Finance committee  Good afternoon. I thank you for taking the time to hear from me today. I am Scott McAlpine, and I am pleased to be here on behalf of the Canadian Bureau for International Education, or CBIE, of which I am a board member. I'm also the president of Douglas College, which is a lon

Finance committee  Thank you. The Governor General is also CBIE's patron and just last week helped us launch our blog, “Without Borders”. At present, only 3% of Canadian university students and 1.1% of college students participate in exchange programs. Compare this to Germany, where 33% do. Just t

Finance committee  Absolutely. To the Australian question first, Australia is investing quite heavily in the branding of Australia as an education destination of choice. The advisory panel on international education in Canada advised that if we did a similar thing, we could double the number of in

Finance committee  No, not necessarily. Certainly Australia has the proximity to high population areas that Canada doesn't. That being said, Australia is also investing very substantially in international education and they have far fewer universities than Canada does. They have targeted internatio

Finance committee  Absolutely. As a Commonwealth country, Canada could become more and more of a stepping stone for individuals wishing to immigrate into the developed countries, into the west.

Finance committee  Correct.

Finance committee  Absolutely. In fact what CBIE as well as the task force are recommending is a national branding strategy. Imagine Canada is the education brand we have, so an expansion of that. We're working very closely with CMEC, the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, as well as with D

Finance committee  Thirty-three per cent of German students are in exchange programs abroad.

Finance committee  Absolutely.

Finance committee  Precisely. We have fairly good, robust data that shows that about 50% of the international students wish to stay in Canada. This speaks to some policy around the Canadian experience class. We need to develop ways to meet our targets in the CEC class of immigration.