Thank you very much, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
I'm here on behalf of our 140 member institutions, colleges, CEGEPs, institutes and polytechnics.
For 50 years, Colleges and Institutes Canada has championed education, training and innovation on a global scale.
Canada's college systems are demand-driven systems. This means programs are designed in consultation with industry to ensure that students gain in-demand skills that respond to current and emerging labour market needs.
With 95% of the Canadian population living within 50 km of a college or institute, our members play a key role in international education and immigration by offering their programs to all communities in Canada, including rural and francophone minority communities.
We're hearing more and more stories of qualified students waiting several months for a decision on their study permit only to have it rejected, often for unclear and unfounded reasons. This is particularly true for CEGEPs and francophone establishments outside of Quebec, whose primary source markets are in French-speaking Africa.
Refusals for reasons related to dual intent are particularly difficult to explain. On one hand, the Canadian government acknowledges and promotes study as a desirable pathway toward permanent residency but refuses applicants who openly express their desire to stay. Many students who have previously completed a university degree in their home country are also being refused for reasons related to what an officer might describe as a questionable education pathway, even though here at home Canadian university graduates are increasingly turning to colleges and institutes to help them upscale and transition to the labour market.
Another common reason for refusal relates to a student's inability to demonstrate financial sufficiency. Banking systems in certain countries are not as well developed, and students rely more heavily on family networks in ways that may seem atypical from a Canadian cultural lens.
For several years, Colleges and Institutes Canada has been advocating for a practical approach to resolving these issues by joining forces with IRCC. Innovative teamwork between our association and visa officers in the field has resulted in such things as the designated learning institution portal, a guaranteed investment certificate to demonstrate financial sufficiency and the student direct stream.
A pilot program with the Dakar visa office has shown that sharing information between designated learning institutions and visa officers can improve transparency and mutual understanding and bring up acceptance rates.
Our association wants to continue working with IRCC to find other innovative solutions to streamline application processes and facilitate recruitment of the students who best meet the needs of our labour market. For example, IRCC should consider implementing a demand driven study permit stream that would give priority to applicants who have a job offer conditional on graduation. The stream would promote communication between our members and local employers, and would likely increase the number of students in rural and remote areas, where labour shortages are more acute.
In conclusion, modernizations to the study permit applications process are needed such as an expansion of the study direct stream to more francophone countries, increased transparency and better two-way information sharing, greater connections between DLIs and employers, a review of policies and definitions related to the international student program, and approved and stable approval rates.
Those measures are needed for our member institutions to remain competitive and for Canada to be a destination of choice.