B.C. could benefit as Ottawa mulls easing residency rules for foreign students
PETER O'NEIL, VANCOUVER SUN 03.17.2016
Anastasia Dzhikiya at work at Opus Art Supplies in Vancouver. Dzhikiya is a former foreign student trying without success to get permanent residency status. She feels Canadian in her heart but may end up having to leave Canada in May because she did not qualify under the express entry program that the new federal Liberal government is considering changing.
ARLEN REDEKOP / VANCOUVER SUNOTTAWA — Anastasia Dzhikiya was born in Russia, spent much of her childhood and early teen years with her university professor parents in Turkey, and lived for a while in the U.S.
But the 25-year-old graphic designer never felt emotionally connected to any country until she moved to Vancouver as a foreign student in 2008.
Now she is living in fear of being booted from the country she calls home in less than two months, even though she speaks unaccented English, and has a full-time job and a degree from the Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
She is among the thousands of former foreign students who have been blocked from obtaining permanent residency status because of the previous Conservative government’s express entry immigration system, which went into effect in January 2015.
Her hopes are now on the Liberal government’s election campaign pledge to make express entry more friendly to foreign students.
Immigration Minister John McCallum promised to move quickly on that issue after a meeting with provincial and territorial counterparts in Toronto earlier this week.
“We must do more to attract students to this country as permanent residents,” McCallum told reporters. “International students have been shortchanged by the express entry system. They are the cream of the crop, in terms of potential future Canadians.”
His declaration was greeted warmly in B.C.
“If we want immigrants, this is the best population,” said Randall Martin, executive director of the B.C. Council for International Education, a provincial Crown corporation. “We train them, they speak English or French, they are healthy, they are unencumbered by large families, and they’re young and enthusiastic and ready to jump into the labour market. … These are perfect immigrants.”
B.C. stands to gain the most from a more aggressive push to hold onto foreign students because, on a per capita basis, it is already the most powerful magnet in Canada for young foreigners looking to advance their education. B.C., with 13 per cent of the Canadian population, had 96,516 foreign students, or 29 per cent of the national total in 2014.
Ontario had the most foreign students that year, 143,428. But that was 43 per cent of the national figure — which is in line with Ontario’s 38 per cent share of Canada’s population.
“We’re very excited about this,” Martin said. “It’s going to help us immensely in terms of attracting foreign students.”
Karen McKellin, executive director of the University of B.C.’s international student program, said UBC hasn’t noticed a particular drop-off in foreign student interest since the express entry program, with its limitations for foreign students, started. UBC is still in the top three in North America in terms of the number of foreign students, behind only the University of Toronto and New York University, she said.
But if McCallum follows through on the promised changes, including speeding up processing time, it will give another boost to Canadian and especially B.C. post-secondary institutions in a frenzied competition for foreign students with the U.S., Great Britain and especially Australia, McKellin said.
Students consider a variety of factors when deciding where to study, she said, and the option to live in that country after graduation is a major consideration.
“It does take a very long time, and students who have already invested in Canada, and who have completed a four-year degree, would like to be able to move a little bit faster to” permanent residency.
Making it easier for them to do so makes Canada relatively more attractive than the competition, she said.
But McCallum’s promise might be too late for Dzhikiya, whose work permit expires in mid-May.
She has applied to become a permanent resident, and ultimately a citizen, but fell just a few qualifying points short of qualifying under express entry.
One of the problems is that express entry, which gives preference to skilled or experienced applicants with Canadian job offers, values a degree obtained in Canada the same as a Canadian-accepted degree earned in a foreign country, according to Vancouver immigration lawyer Marina Sedai.
A second problem is that express entry gives bonus points to applicants whose Canadian employers have obtained a federal Labour Market Impact Assessment document, which means they have tried and failed to fill their job with a Canadian.
But getting such assessments cost $1,000 for each application, take months to process, require employers to advertise the job extensively, and expose the employer to sanctions for relatively minor breaches, according to Sedai.
These are onerous hurdles for small business owners, she said.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce issued a report in January that was critical of the assessment requirement, and McCallum said he would consider whether that kind of certification is necessary.
If Dzhikiya’s forced to return to Russia or Turkey, or perhaps to the U.S. where her Vancouver-based partner is from, she would have to reapply as an overseas applicant.
And that would present an added challenge since the government has reduced the number of “economic class” immigrants it plans to bring in this year, as it puts greater emphasis on refugees and “family class” applicants — that is, relatives of people here who already have permanent resident status.
“I’m a little frightened about this right now,” she said Thursday.
Dzhikiya said she feels like a Canadian, and took a deep interest in last autumn’s federal election even though she couldn’t vote. Part of the attraction is Vancouver’s cosmopolitan character.
“There are so many people who come from a lot of places, and it’s so open. It’s just a great place, to be unified together as one people. That is one of the things that truly stands out to me.”
She remembers the lump in her throat at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in 2014. She was returning from a whirlwind trip that took her to Russia, Turkey, France and Switzerland before finally landing at the Montreal airport before her final leg to Vancouver.
The Canada Border Services Agency agent checked the Canadian work permit in her Russian passport, asked her a few questions, and then said, “Welcome home.”
“I almost burst into tears,” she recalled Thursday. “To be welcomed home was so wonderful for me. I remember running to grab a coffee, smiling widely and reflecting on how it was indeed really great to be home.”
Twitter: poneilinottawa
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