Georgian College says it’s down by about 1,000 students across all its campuses after recent federal restrictions on international students.
On September 18th the federal government announced expansive measures to reduce the number of temporary residents, particularly international students, eligible to enter Canada.
The college’s CEO Kevin Weaver sent a letter to Grey County Council recently, outlining the Georgian’s concerns about a reduced number of students, and a lack of appropriate training for the local labour market.
Weaver says the federal government has limited post-graduate work permits to those studying in programs that align with national labour-market needs.
He says, “Forcing colleges to align programming with national labour markets would put our ability to be agile and meaningfully serve at risk.”
Council decided Thursday (Oct 24) it would support the college and Warden Brian Milne would write a letter to be sent to the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, and local MPs and MPPs.
This letter would call for alignment of post graduate work permit eligibility with local labour markets, as communities are different across Canada;
In his letter, Weaver gives the example of local programs like the new Honours Bachelor of Science – Nursing degree, Medical Laboratory Technology diploma, Business – Agriculture diploma and Electromechanical Engineering Technology -Mechatronics advanced diploma.
He says Georgian also continues to be the only provider of highly specialized marine training and education in Ontario through its Centre for Marine Training and Research in Owen Sound.
Weaver says, “There are more than 67,000 jobs that make up Ontario’s marine sector, generating $9.6 billion in economic activity. That activity will be in jeopardy if we’re unable to continue to attract new talent since 19,000 new marine sector workers must be trained in Canada over the next 10 years.”
Savanna Myers, Grey County’s Director of Economic Development, Tourism and Culture told council during discussion, “In 2022, we co-funded an international student coordinator position with Georgian College and they’ve carried that on through today and intend to carry that forward because they want to see their students successful and all of the programs have been aligned to power engineering to support nuclear and marine because we have a huge opportunity here and a massive shortage in Canada.”
Myers adds, nurses and early childhood educators are needed. “Those are the other two areas where there have very specifically attracted international students and right now there’s about 100 international students on campus in Owen Sound.”
She says, “That number could grow. We need it to grow. When we look at our demographics and where things are going, if we are not attracting people in, especially students who have the opportunity to train, and they’re also working 20 hours a week while they’re here. That’s part of the study permit, that they are required to work 20 hours, no more no less, off campus in the communities.”
Myers says, “So when we look at international students there’s huge potential here.”