Background:

In November of 2024, the Federal Minister for Immigration and Refugees (IRCC), Marc Miller, announced sweeping changes to the post-secondary international student program.  The changes were meant to reduce the total number of international students in the country by making it more difficult for international students to get work permits and visas.  Despite protestations from institutions and their unions across the country, the federal government went ahead with these changes.  As a result, all post-secondary institutions, particularly colleges and teaching universities, are facing program closures and huge job losses since the number of international student registrations has plummeted.

The government claimed that these changes were brought about to address the housing crisis and to address abuses in the international student sector.  While there may be some merit in these reasons, the decisions ignore a key historical fact: both levels of government, provincial and federal, created this situation through their own policies. It was the provincial government, about two decades ago, that encouraged institutions to go after international students as a way to fund themselves.  International students were seen as a viable revenue stream.  And because government funding for post-secondary education has not increased in twenty years (when inflation and population size are considered), institutions did pursue international students and came to rely on the tuition they brought.  Then about a decade ago, the federal government opened up immigration more and welcomed more international students.  So, both provincial and federal government policies led us to the situation that prompted the Trudeau liberals to respond.  While it is true that there are considerable issues with the approach of relying on international students to fund the post-secondary system, one cannot simply remove a source of revenue without giving institutions time to adjust.  These IRCC changes are going to bankrupt the system, ruin Canada’s reputation as a destination for international students, and lead to massive job losses and program cuts.

We are calling on the newly elected federal government to: 

• Diagnose and fix the issues around timeliness of approving study permits
• Diagnose and fix issues around the high refusal rate for study permits
• Work with provinces and institutions to expand and make locally relevant the programs that are eligible for PGWP’s
• Change the messaging from IRCC to be more welcoming and positive towards international students
• Create a forum for a national conversation about the future direction of post-secondary in Canada with input from CICAN as well as representatives from faculty unions and administrators from post-secondary institutions across the country

Faculty and students from Vancouver Community College and other lower mainland institutions gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery to call upon the new federal government to revisit its approach to International Students when they take on their new mandate. 

News Links:
City News Article

VCCFA Vice President Taryn Thomson‘s speech