Science and Research committee  Thank you very much. We have a large number of students who would be waiting months for their visas. Anything we can do to speed that up obviously will be helpful. I see the yellow card from the chair.

Science and Research committee  One idea we might look at is a situation where we subsidize tuition for domestic students with the proviso that they stay and work locally or at least in Canada and if they did that, they wouldn't have to pay back the student loan. Other countries are looking at that type of opp

Science and Research committee  Some of our students would come from primarily urban regions around the Golden Horseshoe, although some would come from rural communities. There are always issues in terms of access to education when you have to travel, but in the last two years we solved a lot of those by offeri

Science and Research committee  We work directly with about 2,000 employers in the Hamilton community. Some of them are very comprehensive and can give us lists of employees they need over the next couple of years based on retirement and growth. Some of them are not quite as sophisticated. We have a program c

Science and Research committee  We have limited opportunities to retain students once they graduate. We work with employers, obviously, to try to get local job offers in students' hands before graduation. On average right now, our students would get 2.3 job offers each before graduation. It's the highest it's e

Science and Research committee  Thank you very much. The IRCC was very helpful in allowing international students to start their Canadian studies abroad during the pandemic and to study there for a period of time before they made their way to Canada. That was very helpful, so we continued with international st

Science and Research committee  Thank you, MP Collins. It's so nice to see you. Thank you for all your support in Hamilton and Stoney Creek. It's very important, obviously, to keep Canada's brand as pristine as it is around the world when it comes to attracting talent. Most international students who I spea

Science and Research committee  The first recommendation is to continue to find ways to make it easy and efficient for international students to study in Canada, including timely access to study visas and post-graduate work permits, and consider providing targeted incentive programs for employers to hire intern

Science and Research committee  Thank you, Madam Chair, and to the committee for providing me with the opportunity to address you this evening. As mentioned, I have the privilege of serving as president and CEO of Mohawk College, based in Hamilton, Ontario. Mohawk is one of the top 10 research colleges in Canad