FEDERAL NDP Critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Jenny Kwan, reacting to changes to the International Student Program announced by Marc Miller, federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, on Friday, said: “At long last, the government is finally doing what they should have been doing all along – work collaboratively with Designated Learning Institutions to verify the authenticity of acceptance letters for international students. If the Liberals acted sooner, it would have prevented the fraud scam by bad actors impacting hundreds of students from India earlier this year.”
She noted: “Through the work of the task force, officials confirmed 285 students were impacted by scammers. To date, less than half of the cases have been reviewed leaving many students in limbo. This is unacceptable and the Liberals must act to fix this.”
City TV NEWS: Rally outside Vancouver college protests sudden termination of key English program
Dozens of students and instructors gathered at Vancouver Community College (VCC) Tuesday to protest the unexpected shutdown of the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program.
LINC, which has helped thousands of immigrants learn English, secure jobs, and work toward citizenship, is set to be terminated at the end of March due to federal funding cuts.
The move has left over 800 students without a clear path forward and more than 30 instructors without jobs.
“We found out just before winter break, and this was the first opportunity to get people together to raise spirits, because people have been really down.” said Frank Cosco, president of the VCC Faculty Association.