LONG-TERM GOALS, SHORT-LIVED DREAMS

By SANDEEP PANESAR

Nimrit Kaur, a middle-class girl in Punjab, India, had just one dream: to live her future in Canada. She had her eyes set on the ultimate prize – a student visa to the land of promise.

She was fresh out of university, had acquired an engineering degree, and was begging her parents for a chance to go meet with a local education agent who could help her map out her route to Canada.

“My parents were reluctant,” Nimrit recalls. “Not only did they not have the money to pay for a foreign education, but they’d also heard some horror stories about what happens to students of our community in Canada. They didn’t want to send me away from home but I was adamant. In hindsight, maybe I should have listened to their instincts.”

Nimrit’s story takes us back to 2014 when she landed in Toronto, clinging tightly to her admission letter from Everest College – she was going to pursue a two-year diploma program called Computer Business Applications Specialist. The agent back home convinced her that this program best suited her needs. A two-year diploma program followed by a three-year work permit – there was ample time to get settled and achieve permanent residency. He also mentioned that there was a shortage of software engineers in the country, so she would get a job in her field in no time.

“I was excited at the prospect. I was excited for my new life.”

And her new life was actually off to a great start. Nimrit arrived in Toronto in July 2014 and commenced her term in August. She was living with a relative in their Brampton home, had easy access to the Mississauga-based campus, and was starting to get familiar with her surroundings.

“My parents had spent so much money to bring me here, and I finally felt I was on a journey to pay them back for all their efforts.”

But that feeling was short-lived.

Six months into her first year at the institution, all 14 of Everest College’s campuses were shut down –  forever.

“I didn’t know what to do and how to tell my family,” says Nimrit. “I was out thousands of dollars in tuition fees. I thought I would take a few weeks to process the news and not tell my dad anything. Instead, I confided in my uncle with whom I was staying. That was my biggest mistake. Despite requesting him not to tell my family back home, he told my dad everything. And that was the end of my time in Canada... at least for the time being.

“I didn’t get the support I needed to fight the college for my money. Had my parents given me more time to stay in Toronto, maybe I could have recouped my tuition.”

Everest College was given $3 million in funding to help students pursue their studies elsewhere or refund their tuition costs.

“I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to apply for the funding when I was in Toronto, but when I went back to Punjab, I had an idea. I snuck out to go see the same agent who had set me up with an admission at Everest. He said he was aware of the situation and for a small fee, he would be able to get my tuition costs refunded. My desperation got the better of me. I had some extra money sitting in an account that my parents hadn’t asked about yet – it was my spending money for my stay in Toronto. I withdrew $1500 from that account, which is about 100,000 rupees, and paid the agent to get me my tuition costs back.”

Nimrit never saw that agent again. Nor did she get her tuition refunded. She didn’t get a chance to pursue her education in Canada, either, as her parents didn’t trust the education system, the local policies, or any other agent enough to try again.

Many others recount similar bitter and failed experiences as international students. There is an imminent need for change so we can flip the narratives for students who want to come to Canada for a brighter future. But the roadblocks are aplenty.

Shalini Konanur, the executive director/lawyer at South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (SALCO), a not-for-profit legal clinic that is funded by Legal Aid Ontario, talks at length about the shortfalls surrounding the immigration system for international students.

Speaking about some of the reasons that international students approach SALCO for help, Konanur says that the “common story is that recruiters have taken advantage of them (the students) back home. That when they get here the private colleges are not at all what they have been promised, and that they are not supported here by the colleges (i.e., that they have trouble finding housing and support for mental and physical health). In the end, many of the private colleges are quick to ask for tuition but the services and support offered are inadequate.”

 Although that may be the common story, Konanur says that there are other concerns that students have and need professional help to solve.

Some students who approach SALCO do so because:

• They have lost study permits because of over-working (in the past);

• They have lost study permits because they stopped school due to sexual violence;

• They have lost study permits because they could not pay the exorbitant fees;

• Recruiters in India have exaggerated what the school offers.

