African students on scholarship | “Totally unjustified refusals”

(Ottawa) The federal Immigration Department has refused study permits to 14 African students who received a Quebec government scholarship. These students, carefully selected to pursue technical training in CEGEPs in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, appear to be suffering the consequences of the increase in financial resources required to study in Canada, even though their scholarship covers all of their living and tuition expenses.

“With the $14,000 scholarship and the duly proven support of their loved ones, these refusals seem totally unjustified to us,” wrote the four general directors of Collège d’Alma, Cégep de Chicoutimi, Cégep de Jonquière and Cégep de Saint-Félicien in a letter addressed to the federal Minister of Immigration, Marc Miller, whose The Press got copy.

A meeting with staff at the minister’s office is scheduled for Tuesday morning. “We are asking him for a fast-track,” summarizes the director general of the Cégep de Jonquière and former PQ member of the National Assembly, Sylvain Gaudreault, in an interview. Students have until September 9 to have a late return. Classes started on August 19.

Sylvain Gaudreault has difficulty explaining the decision of the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada (IRCC), especially since the scholarship aims to encourage high-performing international students to study in French in CEGEPs outside the greater Montreal area and in fields where there is a pressing need for workers.

“We have programs that are aligned with the reality of the region – an industrial reality, among others – which needs graduates in mechanical engineering, analytical chemistry, laboratory technology, building mechanics, industrial engineering, environment, hygiene, occupational health,” he lists. “I’m just naming the programs that we have at Cégep de Jonquière, but we could add civil engineering in Chicoutimi, forestry technology in Saint-Félicien and so on.”

Financial capacity

This situation is incomprehensible to the four general directors who have welcomed international scholarship students in the past.

Of the 17 international students receiving the Quebec scholarship who were due to begin their college studies in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, only three obtained their study permit.

The other fourteen were refused “due to lack of proof of financial capacity” in almost all cases. Eleven have applied for review and are still waiting in their country while courses in Quebec have already started.

This is what happened to Félicité Kossi, a 20-year-old student from Togo, who was looking forward to starting her studies in electrical engineering at Cégep de Jonquière because it is “well equipped with laboratories,” unlike institutions in her country. She attached to her study permit application the letter confirming access to the $14,000 excellence scholarship for the three years of her program, in addition to the exemption of her $9,000 per session tuition fees.

“However, they put in the refusal letter that I did not have enough means to pay my tuition fees, which I did not understand at all,” she confided in an interview. She also submitted financial proof of an additional $9,000 raised by her mother. In other cases, the Cégep de Jonquière guaranteed the return ticket costs required by IRCC.

“Is it a lack of awareness on the part of the federal government of the existence of this scholarship, of its authenticity?” asks in an interview the head of the international office at Cégep de Jonquière, Annie-Claude Laflamme, who accompanied the students in their efforts.

IRCC reminds us that the amount of financial resources required to come and study in Canada increased from $10,000 to $20,635 in January to reflect the increase in the cost of living. An international student must demonstrate in their application that they have this amount in their pocket, in addition to an amount equivalent to their first year of tuition fees and enough money to pay for a return ticket to their country. This amount is higher than the $15,078 living expenses required in Quebec, which are in addition to tuition fees, the cost of a return trip to their country of origin and $500 in settlement costs.

Lack of flexibility at the federal level

The fact remains that federal officials do not appear to have taken into account the $14,000 from the Quebec government’s scholarship and the exemption from tuition fees in their analysis to assess whether the African students expected in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean reached the amount required by the federal government.

For Bloc Québécois MP Mario Simard, this is further proof of the Ministry’s lack of flexibility. “What is shocking is the wall-to-wall approach,” denounced the elected representative for the Jonquière riding. “I understand that in Toronto and Montreal, there is a problem with students who do not show up at their educational institution and then apply for asylum. This gap needs to be closed. But in the regions, we do not experience this reality, while we pay for the shortcomings on the part of certain institutions.”

In his response to the four directors general, Minister Miller takes “good note” of their disappointment. “The officer who assesses the application must be satisfied that the applicant does not plan to remain in Canada after an authorized stay,” he writes. Each application is assessed “objectively and uniformly” by his department’s officers whose decisions “are neither discriminatory nor arbitrary,” but are made on a case-by-case basis.