Career colleges worry about reforms of student visa

OTTAWA — A lack of clarity from the federal government on whether career colleges will still be allowed to accept international students starting in 2014 is prompting seven of them to pull out of an important spring trade show in China.

Serge Buy, CEO of the National Association of Career Colleges, said he can’t, in good conscience, send a delegation of career colleges to the March event if the schools aren’t going to be able to accept Chinese students for much longer.

“We were approved by the Canadian government to go. We were approved by the Chinese government to go and we were going and now, poof, gone,” Buy said on Wednesday.

Buy’s concerns stem from a proposed regulation posted by the federal government in the Canada Gazette just before the new year aimed at toughening the rules surrounding student visas. It’s part of a government crackdown on fraud and human smuggling that’s expected to take effect in January 2014.

According to the regulations, student visas will only be issued to foreign students studying at designated institutions on the condition they’re actually enrolled and going to class. The new rules will allow Canada to remove those who don’t comply and will also “streamline” access to work permits. Those enrolled in programs less than six months long will also no longer be eligible for student visas.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) is asking the provinces and territories to submit a list of approved institutions, and schools not on the list will be barred from accepting international students.

If provinces don’t step up, however, the federal government will designate institutions.

That worries Buy, who believes the provinces are unlikely to create extra work for themselves. Ontario alone, he said, accounts for 40 per cent of the career college sector and that province is at a standstill given the ongoing leadership race to replace Premier Dalton McGuinty. He fears the province won’t get the list together in time.

As for the federal plan, Buy said there’s no mention of career colleges anywhere.

Buy said about 3,000 international students are enrolled at Canadian career colleges and that efforts are underway to boost those numbers. For example, a delegation from Libya was here this week to discuss sending more people to Canada for training.

He said the uncertainty is bad for business and for the country’s bottom line since international career college students contribute an estimated $350 million to the economy.

As for the provinces, some raised concerns in July about the cost of monitoring and reporting compliance and stressed visa fraud is ultimately federal jurisdiction.

Wednesday, officials in Ontario said the province “may” contribute to the “pan-Canadian” list and that “all private career colleges in Ontario will be eligible to apply for inclusion.” Spokesman Gyula Kovacs added a province-wide consultation with affected post-secondary institutions is taking place Jan. 24 and private career colleges are invited.

Canada issued more than 98,000 student visas last year, a 34 per cent increase over 2007. A recent study also found international students contribute nearly $7 billion annually to the Canadian economy, create more than 81,000 jobs and generate more than $445 million in government revenue.