Thank you, Chair.
I move that Bill C-12 be amended by adding, after line 19 on page 31, the following new clause:
72.1 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 87.31:
87.32(1) A designated learning institution, as defined in the regulations, commits a violation and is liable to an administrative monetary penalty in an amount prescribed by regulation if it accepts a foreign national to undertake a course or program of study at the institution knowing that, or being reckless as to whether, the foreign national, in applying for a study permit, has knowingly provided false or misleading information or has, in addition to applying for a study permit, made a claim for refugee protection that is subsequently determined to be ineligible or to have been withdrawn or abandoned.
(2) If a removal order is made against the foreign national, the designated learning institution is liable for the costs incurred in removing them from Canada and any related legal expenses.
(3) If a designated learning institution has repeatedly engaged in the conduct described in subsection (1), the Minister must make an order specifying that applications for study permits that indicate that the applicant has been accepted by or intends to study at the designated learning institution are not to be accepted for processing if they are received during the period that the order is in force.
(4) The Minister may, by order, place the designated learning institution on the suspension list established and maintained under the regulations for the prescribed period.
Colleagues, at the immigration committee we heard a lot about educational institutions, particularly some colleges, that have profited from what I think is an abuse of a lot of extra foreign student permits. We're now at close to three million temporary residents in the country. There are, if you think about Conestoga College, other areas where their entire region was essentially put into a housing crisis. Hospitals started to charge non-residents for having babies out there. It was just a complete disaster, because there was no match between levels and the realities of life.
There's a specific problem that we could address here in this bill: There are a lot of people who have been admitted to Canada who were misled by the government to think that they could come to the country as a temporary resident and as a student, and then stay. Their student visas are expiring, and they will have to leave or be removed from the country, so we are starting to see some abuse of the asylum system by people who came on student visas and are now making asylum claims and should be deported, or their visas are expiring and they won't have a legal reason to be in the country, and they'll need to be removed.
I believe that educational institutions should share or have some responsibility for the problems that they had a hand in causing. I think this would be good for the government because it would force educational institutions to think about the requests they're making or their participation in the foreign student program, and perhaps they wouldn't be lobbying all of us for more permits.
We need to stop the process of international students because there's a problem of abuse of international students too. If international students are brought into an area where there isn't adequate housing, health care or jobs for them, then that's not fair to them either. It leads to an abuse of the system. This amendment would transform, in a very positive way, the responsibility on educational institutions to think about how they're issuing permits and not just to juice it for profit. If institutions knowingly participate in fraud or are knowingly juicing these numbers, let them face consequences.
The other way that this has been structured—and I want to thank my team for helping with the structuring of this—is that there are regulatory powers that would be given to the minister to determine this. It's not overly prescriptive, but there need to start being some consequences for educational institutions that have helped perpetrate fraud of the asylum system. Yes, the government issued too many permits, of course, but there was another partner in crime there.
Let's not let this situation happen again. I hope colleagues will pass this amendment.