Students and pedestrians are photographed walking along Gould St. on the Toronto Metropolitan University campus on Jan. 22.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Daniel Bernhard is CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.
Economic immigrants – people with advanced education and professional experience who can easily slot into high-need sectors of their new country’s work force – are celebrated as essential contributors to Canada’s prosperity, and rightly so. Why, then, are international students increasingly derided as second-rate immigrants of limited utility to Canada – people who are not actually here to learn, but rather to game the immigration system by posing as pupils, placing undue pressure on housing in the process?
Despite the fact that 29 of the top 30 issuers of international student permits are public universities and colleges, immigration Minister Marc Miller captured the prevalent stereotype by suggesting that international students attend useless schools: “The equivalent of puppy mills that are just churning out diplomas.” Though comments elsewhere demonstrate that Mr. Miller believes otherwise, this unfortunate slip perpetuates the increasingly prevalent perception that international students have little value to contribute to Canada after they graduate – that is, after they stop paying sky-high international student fees that keep our ailing public colleges and universities afloat.
Under the weight of this narrative, Mr. Miller reduced new study permits by 35 per cent and implemented other restrictions, such as disqualifying many students from post-study work permits, that will depress international student numbers even further.
Categorically slashing pathways to permanent residence for international students is a mistake. We overlook international students’ potential contributions at our peril. In fact, international students possess many inherent advantages over much-vaunted economic immigrants.
Canada’s points system privileges this category of immigrants, who can quickly slide into our work force and produce a quick economic lift. (The myriad non-economic benefits of immigration are often, regrettably, an afterthought). But in practice, this hope of smooth labour-market integration doesn’t always pan out. Immigrants often fail to get their credentials recognized, locking hundreds of thousands of foreign-trained nurses and doctors and engineers out of their professions despite an acute need for their skills.
Employers further hamper immigrants’ work force integration by routinely discriminating against them for lacking Canadian experience. This masterfully self-defeating practice cuts companies off from a powerful competitive edge: the new ideas and know-how that immigrants bring. By unduly privileging Canadian experience, employers deprive the country of the full benefits of immigrants’ contributions while also dissuading the next generation of skilled immigrants from bringing their talents here. After all, when immigrants selected for their professional excellence feel betrayed by Canada’s promise, they warn their home-country peers against falling for the same trick.
Valiant efforts to fix these problems have achieved regrettably little. Intentional barriers to credential recognition and the intractable expectations around Canadian experience are severely hindering our economic immigration policy.
International students, by contrast, largely sidestep these hurdles. They have no credentials to transfer, and by doing their training here, employers can gain confidence that they are just as capable as Canadian-born graduates of the same program. As entry-level workers, they are not expected to have work experience, Canadian or otherwise, and through their schools, they gain access to the same co-op placements and internships as Canadians.
That’s why countries such as Germany value international students so highly. Having proven their language proficiency, passed exams at trusted schools, and established some familiarity with the culture, Germany actively encourages them to stay.
Canada would be wise to follow that example. But we should take it a big step further, by rebuilding the visa-issuing process to reflect the reality that most international students are economic immigrants – just at an earlier stage of their development.
The current system gives schools a quota of international student visas to distribute, with no distinction between low-need courses such as marketing and high-need courses such as carpentry, nursing, mechanics, or early childhood education. We need a much more strategic approach, modelled after the economic immigration process, with a points system that prioritizes these more valuable areas of study.
International students present an invaluable opportunity for Canada. Though the effect is slower-acting, international students can alleviate critical labour shortages in the same way that experienced immigrants can. And by having their skills precertified at a trusted Canadian school, employers gain extra confidence that they’re up to the job.
Crucially, international students are far less susceptible than older immigrants to the implacable barriers of credential recognition and Canadian experience. That alone is reason enough to give the international student program a fresh look – and with a more ambitious vision.