As welcome signs were hung and orientation activities echoed across Canadian post-secondary campuses last week, thousands of international students were still back in their home countries, waiting to hear about the status of their study permits.
Mackenzy Metcalfe, executive director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, says the organization is hearing from several frustrated international students who are affected by backlogs at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
“These delays really impact how students experience campus,” Metcalfe said. “It means students won’t be able to attend campus until the middle of September, maybe even October, so they miss welcome week, getting to know campus, introductions to friends and those things that are really core to any student’s university experience.”
With international students already paying substantially higher tuition fees, advocates are pushing for the government to prioritize and process study permits faster. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says it is boosting staff and modernizing its systems to increase processing capacity and tackle the backlogs in the short term.
According to IRCC, as of Aug. 18, the number of study permit applications to be processed is 163,600. It says 64 per cent of those applications are currently within its service standard of 60 days. This leaves potentially thousands of students whose applications may not be ready in time for them to start the school year.
Anxiety high for international students
Metcalfe says this period of time in post-secondary education is especially meaningful for students coming from a different country, and any kind of delay can also result in additional financial strain.
“Even pushing back their start date by a couple of weeks can have thousands of dollars in implications in terms of rent and food and rearranging flights and accommodations to come study in Canada,” she said.
Some of these students worry they may lose a semester of school and say their anxiety over the situation is high.
Even pushing back their start date by a couple of weeks can have thousands of dollars in implications in terms of rent and food and rearranging flights and accommodations to come study in Canada. – Mackenzy Metcalfe, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations
Victoria, who is from Russia, said she applied for her study permit in January 2022 after being accepted to Ottawa’s Algonquin College for a design program.
“I postponed the start of classes twice — in May and September 2022,” she said. CBC News agreed to only use her first name as she worries speaking out will affect her application.
According to the IRCC, the average processing time for a study permit from outside Canada is 12 weeks, not including the time it takes to send an application between a visa application centre and its office. Victoria says she’s now going on eight months.
“I’m afraid I won’t have received an answer by the end of the year,” she said.
More communication from IRCC needed: lawyer
Lev Abramovich, an immigration and refugee lawyer at Abramovich & Tchern Immigration Lawyers, says international students he’s worked with have been angry and confused.
“Imagine you’ve completed all of the requirements, paid $50,000 for first year, you’re excited you’re going to University of Toronto … you’ve rented an apartment and the best years of your adult life are about to begin and instead you’re missing a year,” Abramovich said, referring to a situation one of his clients is facing.
Immigration lawyer Lev Abramovich believes Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada, which processes study permit applications, should have provided clearer communication to international students as it dealt with backlogs. (Submitted by Lev Abramovich )
Abramovich told CBC News the IRCC should have taken more responsibility in communicating with students so they could have made more informed decisions.
“If IRCC looked at the numbers, looked at how many resources they had, and said ‘Unfortunately, many of you won’t be processed,’ you could govern yourself accordingly. That has not happened,” he said.
IRCC says it’s working through backlog
In an emailed statement to CBC Toronto, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada spokesperson Julie Lafortune said that for the month of August, the department was able to process 84,000 study permits and 21,000 extension applications, which allow international students currently in Canada to continue their studies.
“To keep Canadians up to date on our progress toward reducing the backlogs, IRCC is publishing monthly data on our website,” Lafortune said.
According to the statement, IRCC also recently announced that the department will hire up to 1,250 new employees by the end of fall to increase processing capacity and tackle the backlogs in the short term.
“IRCC is moving toward a more integrated, modernized and centralized working environment in order to help speed up application processing globally,” she wrote.
Victoria says if she could apply for post secondary all over again, she would choose to study in a different country. So far, she says, she’s out $8,200 — the amount of her tuition deposit.
“If I knew about this, I never would have applied to Canada,” she said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
