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Not to mention these folks might be going into health sciences to become nurses or doctors, or other professionals who need to be fluent in English. Important things, like lives, don’t need to be lost in translation.

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In the past Immigration Canada gave us workshops alerting us to foreign students producing fraudulent educational documents and to the dangers of students who were here not for the purposes of studying.

At the time I retired … as an admissions advisor, the international student population in B.C. was equal to the population of Kelowna.

We reported students who were failing to Immigration Canada. There was also a (30%?) cap on international students, since the theory was that the FTE had to be reserved for our domestic students.

Since then the colleges’ international education student population has at least tripled.

And they have future plans to continue to court international students to fund their various other building projects, since the government funding to the colleges has been reduced. There is no cap on international students now.

They have created specific programs for these students to bring them to this country, for the potential revenue that they bring.

The students, in return, want entry into Canada.

This is no longer about creating a diverse learning environment.

This is about the cheapest way in the door to the Lower Mainland. And it’s about institutions mining international students as cash cows for their own benefits.