Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 28th, 2024

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Chair, the minister is hiding. He is not wanting to release the same documents that the media has access to. He won't release them to all the members of this committee.

Bloomberg, another media outlet, is now reporting that they've compared the international student program to “student trafficking”. The very first line of this article says, “Canada's radical immigration experiment”, and it quotes you, Minister, as saying, “People are being exploited”.

Is this, then, your fault?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I believe there is blame to share across jurisdictions. We—

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I'm sorry. Minister, are you accepting blame for the situation? Are you saying that you and your department have made decisions that have exploited international students?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

That isn't what I answered, and you know exactly what I answered, Tom.

I have said, time and time again, that there is plenty of blame to go around. The primary responsibility for the quality of the education system is with provinces. We trusted provinces; they did not live up to that trust, and now we are clamping down. I think that is the right thing to do.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Minister, then do you believe that Bloomberg is accurately reporting on the state of the international student program in Canada, that it is indeed student trafficking and that, again, quoting from the article, “Canada's radical immigration experiment” is an accurate reflection of your government's policies after eight years?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Minister, the time is up. Please—

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

There are clearly challenges with the integrity of the system, MP Kmiec, but that is not the entire portrait of it. We do attract some of the best and brightest students and we compete with competitive jurisdictions to bring them in. It is still a program we can be quite proud of, but it does have abuses and at times has been a backdoor entry into Canada. That's why we are taking these measures, which I believe are reasonable, and putting them into place.

I look forward to working with provinces and with the institutions themselves on these issues so that we can live up to a visa program that was intended to attract excellence in the first place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Minister.

We will go to Madam Kayabaga for six minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Minister, welcome back to our committee. It's always great to see that you're eager and willing to keep coming back to answer our very important questions.

I want to start with a quick question on what happened yesterday. The Province of Ontario claimed that it was blindsided by the cap that you announced in January.

My question is this: Did you get an opportunity to consult before putting forward these measures? Were smaller institutions that are in our communities, such as Fanshawe College, also consulted before these announcements were made?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

That's an excellent question.

Generally, MP Kayabaga, we have had, both privately and publicly, plenty of opportunity to talk to provinces, including the Province of Ontario, which has seen the largest influx of international students in the past years. We've worked with institutions directly on the recognized institution model prior to my arrival in this position.

My colleague Sean Fraser has said time and time again, in talking to provinces even before I was in this position, that they needed to get their houses in order or we would act.

There is a lot of speculation about who decided the what, when and how about the cap. Mr. Fraser, the former minister in this position and now the current Minister of Housing, was one of the guys who helped me and convinced me to do it. He felt—and I think legitimately—that it was important to do the federal responsibility at this, which is at intake, by continuing to have a more robust mechanism in and around the control of fraud, having the verification letters so that people aren't brought here under false hope, and increasing the financial solvency requirement. This is key, because it's not cheap to live in Canada, so we brought those numbers from $10,000 to $20,000, up to international standards, numbers that are comparable to those of our competitors. Then there was this cap, which is the result, frankly, of intransigence from Ontario in particular but provinces in general to get their own ships in order.

Auditor General report upon Auditor General report has said clearly that there were some measures that provinces had to take. They haven't taken them, but there was ample time to have discussions.

In looking at the hockey stick curve that we saw in terms of the growth and the potential growth of international students on a three-year visa profile from what is about one million today to 1.4 million next year, and even more, we saw that we were in the midst of creating a homegrown asylum crisis in Canada through the carelessness in designating a lot of learning institutions that had been improperly regulated.

We had a lot of those discussions, and there have been plenty of opportunities for partners to get engaged and object or do anything along the spectrum.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you for that answer, Minister.

We stated the obvious, which is that education falls under the jurisdiction of the province. However, smaller colleges in Ontario—like Fanshawe College, for example—have expressed that this is going to impact them financially, not just because of the cap on international students but because the provinces will not increase funding to support colleges and universities as they are supposed to.

What would you say for a college like Fanshawe College, a college that needs answers?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

The answers need to come from the entity that regulates them, which is the province. That may seem like something that is not nice coming from a federal minister, but I don't regulate Fanshawe College.

