Archives for May 12, 2019

At a time when Canada is attracting more students from around the world, there are concerns qualified applicants from certain countries are getting turned away because of its visa process.

Most students have been coming to Canada in recent years from India and China. Fazley Siddiq, a University of New Brunswick professor who served as dean of the business department, said visas have been a headache for applicants from countries like Pakistan and Nigeria.

“It’s frustrating for the students, it’s frustrating for universities,” Siddiq said.

“The security checks were so stringent that no one could make it. Or at least, in my experience, very few were given visas.”

He added that the issue has been of particular concern in Atlantic Canada, where some universities are desperate for international students and “bend over backwards” to attract them.

Siddiq said the situation has improved for applicants from Nigeria, but those from Pakistan have continued to see more refusals — in some years eight Pakistanis received acceptance letters from his department but none could get a visa.

Canada wants to draw in more international students as a way to diversify classrooms and increase the economic benefits they bring, which already amount to billions of dollars each year. The economic impacts of foreign students rival Canada’s exports of auto parts, aircraft and lumber.

Pakistan’s High Commission in Ottawa has urged federal government officials to address what its spokesman calls a “very high” visa rejection rate for the Asian country’s students.

“Canadian universities are popular among Pakistani students, but due to visa difficulties increasing numbers of students is turning towards other countries,” Nadeem Kiani said in an email.

“Consequently, Canadian universities are losing both high-quality students and revenue.”

For example, Kiani pointed to numbers in government documents obtained through access-to-information law that show 2015 student permit applications from Pakistan had a success rate of about 32 per cent. The student-permit success rate for applicants from India that year was more than 68 per cent, say the data.

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said the approval rate for visas for Pakistani nationals has gone up under the Liberal government.

Hussen also said the government will soon announce an expansion to a program — known as the student direct stream — to include applicants from Pakistan. The program, which already covers applicants from China, India, the Philippines and Vietnam, is designed to speed up the processing of student visas.

A spokesman for Hussen said all applications are assessed in a fair manner, based on the merits of the case and in accordance with Canadian law.

“You can’t compare one country to another,” Hussen said in an interview. “Each country has its own country conditions, economic circumstances, people have different travel history.”

The application decisions are made by visa officers. Therefore, a key to helping more students receive permits, Hussen said, is connecting the schools directly to visa offices and embassies to explain the government’s criteria.

It’s also important for applicants to demonstrate they can support themselves financially while in Canada, he said.

Denise Amyot, the head of Colleges and Institutes Canada, said it’s often difficult for students from emerging economies to show that they have financial means to pay for their stays.

More collaboration between visa offices and post-secondary institutions is also important to ensure applications are complete, she said.

“(The visa officers) don’t have a lot of time when they examine an application, so as soon as there’s a doubt they could reject it,” Amyot said.

“That’s we need to ensure as much as possible that all the info is there and it’s clear, and that there’s integrity to whatever information is there.”

6 months after legalization, 38 per cent of cannabis users continue to buy on the street

Nearly six months after legalization, one in every three Canadian cannabis users is still buying their weed on the street, according to new statistics.

According to Statistics Canada’s National Cannabis Survey, which covers the first quarter of 2019, 38 per cent of Canadian pot consumers continue turning to the black market.

It just comes down to dollars and cents.

– Jonathan Hull, cannabis user

That’s despite Ontario’s online cannabis retailer going live on Oct. 17, and Ottawa’s first bricks-and-mortar pot shops opening their doors April 1.

Most customers who are eschewing those legal sources say they’re too expensive.

“It just comes down to dollars and cents,” Jonathan Hull told CBC. “An ounce on the streets is going for about anywhere from a $160 to $180, and in [licensed shops] you’re going to be paying $260 to $280.”

Hull said the stores have their allure, but for him, they’re still not worth it.

“The convenience of those stores is a nice thing, to be able to just pop into a store here when you need something is really good. But I still go onto the black market quite frequently, just due to the cost.”

Nearly $3 cheaper on street

Since the drug was legalized last fall, Canadians purchasing cannabis from legal sources have paid an average of $9.99 per gram, while those getting it from illegal sources have paid an average of $6.37 per gram, according to Statistics Canada.

People will go where they get a better deal.

– Rosalie Wyonch, C.D. Howe Institute

According to Eugene Oscapella, an Ottawa-based lawyer and professor of criminology and drug policy at the University of Ottawa, a shortage since legalization of both product and the shops selling it have helped turn customers back to more familiar sources.

