International Trade committee  Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I'll answer the member in this way. I want to say, first of all, that each student's circumstances are quite unique, and within each country there are different kinds of issues that students face, even some going down to access to high-speed Inter

International Trade committee  I think it's very important when we look at how this has been working in a country such as Australia. It's true that it is the international trade promotion and investment attraction agency, but the goal of the agency is to align Australia's import and export, investment, tourism

International Trade committee  I want to say that we are already playing that role and, to some extent, we're playing that role because the students want additional information about what the emerging career paths are. They are very market savvy in terms of wanting to ensure not only that they get an education

International Trade committee  What I want to say is that in some countries—and I gave Australia as the example—there is one agency that actually coordinates the national approach to education. Right now in Canada, we have three different federal ministries that in one way or another deal with higher education

International Trade committee  That's okay. I was interested in hearing what answer you may have. I think it's incredibly important to always remember what a significant source for immigration our international students are. Our three-year work permit after graduation has been very popular. It's been an incre

International Trade committee  I want to say that it's been incredibly important that we transitioned all of our programming predominantly to online so that we have been able to actually ensure that our students are able to continue in their programs. The decision by students to attend university was hugely a

International Trade committee  It's great to see you as well. Madam Chair, distinguished members, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to speak with you about the university sector in the context of international trade. I could speak with you about what universities are doing in terms of research,

Finance committee  I'm really glad to be asked that question, because it is quite shocking that we have only such a small percentage of our students taking advantage of an international opportunity. What we consistently find from all of our surveys of employers is that they place a priority on thei

Finance committee  Do you mean our investments into fundamental research?

Finance committee  All the universities at this time are of the view that the investment in research needs to encompass and incorporate both fundamental and applied research. You wouldn't get any argument. I could point out that a huge number of incredibly important inventions in this country have

Finance committee  I did mention in my remarks that although Canada brags, and rightly so, about having such a high proportion of our population who has some higher education, it is significant that we only rank seventh in terms of the percentage of our adult population who actually have a universi

Finance committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm Rhonda Lenton, the president and vice-chancellor of York University. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the university We are Canada's third-largest university, with one of the largest graduate