Thank you, Mr. El‑Khoury.
That's a key question in the current context, particularly as it relates to your comment about bad actors. I would definitely not want us to draw the conclusion that we should be blaming individuals. There are some people who have been given false hopes of coming to Canada, perhaps by obtaining permanent residency through below average or misrepresented education. However, someone who's willing to pay $40,000 to learn how to drive an Uber taxi is not the kind of person we're looking for when we try to recruit brilliant people from abroad to come here to contribute to Canada's reputation, whether here or elsewhere around the world when they return home.
I don't want people to think that we are against foreign students. In cabinet, there were at least a dozen members, including me, who had studied abroad, were enriched by the experience and even learned a foreign language. In no way do I wish to diminish the importance of that.
Nevertheless, there was a highly lucrative system, not only for institutions that do good work, but also for a number that are fraudulent. Frankly, it varies from province to province. Some don't do their work as well as others, while certain provinces have taken action against some of their own institutions to do damage control. Something needs to be done so that the institutions being affected, particularly private colleges, but also some major institutions, do their homework with respect to the accommodation, integration and recruitment of quality students from abroad.
The federal government also has a role to play. I can't be there for everyone, but I have to try and eliminate fraud. Over the coming weeks, we are going to announce improved measures to counter fraud in letters of acceptance and to ensure that we have reliable institutions that do their homework. These institutions could be entitled to a fast-track process, unlike others that require—and I'm putting this very diplomatically—a little help from the federal or provincial government to comply with standards of integrity for their students.