Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I would like to begin by acknowledging the students who are impacted and all their advocacy work. We are here today only because of the students who stood and slept outside, endured flooding and told their stories in protests 24-7 for 18 days. Justice cannot wait for these students, which is why it is imperative that they see immediate and permanent solutions to stop the deportations immediately, waive inadmissibility and provide immediate access to regularization and permanent residency.
It is abhorrent that it took this long from the time of initial reporting for these students to see an ounce of justice, and it is frustrating that these protests were even needed in order for the livelihoods of these students to be taken seriously. Members of the public and the media have suggested that because only a portion of the impacted students have come forward, the government is doing too much. Madam Chair, let me be clear. The number of students does not matter, because even one student without access to justice is too many.
Some of these students have been dealing with being blamed for simply wanting for years to come to Canada and contribute to this country in pursuit of a dream. Some of them have been in this debacle for almost eight years. We need to think about the message this sends to international students here and to future students.
We have heard the phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child,” and this is true. In the case of these Punjabi international students, this lack of access to justice and the lateral violence it creates affects their families and communities as well.
There are families and lives threatened by these deportation orders. Imagine your entire life—what you have built and sowed, and the roots you have placed in your community—gone. You can only imagine the toll that has on someone, but these students lived it, and they're still living that reality. The fact of the matter is that these students are still awaiting a permanent solution, and they're paying close attention to the actions of this government and this committee. These are some of the best years of their lives, and they have had to sacrifice, not just financially, but mentally and physically.
Many of these students are from low-income families and are the sons and daughters of farmers who may have farmed the potatoes in our poutine or the rice we have in our stir fry. Most of these families have had to make enormous sacrifices, like selling plots of land or expensive tractors, taking out high-interest loans and giving all they have for these students, who have been victims of an exploitation scheme.
These students have been defrauded of tens of thousands of dollars by this one education consultant, and have spent thousands more just to have legal representation. The consultant was known to have forged fake documents for students previously, and is still on the run. He has made death threats against these students, should they be deported.
Madam Chair, let me be very clear: the situation has not been dealt with, and deportation for any of these students is equivalent to a death sentence.
We have decided to focus on the exploitation of these students before they arrived in Canada, but when they are students studying here they have to pay over five times the amount in tuition fees as domestic students and are not eligible for housing vouchers, public health insurance, or federal and provincial loans or grants. It is truly a two-tiered system we have for international students. How can we expect international students to want to stay in Canada, let alone continue their studies, when there are international students constantly being targeted by predatory housing and employment and human trafficking schemes?
It is no wonder that there are reports by multiple funeral homes of international students going back to their home countries in coffins by the dozen each month and facing rising rates of hate crimes in Canada, but because the government does not track those statistics, I cannot give an accurate number on those figures other than to speak about the many individual cases.
When we talk about the exploitation of international students, it cannot just be about the failures in our immigration system. It must also be about the failures of our two-tiered education system, which looks only at the monetary value of international students, instead of their humanity.
Some of the suggestions to fix these issues offered at this committee are promising to see, such as the deputy minister's suggestion last week that there should be an increase in data sharing among DLIs, or that we should take up recommendations from a 2017 study by this same committee on ghost consultants.
Instead, I want to offer a different suggestion, one that enacts justice for these students and that is called for by these students: Stop the deportations immediately; waive inadmissibility, and provide immediate access to regularization and permanent residency.
Thank you.
I welcome any questions from the committee.
