Evidence of meeting #4 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was countries.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Quickly, Mr. Basiri, do you deal with many francophone students and establishments?
Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, ApplyBoard
Not that much, but almost with a majority of—
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
All right, thank you very much, Mr. Basiri. It's just that I don't have a lot of time.
Ms. Amyot, I was looking at the numbers we got. Algeria, Senegal and Cameron are among the six countries of origin of international students in Quebec. Their rates were over 39% in 2020–21. In the other provinces of Canada, foreign students from India and China, who represent a large chunk of foreign student pool, had refusal rates of 30% and 15% respectively. Looking at those numbers, how do the francophone establishments you represent feel about the situation? They must be thinking that obviously discrimination is occurring and that they are stuck dealing with these issues.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Colleges and Institutes Canada
The problem is, the pool for recruiting foreign students is not as big for French-speaking countries. The countries in which francophone establishments can recruit francophone students are often less affluent countries where students have little financial means.
The whole issue of financial self-sufficiency is becoming a problem, because those students may not have the $10,000 on hand right away, but their extended family, the aunts and uncles, will chip in to fund the student who is going to study in Canada. Plus, the student can work while they study. People often forget that.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
They often get scholarships from Quebec. I believe Quebec puts $15 million into scholarships. That's more than the rest of Canada combined.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Colleges and Institutes Canada
Yes, they do get scholarships. However, two years ago, we saw a case where IRCC and Quebec CEGEPs neglected to mention that the scholarships were available. We've seen the problem with our own eyes.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
I'd like to thank all the witnesses very much. Have a great day.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.
We will now end our round of questioning with Ms. Kwan, for two minutes.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Ms. Nord, you mentioned, in your presentation, that we have a labour skill shortage in Canada. As it stands right now in Canada, there are about 500,000 people who are already here. Some of them have lost their status, because of COVID, because they lost employment. [Technical difficulty—Editor] very dedicated specific work permits, they cannot therefore apply for employment elsewhere.
Given this reality, would you support the call for the government to regularize these individuals, who are out of status, in order to allow for those with specific work permits to apply for employment elsewhere, and to receive landed status, so that we can actually fill this labour skill shortage gap?
Senior Director, Workforce Strategies and Inclusive Growth, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Before the pandemic, back in January 2020, we had unprecedented labour vacancies at that time. It was almost half a million vacancies. We used to say there were 600,000 international students here in the country. It's not unequivocal, because of labour market integration, but we do have a population here that we would encourage integrating, regardless of all statuses. It's not an either-or.
We shouldn't be looking only at those here, only those from abroad, and only under-represented and unrepresented domestic populations here. It's an all-in approach. We'd be very much open to those who are already here in the country.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you.
The government, with the express entry stream—because it has introduced new measures—is now in the situation where it is pausing or halting the express entry stream. When you mentioned doing not one or the other but both, that's what I think the government needs to do, so I would agree with that.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Ms. Kwan.
With this our panel comes to an end.
On behalf of all of the members, I would like to thank all three witnesses for appearing before the committee.
Before we end, if there is something you would like to share with the committee and you were not able to discuss it because of the time, you can always send a written submission to the clerk of the committee and that will be communicated to all the members as we continue the study.
Before we end, I would like to ask members of the committee two quick questions.
In preparation for our next study on differential outcomes in IRCC, I would first like to ask the committee to approve a budget of $4,025. Are all members agreed on this?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
That's good.
Also, is the committee in agreement with the Friday, February 18 submission deadline for witnesses for the study of differential outcomes? If by February 18 all of the parties could submit the names of the witnesses to the clerk, that would be really great.
The motion states that there will be no fewer than five meetings on the topic. In terms of party allocation, if we have five meetings on that motion and one meeting is with the minister and the officials, there will be four meetings with the other witnesses. Based on three witnesses per panel, the Liberals will have an allocation of 11 witnesses; the Conservative Party will have nine; the Bloc will have two; and the NDP will have two.
Are the members in agreement that the list of witnesses can be submitted by Friday, February 18?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
The clerk will work once he receives the witness lists so we can start scheduling for our next study.
With that I thank all the witnesses once again. I am sorry the meeting went a little over time because there were some technical issues in our first panel.
I hope everyone will have a great day. Thank you.
The meeting is adjourned.