Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being with us today on this extremely important study. We want to move quickly with recommendations to initiate changes without delay, so that we can implement them before the fall 2022 academic year begins. Mr. Mulatris, I listened carefully to you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  What I'm seeing right now is we're wasting time that we should be spending with the witnesses, who have taken the time to appear before us today. I believe the majority of committee members have asked that the Minister's remarks be limited to five minutes. That's pretty clear. I would stop the discussion there.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I feel we should keep it at five minutes. If the Minister wants to elaborate further on various things, he can do it when we ask him questions. If we give him 10 minutes, that will take away from our own time to ask questions. So I'd prefer that we stick to five minutes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They often get scholarships from Quebec. I believe Quebec puts $15 million into scholarships. That's more than the rest of Canada combined.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'd like to thank all the witnesses very much. Have a great day.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Quickly, Mr. Basiri, do you deal with many francophone students and establishments?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  All right, thank you very much, Mr. Basiri. It's just that I don't have a lot of time. Ms. Amyot, I was looking at the numbers we got. Algeria, Senegal and Cameron are among the six countries of origin of international students in Quebec. Their rates were over 39% in 2020–21. In the other provinces of Canada, foreign students from India and China, who represent a large chunk of foreign student pool, had refusal rates of 30% and 15% respectively.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Exactly. In that case, is Quebec not being penalized because of its post-secondary education system, which is different from the rest of Canada? I understand that you represent institutions across the country, but I see that Quebec may be at a disadvantage because of the CEGEP system.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That is akin to what we're currently experiencing in Saint‑Félicien too. In fact, the situation is quite commonplace in the region.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much, Ms. Amyot. I hope I will have the opportunity to ask you more questions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Basiri, you appear to be a computer whiz. I heard you talk about the Chinook program earlier. Could a bias against francophone students from Africa predate Chinook, and could the program have helped crystallize this inequality?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  However, countries like Cameroon and Senegal have seen refusal rates as high as 88%. We may not have the same numbers, but if Iran's refusal rate is 48% and Senegal's is 88%, I find that's a big difference between the two.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm so grateful to the witnesses who are with us today for this important study that is very near and dear to all of our hearts. I really enjoyed your opening remarks, particularly Mr. Basiri, who told us about the dual intent criterion. Ms. Amyot, you went a little further, even suggesting a program that would tie study permits in with the labour market once the student graduates.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You represent a number of post-secondary institutions in Quebec and Canada. I don't know if you've had the opportunity to hear what was said last week at a meeting of this committee, when a witness representing students outside Quebec explained to us that francophone international students were told that their studies in French outside Quebec weren't valid.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank the witnesses for being with us. This is the last time I will get to speak to you. You have been very eloquent and you have also shared your expertise with us. I am coming back to you, Mr. Christian, because in the last set of questions I asked you, you said that you support creating an immigration ombudsperson position in Canada.