Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 25th, 2025

[Larissa Bezo]

Broadly, yes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

As you know, international students who want to study here need a Quebec acceptance certificate and a university admission letter. They also need a study permit, which is issued by IRCC.

To your knowledge, which level of government makes the final decision to issue a study permit?

Is it IRCC?

[Larissa Bezo]

Yes. Certainly when it comes to review of study permits, that is happening at the level of the department, with officers reviewing those files. That is correct.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

So, it's not up to the provinces or universities to do criminal record checks or make sure people have had a medical exam.

Is that correct?

[Larissa Bezo]

Our institutions are involved at the level of assessing academic suitability as part of that application process. The issues related to security, health, etc., which fall within the immigration framework, are outside the scope of our institutions.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Perfect. Thank you.

Suppose there was a security breach and someone with criminal intentions posed as a student and ended up here with a study permit. Would you agree that the federal government would be to blame for an inadequate security screening?

In this kind of situation, if the federal government were to blame universities for this even though the only authority responsible for allowing people to enter the country is the government, what would you think?

At worst, would it be lying? At best, would it be acting in bad faith?

[Larissa Bezo]

Our institutions are very much committed to ensuring program integrity. However, the scope of their role vis-à-vis the responsibilities of IRCC and CBSA differs quite significantly.

Our institutions remain vigilant. If we become aware of issues, we have an obligation to alert the government. However, the scope of program integrity within the parameters you've just described certainly falls outside the purview of our institutions explicitly.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

In your presentation, you talked about Canadian learning institutions' international reputation. I think that's extremely important.

How badly is our post-secondary learning institutions' image tarnished on the international scene now?

[Larissa Bezo]

It has been severely damaged. We cannot speak about “puppy mills” and not damage the perceived quality of Canada's education system.

Also, absent explicit narrative coming from the Government of Canada to contextualize the changes, the assumption is simply that our quality has decreased and that we are no longer interested in hosting international students, and that does a tremendous disservice to Canada when we require that global talent to secure our future prosperity.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I didn't take a lot of time off this summer because I had to intervene to ensure that a number of French students got their study permits. In August, despite the fact that universities in Quebec and France have a protocol in place, there was a 12-week delay in processing applications from French students.

Meanwhile, as we found out last week, an international crime ring is using the study permit system to come to Canada and commit crimes.

I think it is ridiculous that genuine students who want to come work here are subjected to these long delays. The same goes for universities in the regions, as I said, that need these students to support their programs, while criminals are taking advantage of loopholes in the immigration system.

What are your thoughts on that?

[Larissa Bezo]

We're seeing the immediate after-effects of the policy changes. There is clearly work to be done in terms of that recalibration and how it is playing out at the level of study permit assessment. We are actively engaging with IRCC to work through this so that it doesn't serve to deter genuine students from pursuing their academic studies in our institutions, both within Quebec and within the rest of the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

You have 30 seconds.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I want to reiterate that we're looking for solutions.

The federal government's latest reforms relating to international students are a step in the wrong direction.

The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration won't have time to discuss everything, but I strongly recommend that all witnesses submit written documents to help us and help our analysts draft a report that will improve the study permit system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you so much, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

Now we go to our second round, which is for five minutes.

We'll start with Mr. Ma.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My first question is addressed to Mr. Côté.

In January 2025, you published a report entitled “Where to From Here”, which focused on the international higher education in Canada. In theme 2, you explained that the large number of students in general, business and other low-alignment programs struggled to transition to high-demand occupations under postgraduate work permits and often failed to receive permanent residency.

If international student caps had been established earlier, would this problem have existed?

[André Côté]

It might have existed to some extent, but I think the challenge was that there was a huge increase in the number of students. The largest share of that increase was in college programs, and a huge proportion of those college programs were enrolling students in these kinds of general business certificate programs or other types of credentials. There was just a very low likelihood they would have labour market success afterwards. I certainly think it became a numbers game.

Also, I think that part of the challenge on the recruitment side was that a promise was made to many of these students that this would put them on an immigration track in Canada, when the simple fact was that there were not enough permanent residency slots to accommodate the huge volume of students we were letting into the country. I think many felt as though it was a bit of a raw deal. We kind of led them astray.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

As you mentioned, a large number of student permits were issued. Were you or other organizations required to report on the enrolment status and ongoing enrolment and work permit...that they were able to gainfully be employed?

[André Côté]

We were not. We're a centre within a university that would have a division that would focus on international education. A lot of that data—Alex is typically the data expert—would be reported to IRCC. A lot of that data was made public. It was the analysis of that data that started to point to some of those trends.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

The following question is for Mr. Usher.

You published, also in 2025, “The State of Postsecondary Education in Canada”. In it, you mentioned that, for both universities and colleges, “'business' studies are the largest single category” of enrolments “due mainly to this being the field of choice for the international students”. A few pages later, you write, “At the college level...nearly 50% of all students enrolled in business programs.” Beside this statement is a chart where I see that in the 2022-23 academic year, there were over 90,000 international students enrolled in college business programs, and close to 60,000 in university business programs.

In your opinion, would these numbers have been the same if the international student caps had been established earlier?

[Alex Usher]

That's a good question. I don't know.

Business programs are the cheapest ones for universities to put on. One reason is that they require the lowest levels of language skills, frankly, from international students. They're the cheapest to put on. I think that even with caps, you would likely see a lot of people in those programs, because there's a lot of incentive to build them that way. Would it be as high? Maybe not, but it would still be high.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Would it be fair to say that these numbers, as far as you know, were uncontrolled? There were no caps, and they were just free-flowing as the applications come through.

[Alex Usher]

There were no caps because the provincial.... Most of those college numbers are in Ontario. The provincial government, on three occasions between 2019 and 2024, loosened the regulations so that colleges could accept more and more students. Colleges said, “You won't give us the money, so let us go get it ourselves.” They did.

The Ford government, in the 905 zone, was throwing gasoline on a fire when it came to permitting institutions to bring in as many students as possible and as cheaply as possible, and that meant, in many cases, putting them in business programs.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

In that scenario, were there considerations given to housing issues and employment issues, as well as the impact on local youth in these areas?

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

You have 25 seconds, please.

[Alex Usher]

You'd have to ask the Ford government, but to my knowledge, no.