So as I was saying, students are asked on the questionnaire if they intend to stay in Canada after their studies. If a student has the misfortune to check that box, their chances of getting a visa are nil, because then they are suspected of dual content: the authorities believe that they really do not intend to study in Canada, and they want to stay in Canada. In my opinion, they are asking ambiguous questions to applicants who want to come study in Canada. Things like this need to be made clearer.
Another thing to consider are the bottlenecks in processing centres. We know that the largest pool of francophones in the world is in Africa. When all those applications are directed to a single country, inevitably that leads to delays. It's not the visa officers' fault, but the sheer number of applications coming in sometimes results in superficial and mechanical processing of applications. I am vice-president of studies and research at UOF, so I've noticed it in a number of items students have sent to us: the responses are automated.
I'm going to describe a case to you to show you what can happen. A set of twins who enrolled with us had wealthy parents. One twin got his visa, but the other one didn't get a study permit for conflicting reasons. However, their data was identical and the parents had proof of financial sufficiency. In a case like this, I wonder what the refusal was based on. Their applications went through different processing centres and each agent had a different interpretation. Therefore, in my view, the criteria used in a case like this are not objective. You need to have a closer look at this, because it can have real consequences.
I have one more thing I wanted to mention. An article in Le Devoir says that French speaking African countries are not at all on a level playing field. More students get visas in certain countries, and that is leading to discrimination against African countries when it comes to access to visas. We have to wonder what criteria are being used to give some countries more visas than others. Do the criteria vary from country to country? What is the determining factor in the decision?
I wouldn't want to interfere with decisions founded on administrative policies, but this raises some fundamental ethical issues. The same criteria should be used for everyone. It has to be fair.