I do understand and appreciate that colleges, universities and post-secondary institutions generally have been underfunded throughout the years by provinces. Ontario is one that stands out. They have been smart and have adapted and have gone to lucrative ways of increasing their balance sheets and increasing their coffers, but it should not be in an unbridled way. It can't be the case that the post-secondary education system in Canada is bolstered almost entirely by international students, sometimes in higher proportions than by the provinces themselves. That is not a sign of health.

We talk about asylum seekers; over 10,000 asylum seekers came out of the Ontario education system in the last three years. That is a huge warning signal that is important for those colleges. As they do their recruitments, they have to refine their way of welcoming the students when they get here. They also have to make sure that those students have the ability to live and thrive in Canada if they choose to stay here.

We're willing to work with Fanshawe College if it is willing to work with us in terms of falling into the recognized institution model, which will reward institutions that have good practices and good student experiences so that we are not doing what has been done up to now, which is exploiting international students.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

In your opening remarks, you talked about how the continued unbridled growth has led to unprecedented numbers of international students in Canada and that this really jeopardizes other pathways to temporary residence, permanent residence and citizenship. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I think I know where you're going with the question.

There are many pathways to becoming a permanent resident, and, by extension, a Canadian citizen. Whether we do domestic draws from people who are already here or bring in talent from abroad is a function of the different programs we have under IRCC or what we have delegated to the provinces to administer.

Given the number of people and the sheer volume, it is clear that not all students who want to stay here would be able to avail themselves of permanent residency. That is not right. It is a young, bright cohort. If we don't control the volumes at intake and have the proper accompaniments for those younger cohorts of the population, they are quite vulnerable. I think that's something that we need to focus on as we infuse the system with a little more robustness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Minister. Thank you, Madam Kayabaga.

We'll go to my dear friend Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe for six minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Minister. Thank you for being here.

When you announced the cap on the number of international students, one measure slipped under the radar. I think it needs to be looked at with keen interest.

At that press conference, you announced that only the spouses of international students enrolled in graduate, master's or PhD programs will be entitled to an open work permit. Spouses of medical and law students will also have the right to work in Canada.

You went on to say, “We want to retain the bright individuals.”

Mr. Minister, are you saying that a U.S. citizen studying law at McGill is smarter than a Cameroonian studying at the Cégep de Saint-Félicien to become a nurse in Quebec?

Is that what you're saying in that quote?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Having graduated from McGill law school, like the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St‑Pierre Plamondon, I can tell you with great assurance that the answer is no.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

In that case, if your answer is no, you have just contradicted yourself and I don't understand what you said at the press conference.

Could you explain it to me?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

No. I'm not necessarily contradicting myself.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Yes, you are.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Give me a chance to explain.

Most often, the people who enrol for a bachelor's degree are younger and unmarried.

People who do master's degrees in law and can go directly into medicine or law are usually older. They are around 24 or 25 years old, and that's not necessarily the case in Quebec. At that point, they may have formed a couple, found a husband or wife. If these individuals want to come to Quebec as international students, we understand that they're entitled to be accompanied by their spouse. That's very understandable.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Well—

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I just want to finish my answer.

We have work to do with the Government of Quebec. I mentioned that to Ms. Fréchette just yesterday.

Obviously, this measure is a little blunt for the group studying for a bachelor's degree, but choices had to be made. Compared to what we generally saw, the volume of students enrolled in programs for bachelor's degrees or other similar degrees was unsustainable. We're in the process of getting that volume under control.

I'm not saying it's perfect. If the provinces can justify any exceptions, I'm prepared to look at them.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

It's just that time is of the essence in terms of enrolment for the fall session.

Take the Cégep de Saint-Félicien, for example. Of the 11 international nursing students enrolled this year, nine came with their spouses and half came with their children. These future nurses are not 19 or 20 years old.

By the way, that doesn't explain your statement, which makes no sense, that people in law or medicine are brighter than other students. I look forward to you coming back to that statement, because, quite honestly, I think it shows contempt and a lack of respect for all the students who have chosen other fields—

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I didn't say “brighter”. I said they were bright individuals. I'll have to check that.