Citizenship and Immigration committee  To build from your last question, France is obviously a very key competitor country with regard to the francophone market—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was just building on the previous question, before Mr. Godin, that France is absolutely a competitive nation for us in terms of attracting francophone students. It has a very powerful brand and historic roots. It is very aggressive in attracting francophone students to France.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the IT team of the House of Commons for getting me online so well. It's great to be with you today. On behalf of Universities Canada and our members, thank you for the invitation to speak with you. Thanks also to every member of this committee for the extraordinary work that all parliamentarians are continuing to do in these very challenging times.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not sure I heard the question fully. Could I ask you to repeat it?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure. I'm happy to answer the question. I really welcome the opportunity to discuss the changing geopolitical nature of these matters. The work that's being done on campus is to make sure that all students feel safe and secure in a whole range of areas. Campuses have been working with their international students, with consular officials from a variety of countries and with student support folk on the staff of campuses to identify what is actually happening, what's being alleged to happen, and what are the best paths forward on that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madame Normandin. I will say a few words, and then I'll ask Wendy to follow up. First of all, in terms of the online experience, Canada's universities moved 1.4 million learners online in 10 days. It was a remarkable achievement and students were able to complete their course work in the winter, and then in the spring and summer terms we've been investing heavily to improve the online experience for students.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Welcome to the committee. These are terrific questions. Because over the years we have worked together on a number of issues and all parties have worked on building and strengthening the relationship with China and increasing the flow of students from China, I think we're all committed to trying to find solutions that reflect the current reality.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We do a whole number of things, and there may be other venues and opportunities that describe them in greater detail. I want to assure the members of the committee that universities and other actors take the challenges of political dynamics very seriously. We're in regular dialogue with government officials across multiple departments and agencies to make sure we have the most reliable and up-to-date information in order to better manage the outcome in the interests of Canada and in the interests of the students.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'd be happy to start, and Wendy may be able to have the most up-to-date enrolment numbers from China. International student enrolment has grown both for colleges and universities over the last decade. China has been a significant source, and so has India. China is the largest source for universities.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you for the invitation, for conducting the study and for the extraordinary work that all parliamentarians are doing during this challenging time. I'd especially like to welcome the newer members to this committee. Of course, immigration is one of Canada's great competitive strengths, and the work of this committee is important in ensuring that this asset remains.

Human Resources committee  Thank you for the question. This is a really important piece of work that needs to be tackled, and I think increased investment would be very important now. In the $9 billion, it's mostly the CESB that is really welcome investment in work-integrated learning and also volunteer service, but the cost of digital transformation for moving courses wholly online is real.

Human Resources committee  Mr. Chairman—

Human Resources committee  I'll yield to Ms. Oliver.

Human Resources committee  I think as you'll see, in the way the government responded in the first weeks of the pandemic, they were taking real care to make sure that people who were most affected as individuals were addressed first. The investments that have been made to support research really do support the early career researchers, the graduate students and the post-doctoral fellows to try to keep their salaries whole during the disruption that's happening on campuses.