As the number of English-speaking foreign students increases in Quebec, the refusal rates for African countries continue to climb, and some “flawless” files are refused. Candidates who meet the criteria are thus prevented from continuing their studies here, they deplore.
Their immigration lawyers denounce these rates “which are close to 100%” for certain countries of the Maghreb and West Africa, two basins of French speakers. “It often happens that a candidate for studies demonstrates a financial capacity of $ 100,000 for the duration of his program, that he has his acceptance from the university, but he is still refused”, notes the Quebec lawyer Krishna Won.
The overall refusal rate is also much higher in Quebec than in the rest of the country, according to data provided to the To have to by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). The difference is attributable, among other things, to the main recruitment pools for the province, compared to the rest of Canada.
In less than two years, between January 2020 and September 2021, Ottawa has refused 35,642 candidates from the main French-speaking countries of the Maghreb and West Africa who wanted to come to Quebec. During this time, the number of students from India – who mainly intend to take courses in English – has reached new heights, especially in the Quebec college network.
Among the testimonies collected, is that of the couple Dorothée and Mboungou, originally from the Republic of Congo. They say they have presented evidence of their available money in euro and local currency accounts. Rental apartments they own, house, car, business, plots of land; they also had all their belongings assessed, in addition to having to travel three times to the neighboring country to have their fingerprints taken by a center authorized by Canada.
“We are not needy in the Congo, we must not believe that all Africans are extremely poor,” summarizes the mother who has worked for the multinational Total for 14 years. They asked to use only their first name for fear of hindering a future study permit application.
“From the moment we submitted all the papers, barely a week happened before the refusal, as if the answer was already all done,” notes Dorothée. “Is this discrimination? We expected an objective study of our case, ”she adds.
Contradictory reasons
Their file was nevertheless “impeccable”, insists their Quebec lawyer, Krishna Gagné, but Ottawa refused them. The main reason given? The immigration officer was not convinced that they would leave Canada at the end of the study period, as required by immigration regulations.
This motive seems “entirely contradictory” for Me Won. Indeed, both provincial and federal immigration policies increasingly encourage international students to seek permanent status after graduation.
This year, Ottawa opened new avenues of access to permanent residence for foreign students graduating from a Canadian educational institution, ie 40,000 regular places. In the announcement in April, then Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said he wanted to allow “those with temporary status to plan their future in Canada.” “We want you to stay,” he said.
Quebec is also very active in terms of seduction operations abroad. In 2021 alone, the government entered into agreements worth nearly $ 6 million with various organizations for the “attraction and retention” of international students.
“There are a number of incentives for people to stay after their studies, so this reason [évoquée par les agents d’IRCC] contravenes political discourse and these efforts. We denounce this aspect, ”also emphasizes Francis Brown, director of international affairs for the Fédération des cégeps.
The Congolese couple did not intend to stay. The father hoped that a Canadian diploma would give an international boost to his career and his business: “He simply wanted to get out of the national framework a little, even if his company is working very well”, confided to the To have to his wife.
“Only with the money we spent on the paperwork, we could have paid for a whole schooling in France,” sighs the woman. Mboungou has already obtained a master’s degree in France in 2020 at the University Lumière Lyon with “much simpler” study permit procedures.
Quebec penalized?
“We are no match for other immigration systems,” argues Brown. He recalls in particular that the recent processing times for study permits have lengthened further this year, which was deplored by the government of François Legault in a letter sent to the federal government.
Quebec is penalized compared to the rest of Canada because of its French-speaking recruitment pools in Africa. Algeria, Senegal and Cameroon, for example, are among the top six countries of origin of foreign students in Quebec and have experienced refusal rates of over 80% in 2020 and 2021. Morocco is ranked 4e rank in terms of the number of students, but its refusal rate is lower on average than those of other African countries.
Other nationals destined for Quebec are rejected by Ottawa to the tune of 80 to 90%, like those of Guinea, Benin, Togo and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In the other provinces, India represents a large part of the pool of foreign students, but its refusal rate is much lower than for these French-speaking African countries. It was only 30% for the first nine months of 2021, well below that of the countries of origin for Quebec.
What is more, the refusal rate of applicants from the same country of origin is sometimes higher in Quebec than in the rest of Canada. In 2020, requests from Côte d’Ivoire were, for example, refused 75% in Quebec and 68% in the rest of Canada.
This gap can be explained in part by a “lack of knowledge of the place of the college network in the higher education system” by IRCC, according to the Fédération des cégeps. Several students are thus refused a study permit in a CEGEP “because the agent considers that the request does not correspond to the course, on the basis of the educational path”, says Francis Brown.
A person with the equivalent of a university baccalaureate, for example, would be considered too “advanced” by an immigration officer to do a technique in a CEGEP. African students, however, enroll in programs “with a very high placement rate,” insists Nathalie Houde, international recruitment consultant for the Cégep de Jonquière. This is the case in industrial sectors, for example, where applications for admission from Quebecers are declining, but which are nevertheless experiencing serious labor shortages.
Last August, five students accepted by this CEGEP with merit scholarships were refused access to Canada, she recounts. “It was an absurd and excessively difficult situation,” she continues. The scholarship, awarded by Quebec, covered higher tuition fees for foreigners as well as living expenses. Four of them were finally able to arrive in time for the fall semester.
The refusal rate has also increased since 2017, indicating that the situation is getting worse instead of improving, notes Me Krishna Gagné and other members of the Quebec Association of Immigration Lawyers (AQAADI). The gap between refusals in Quebec and Canada has also widened overall, according to IRCC data.