 “The treatment of international students has been deplorable,” says Konanur. “These are some of the most vulnerable populations that we have worked with because their precarious immigration status means they have lack of access to income supports, are treated worse in housing, and in some cases, have limited healthcare coverage. They are struggling deeply and also speak about the pressure that they face from family back home, who are counting on them to make it through and to support them in improving the lives of their entire families.”

The latter speaks to Nimrit’s situation directly, where she was expected to work to pay her dad’s debts and also provide for her middle-class family with Canadian dollars. The outcome of her situation wasn’t ideal and when both the institution and the recruiter back home failed her, she was helpless. She also didn’t have the courage to apply to another college in Canada to try to pursue her dreams again. 

CBC News recently reported the story of another international student, 25-year-old Karamjeet Kaur, who was scammed into paying tuition fees after she acquired what turned out to be a fake admission letter to a college in Ontario. Although Canadian officials accepted her letter of acceptance and offered her the student visa, when she arrived in Canada in 2018, her agent back home informed her that her admission had “fallen through”.

It turned out that the letter was issued by the immigration agent himself; he is facing is charges in India, but Kaur was held responsible for the letter and the immigration board noted that it was her responsibility to check the viability of the letter. Kaur does not want to go back to Punjab, so she has now applied for “humanitarian and compassionate consideration,” given a physical disability.

Situations involving fake documents and fraud as such are no longer news in the South Asian community. In March of this year, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) issued 700 deportation letters to Indian students who had unknowingly presented fake admission letters upon entering the country. It’s reported that a majority of these students had come to Canada in 2018, and this issue came to light only this year when they applied for their permanent residency.

A Jalandhar-based consulting firm, Education Migration Services, charged each student more than 1.6 million Indian rupees (approximately $26,500) to get them their admission and student visa. Each of the students facing deportation in this matter has said that they are victims of fraud and they did not know that the letters were fake; the firm was providing letters to well-known institutions like Humber College in Toronto.

Education Migration Services has lost its license following this, and its owner Brijesh Mishra was under investigation as of March 2023.

So, what changes need to take place for individuals like Nimrit, Karamjeet, and these 700 students, to get justice, and for international students to experience ethical treatment?

Konanur has a list of changes she’d like to see in the system. She says that:

• Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) needs to fund greater supports for international students like they do for settlement supports;

• There needs to be stricter vetting and enforcement against education institutions that are authorized to have international students but then turn around and don’t meet expectations;

• They need to change immigration law and policy to allow international students to work more than 20 hours off campus permanently (not a temporary pilot project);

• They need to create a flexible study permit for students who need to take a break for health or other reasons;

• They need to regulate international student fees to be reasonable; and,

• They need to create an automatic path to permanent residency that guarantees PR for these students.

SALCO’s executive director is candid about change and even systemic racism that’s prevalent in the field. “International students have done a great job of organizing and pushing back against our government. It is hard to say whether our government will make the changes that they are demanding. To be frank, our immigration system is significantly impacted by systemic racism and on this issue racialized students (most from South Asian countries), are the most impacted. There has been great resistance to making the immigration process simple and barrier-free for these students.”

CIC News reported in February that IRCC has announced a more collaborative approach when it comes to future immigration policies and programs. This approach is officially titled “An Immigration System for Canada’s Future” and their mission is to adapt “an immigration system that is strong, easy to navigate and adaptive to change”. IRCC wants “collected public opinion” to create what they’re saying will be “an optimal immigration system”.

Immigration minister Sean Fraser kicked this initiative off in Halifax in February by hosting an in-person “dialogue session”, an opportunity for Canadians from all walks of life to share their perspectives on the immigration system. These efforts will continue throughout the country in the form of workshops and surveys throughout Spring 2023.

Does this initiative promise the change we want to see? It may be a small glimmer of hope to get a minority’s voices heard.

Hope is what these students need to continue their fight against a biased system working against them. The impacts of the unethical retention practices, misinformation, and lack of aid are dire. According to a recent report by Press-Progress, an “alarming” number of Punjabi international students are dying each year. These reports further confirm that 80 per cent of these deaths are related to drug overdoses.