“People are naturally going to continue to go to the illegal market, and many people have longstanding relations with the people who’ve been selling them cannabis in the past,”  Oscapella said.

Rosalie Wyonch, a policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto, predicts the black market is here to stay until the price of legal pot drops.

“Until the price of legal marijuana is comparable to that in a black market, you’re always going to see some consumption in the black market simply because people will go where they get a better deal,” Wyonch said.

Opposition Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson says he wants to be part of a probe of high gasoline prices by British Columbia’s independent energy regulator.

Wilkinson says he’s applied to participate as an intervener in any examination to identify factors impacting gasoline prices in the province.

Premier John Horgan asked the B.C. Utilities Commission to investigate why gasoline in Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island is so much more expensive than the rest of the country.

A date and terms for an investigation have not been set but David Morton, chairman of the utilities commission, says in a statement the regulator is interested in conducting a fair, transparent and inclusive process to identify the factors impacting the price of gasoline.

Wilkinson says in a letter to Morton he encourages a review that includes examinations of provincial taxes and any connections between the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project and fuel supplies.

Horgan’s letter says BCUC is a trusted and respected regulator and has the ability to conduct detailed hearings that will provide residents with necessary evidence and recommendations for the best path forward.

A recent survey suggests Saskatchewan residents think Western Canada would be better off if it separates from the rest of the nation.

The Environics Institute polled 5,732 people online, across all Canadian provinces and territories, from December 2018 to January 2019.

In Saskatchewan, 53 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement, “Western Canada gets so few benefits from being part of Canada that they might as well go it on their own.”

In Alberta and Saskatchewan the proportions agreeing with the statement have jumped 28 and 25 percentage points, respectively, since 2010. Manitobans are less likely than other westerners to share this perspective, but even in this province support for going it alone has increased by 16 points

Overall, the survey says Westerners’ agreement with that statement has strengthened significantly since 2010, and is now at the highest level recorded since 1987.

The province’s economic minister Jeremy Harrison said Saskatchewan residents feel ignored by Ottawa.

“I can tell you from my own constituency in northwest Saskatchewan, there’s a high degree of frustration, particularly directed at the national government, the Liberal government, about policy initiatives that they’ve undertaken which have undoubtedly harmed Western Canadian economic interests,” Harrison said.

Harrison pointed to pipelines, carbon tax and the energy and resource sector, as files leading to discontent.

“All of these things add up to a population that are deeply, deeply frustrated with the Liberal government nationally,” he said.

In March, a group advocating for Canada’s Prairie provinces to secede has put up three billboards in Regina and one in Saskatoon bearing the question, “Should Saskatchewan leave Canada?”

The leader of the group told CBC people are upset with equalization payments, taxation, and even the Canada Food Guide.

Harrison said it the findings of the survey, don’t necessarily mean people want to follow through with a separatist movement.

“I think people are committed to Canada,” Harrison said. “I think what it’s a reflection of is that frustration with the Liberal government and their unwillingness to listen to Western Canadians.”

Support for separation from Canada is equally strong among younger and older westerners. This represents a significant shift since 2010, when it was older residents who were most likely to express this sentiment.

“I know there’s some frustration in Western Canada but Saskatchewan people, I think, will recognize that we’re stronger as part of Canada and we’re Canadians, but certainly we have important files in Western Canada and in Saskatchewan that need action,” said NDP MLA Trent Wotherspoon.

Forty-nine per cent of Westerners said the federal government has become virtually irrelevant to them. That’s up from 38 per cent in 2003.

And 66 per cent said Saskatchewan has less than its fair share of influence when it comes to important national decisions.

Ralph Goodale, Liberal MP for Regina — Wascana, said there are always regional tensions at play within Canada.

“Whenever there are concerns, tensions or frustrations in the west, the Government of Canada has to work especially hard to ensure westerners are heard, and feel that they are fully heard and respected at national level,” Goodale said in an emailed statement. “Our government is redoubling our efforts to deliver on measures to make life better for people in Saskatchewan and all across Canada.”

Goodale referred to a number of actions by the federal government, including defending jobs at Evraz steel in Saskatchewan and Alberta, investments in the TMX pipeline across the West and $500 million for job training in Saskatchewan.

According to the survey, 20 per cent of Saskatchewan respondents said the province receives its fair share of federal spending.

A whopping 85 per cent said the West usually gets ignored in national politics because the political parties depend on Quebec and Ontario for most of their votes — a belief shared mostly by residents 55 and older.