Madam Speaker, tens of thousands of international students flock to British Columbia every year, bringing in over half a billion dollars of direct revenues for our communities and our small businesses. Canada-wide, this industry is worth $8 billion. However, the government is eliminating visa services in some of the most important countries that are the source of these students. Now those students will likely go to other countries to learn English.
Why would the government attack the international education industry, one of the engines of our economy, at the very time that this economy is sputtering?