With that, I wish the very best to you.

I also thank the honourable members for staying a bit late today, and the staff, of course—the interpreters, the clerk and the technical support. Thank you very much.

With that, I will see you next Thursday.