The term “bad actors” has been used by government officials since mid-2023 to summarize problematic conduct in Canada’s international education industry. A year later, it remains publicly unclear exactly who these bad actors are. Sorting that out is crucial to restoring reputation and sustainability to Canada’s international education industry.
The task of identification, for at least the next two years, will be the responsibility of respective provincial Ministers of Post Secondary Education. Due to the Canadian constitution, the federal government can limit the volume of international student entry, but provinces remain responsible for prioritizing designated learning institutions (DLIs) within their jurisdiction.
The federal government has allocated a share of cap space to each province roughly according to population size. Provincial Ministers delegate their share to the institutions within their province by unknown standards. This week, the province of British Columbia (B.C.) became the third province (after Quebec and Alberta) to announce readiness to proceed (as of March 04).
Unlike Quebec and Alberta, British Columbia (Canada’s second most popular destination for international student arrivals) recent growth spurt was set to meet reductions. B.C. was the first province that might provide some indication of how “bad actors” may be impacted. Spoiler alert, that did not happen.
The feds provided 83,000 undergraduate study permit applications to B.C. compared to 97,000 the year previous (2023), which after visa refusal deductions, is expected to result in 50,000 new arrivals, down from 60,000) (2023) roughly a 17% decrease. That is, if better care is not taken on screening applicants and applications headed to visa offices, which has been a sore point for the federal government and a weak point of many education agents submitting them.
Much like Quebec and Alberta before it, British Columbia didn’t make the numbers of letters of attestation designated to specific schools public. Nor do we know what factors were taken into consideration when allotting them. We do know that pre-cap 55% of international students had been attending private institutions in BC and that the Minister’s allocation announcement only modestly favoured public post-secondary institutions (53%) over private institutions (47%). And with large international student intakes in cap exempt Master’s programs at BC’s private institutions, there has been nothing along the lines of a major realignment. Some private schools have themselves expressed surprise about faring so well.
“Everybody in the industry knows who the bad actors are.”
–Sault College President David Orazietti.
In Search of Bad Actors
To find a bad actor, you need to know what one looks like.
In IRCC’s Jan 22, 2024 press release which blamed “bad actors” for irresponsibly increasing the volume of international students coming, compared to the level of support and impact on Canadian housing and government services. Volume vs. support available.
On January 22, 2024 Canada’s federal department of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced a cap on international student permit applications expected to result in approximately a 35% decrease from 2023. In larger urban centres, public concern over access to affordable housing and public services has threatened political consequences.
The feds then codified the details. The “cap” meant that IRCC would only consider 606,250 overseas applications. Considering IRCC tends to refuse between 45 and 50% of submitted applications. IRCC has said it expects to grant about 360,000 first time study permits in 2024.
Plenty of exemptions to the limit apply, namely study permit extensions (in-Canada), graduate studies at the MA and PHD level, K-12. With applicable exemptions, the “cap” reduction is expected to be much less significant than advertised. All told, probably Canada still gets more international students than they can adequately handle. Something the federal government itself seems to be rethinking.
To manage application and student intake volume the feds are requiring provinces to issue “provincial attestation letters” (PAL) to support a Letter of Acceptance (LOA) as a main eligibility requirement for overseas study permit applications. It would seem to satisfy IRCC expectations, good actors should get a lot of these, bad actors few – if any.
The problem? The highest functioning business models, credible or not, are driving the established volume provinces seem to want to hold onto, but which the federal government has mustered the courage to identify as the problem.
“The federal government has been handing out visas like there is no tomorrow. They haven’t been paying attention.”
-(former) Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills British Columbia
It Wasn’t Me
Otherwise known as the Shaggy defence, (deny everything regardless of incriminating circumstances), in the lead up to allocations from provincial ministries, there has been plenty of lobbying and positioning.
There have been a few examples of specific names being dropped. However, industry lobby efforts have mainly focused on dissociation from bad actors. There were Press releases, hurried reports and Op-Eds , all with varying degrees of credibility.
No bad actors here; try over there.
