Dozens of French-speaking African students admitted to Canadian universities who have been waiting for their study permit for many months, some for more than a year, and who have been forced to postpone their session describe the wait subjected to “psychological torture”. Exasperated, they organized themselves to try to put pressure on the Canadian authorities.
The request from Pedro Cervera, originally from Equatorial Guinea, dates back as far as June 2021. Admitted to Laval University for a master’s degree in business administration – entrepreneurship and SME management, the student expected to have an answer for his study permit in two or three months. Without a response from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), he nevertheless paid his tuition fees and began his online courses in the fall 2021 semester, because the university offered this possibility.
“I thought that in the meantime, I would get my study permit,” he says. Without news, in the winter, he continued his online classes, upset that he had to pay full price without the possibility of attending in person. The duty spoke to him at the end of July, when he is soon to start his third semester, the fall one. It’s still in the dark, despite IRCC’s website showing an estimated 12-week processing time for study permit applications.
“I feel psychologically exhausted,” he says. If I had a refusal, at least I would have an answer and I could organize myself for the future. He owns two businesses in Equatorial Guinea, and in the face of uncertainty, he is considering dropping out of school.
Ulrick Toffodji, originally from Benin and admitted to the bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi, was due to start in the winter of 2022, but he is still without news of his application, filed on November 3. “We have already paid for a lot of things. What we are subjected to is abnormal, ”he says.
Same thing for Serge, originally from Togo and admitted to the University of Sherbrooke in communication, who was to start his program this summer. However, he is still without news of his request, filed in January. “We put our lives on hold, we can’t see clearly, we don’t know if we should look elsewhere and go to another university in another country. We are in total limbo. I don’t know if I should postpone my session again. »
They regrouped, along with dozens of other African students from the same region who had been waiting for a response for months, several of whom spoke with The duty. They denounce the slow processing and the lack of follow-up from the visa office in Accra, Ghana, where their applications are processed. The duty revealed last November that Ottawa was refusing more and more French-speaking students from Africa. In an effort to exert pressure, the students recently circulated a petition asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “to do something to remedy this situation”.
“We even sent people to the Accra office for explanations. But the only answer we got was an address E-mail “, emphasizes Pedro Cervera. Those who try to get explanations by email say they receive the same general response. “It’s psychological torture, we’ve been waiting for months and the start of the school year is approaching,” he says. They believe that French speakers are discriminated against in the Accra office and find that processing is faster in other offices.
Contacted by The dutyIRCC says it understands “the frustration of people hoping to start their studies in Canada and whose application is taking longer than expected”.
“The summer period is when IRCC processes the most study permit applications in order to ensure that people who must start a program in the fall obtain their permit on time,” it says.
Nearly 220,000 study permit applications were processed between January and May 2022. In comparison, approximately 201,000 applications were processed during the same period in 2021, and approximately 128,000 during the same period in 2019, before the pandemic.
Regarding the Accra office, IRCC replies that “study permit applications from all over the world are examined in a uniform way and according to the same criteria, regardless of the country of origin”. “The processing time for an application varies depending on a number of factors,” it adds.
A file followed “closely”
Invited to comment on this file, some universities responded to the To have to.
The University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) says it is “greatly concerned about the difficulties experienced by certain students who wish to obtain a study permit”, and specifies that this “is a file that the management of the ‘University is following very closely’. “The issue has been brought, in particular by the rector, Magda Fusaro, to the attention of various governmental and diplomatic authorities”, underlines in an email the spokesperson, Jenny Desrochers. “The rector also took advantage of UQAM’s virtual mission to French-speaking Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire), in June 2021, to discuss the situation with the embassies concerned”, adds -she.
The University of Montreal (UdeM) says for its part that it sees the consequences of the wait and the refusals on the establishment. “Our current statistics show […] that we have to deregister more students from Africa than from other countries like India, China or Brazil, for example. And this trend has accelerated in recent years, ”explains spokesperson Geneviève O’Meara by email.
“We are making a lot of recruitment efforts in French-speaking African countries to attract students to come and study at UdeM, and our efforts are working, because our statistics show an increase in applications for admission from these countries. Unfortunately, this does not materialize in registrations afterwards. It is likely that some of the students who do not enroll do so because they are denied their study permit,” she adds.