Kamal Bhardwaj, funeral director and the owner of Lotus Funeral Home, talks more about these rising numbers and the impact these deaths are having on the students’ family members back home. He’s seen a steady increase in the number of young bodies they’re sending back home, specifically to Punjab, and it all started some time back.

“We’ve been repatriating a lot of bodies back to India – those of international students. The time that the issue hit home for me was when an elderly father in India, a man in his 70s, didn’t believe that his son passed. He clearly told us ‘I’m not going to eat or drink anything until I see my son come back to India’. This was when I started reaching out to Punjabi Community Health Services and other institutions, talking to them about why we have such high death rates amongst the international student population.”

Bhardwaj says that they’re flying five to six bodies back to India every month; February 2023 was record-breaking, with eight.

Why are these deaths happening?

Many factors come into play, says Bhardwaj. Parents spend thousands of dollars to send their kids to Canada, and in turn, these students have a pressure to perform – some succumb to the pressure because their reality isn’t what they expected it to be.

Are these deaths suicides?

Bhardwaj says that a suicide can only be determined by the coroner’s report and that is never disclosed to the funeral home. They say “suicide” by physical observation and marks on the body that tell them that self-harm was involved, when the bodies are brought to the funeral home.

In light of this grave situation, Bhardwaj founded SUNO in 2019, a charity dedicated to helping international students caught in a bind and to act as a voice for their needs. “A lot of these universities and colleges have mental health departments in their institutions but they’re not connecting with this community; language barriers or what have you may make it difficult.”

SUNO is a community of South Asian individuals who are there to help provide resources and support. Some of its initiatives include having a field worker in India, specifically in Punjab, to speak to potential international students about the reality of the situation and to ensure they understand what they’re signing up for when they set out to pursue an education outside of India. Bhardwaj says that these private colleges/universities sell students the positive aspects of their future lives in Canada. “They won’t always tell you the truth.”

SUNO’s representative talks to these students to ground their expectations.

Bhardwaj knows that recruitment agents don’t give their clients the right information – they’re simply in it for the money. That’s another reason that SUNO also has designed webinars that high school students in India can access. The webinars speak about dreams versus reality, intricately detailing what to expect out of their experience and preparing potential international students for their new lives, and world, in the West.

Even with the right resources and accurate information at hand, numerous individuals choose to start a new life in Canada despite being warned of the realities. But, as Lotus Funeral Home (unfortunately) often sees, some end their lives before their dreams even come true.

Neeraj Walia of Guru Nanak Food Bank (GNFB) in Surrey, British Columbia, feels that even in such grim circumstances, the government is looking at what benefits the country. He says that this data isn’t being released to the masses because it will discourage international students from planning a future abroad.

Reports like these can cause immigration numbers to depreciate, impacting the influence international students have on the work force and the money they generate for the country. Studies show that international students now contribute almost $21 billion to the Canadian economy – annually.

Walia noticed that an unfortunate number of students were coming in to GNFB and discussing the problems they’re facing with private colleges not living up to expectations, student recruitment agents taking advantage of them, and the absence of ethical recruitment and retention practices. But their woes don’t end here.

GNFB has recently started a free seminar series called Let’s Talk for new immigrants. The seminar offers “many experienced speakers who come to share their knowledge and guide these students in the right direction”.

GNFB also sees students come in let down by the workforce – not being able to find a job, or the fear of not having work after graduation, lingers.

International students have opened up and shared their plight with community members, legal institutions, school aides, and whoever else they can turn to for help. But revealing their vulnerability and expressing the fears alone will not get them far in their fight. They need action plans to ensure that their future in Canada is secure, when they’re using ethical measures to achieve their goals. The fight  for justice and equality must continue so the community can set a new precedent. 

Today, Nimrit is settled in Punjab – happily married with two daughters of her own. But it’s safe to say that the feeling of defeat lingers even today. She says she often thinks of what could have been different in her life if she got the opportunity to complete her education in Canada, if she had found a more trustworthy agent to help her through the process; if she had gotten one more chance.

Her dream now lives on in the form of her daughters’ futures. “I want them to have a foreign education. They will go to Canada to study.”

Her optimism is inspiring.