The CEO of Global University Systems a for-profit private global corporation (headquartered in the Netherlands) appeared on CBC’s Power and Politics to stress private for -profit ownership was not synonymous with the tag bad actors. According to IRCC data, University of Canada West’s overall Study Permit application volume had moved from 1,746 in 2018 to over 18,000 by 2022 (a 945% increase). The upside is the school claims to have a 94% employment rate amongst graduate survey respondents, although they will not publicly produce the details of how many graduates responded or whether or not employment was related to field of studies. The University however, is ready to open another major campus in a new downtown Vancouver office tower. Recent media reports have highlighted students FLYING from out of province (Calgary, Alberta) to attend classes in Vancouver, as a feasible alternative to paying notoriously high rents in downtown Vancouver.
- University of Canada West ranked 2nd overall in international student intake according to data released by CBC 13, 913 study permits issued in 2023.
Philip Landon from Universities Canada argued that public universities should be excluded from the conversation and that private career colleges were most suspect. One of Universities Canada members, Algoma University which managed a near 99% admissions success rate, something still being promoted by its aggregator recruitment partners, leading to astonishing growth in incoming numbers at Algoma’s branch campus in Brampton (Greater Toronto Area). According to media reports over 5,000 students (a 900% increase in the last three years alone) were attending the Brampton campus in 2023, the same year the school finally decided to provide students at that location with access to a physical library. Algoma had started offering classes in Brampton in 2010. Algoma University president and vice-chancellor Asima Vezina was recently presented with Brampton Board of Trade’s Business Person of the year award.
- Algoma University ranked 8th overall in international student intake according to data released by CBC 9,329 study permits issued in 2023.
The federal Minister of immigration had been limiting public criticism to private colleges and public private agreements, but then the Canadian Broadcast network (CBC) published government data showing Ontario public colleges were primarily responsible for the volume surge in recent years. Only the two schools mentioned above (University of Canada West, Algoma) that find themselves in the top ten volumes of study permits issued, were not Ontario public colleges.
Then provincial Minister (BC) Selina Robinson expressed concerns over private institutions, which account for more than half of her provinces international student intake. The Minister suggested the federal government might have been acting badly for paying no attention to how many students had been let in. Although it is hard to understand why schools, municipalities and provinces themselves would be not better positioned to evaluate the impact of mass volume influxes first.
Minister in charge Jill Dunlop in Ontario (Canada’s main destination for international students) simply claimed she had never been informed there was a problem in the first place. The Auditor General of Ontario published a scathing review of the state of international education in Ontario (Dec 2021) and a recent follow up report outlining how many recommendations made had not been acted on.
“While we’ve all agreed that the status quo wasn’t working for anyone – not for students, and not for our communities – the federal cap doesn’t take British Columbia’s unique environment into account.”
-Lisa Beare, (new) Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills
Will the real bad actors please stand up? Please stand up.
As has been said, there is a little Slim Shady in all of us. An industry and stakeholder dialogue (if not public hearings in Parliament), examining concerning practices and impacts that lead to federal action, is what is needed. But that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Two years later, in steps the federal government.
The federal government plans to implement a “Recognized Institution Framework” (RIF), which seeks to prioritize student placements at post secondary institutions likely to produce superior student experiences and outcomes, measurable by a matrix of data. Transitioning to that system is going to require a lot of communications and data, a challenge for some provinces and schools.
Until then, applications to Masters programs in Canada are expected to surge. These programs allow accompanying family members, guarantee a 3-year post graduate work permit (PGWP), have higher visa success rates and are marketed as providing better post grad employment prospects. In particular there are a number of private education institutions, some brand new to Canada stand to benefit greatly from this policy change.
Almost all of the growth has been tied to consumer interest in edu-immigration. But changes to Canada’s immigration system announced in unison with the cap, now disallow accompanying dependants for the programs offered in this sector (for example post grad certificates, certificates, undergraduate degrees and diplomas). This is sure to be seen by prospective consumers as a major roadblock to settlement. Applications for accompanying partner work permits have spiked in recent years as has the volume of dependent children accompanying parents, which has been thought to put further strains on housing and potential for overstay, there are currently somewhere around 1.5 million international students or international graduate non-permanent residents in Canada, next year, despite the cap there will likely be more, none of them are set to face much different circumstances. There has been talk about doing something about it.
