I'll begin by answering the last element of your question.
As for profitability, it's not necessarily foreign students that allow us to make ends meet at our universities. We're not motivated by the lure of money. Those students play an important role not only in the development of knowledge and research, but also for businesses in our communities.
However, the difference in approval rates has major consequences on our student population. That doesn't only affect UQAT. It's also happening for my colleagues, whether in Rimouski or Chicoutimi, where several hundred foreign students are admitted to our programs each year. Those potential students have letters. They obtain bursaries from our professors and required authorizations from the Government of Quebec, but IRCC refuses their applications for a study permit. This problem has enormous repercussions.
The processing times for applications are extremely long. These students have plans in life. They plan to be educated by the best universities in the world. They come to Canada for that, and their applications are often refused because an immigration officer isn't certain the students will return home or have the necessary funds for their education. That happens even though we submit all the necessary documents and indicate that they have full-time bursaries for the duration of their education that will cover tuition and living expenses. There's a real gap in understanding between reality, what's happening on the ground at our universities, and what's perceived in the backrooms of government, if I can use that expression.
I'm not particularly surprised by the statistics presented by the government. We're currently in a bit of a numbers war between what we're seeing on the ground and what the government is telling us. However, the real data that we're obtaining show that we're right. There really is a major gap between acceptance rates for francophone and anglophone students in this country. There's also a gap that's growing from year to year between francophone and anglophone universities in Quebec.