Hon. Marty Klyne: Thank you for being here, minister. I would like to focus my question on high-performing foreign students wanting to come to Canada to study. Canada needs to be attracting the brightest and most creative and innovative minds to study and, hopefully, take up residence here in order to apply their knowledge, skills and abilities to sectors or industries coming up short in recruiting highly skilled graduates.
Today, let’s think about a scenario where a Canadian university has available enrolment capacity for science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, and available residences on campus, as well as co-op placement opportunities in burgeoning sectors experiencing a shortfall of STEM talent. With these conditions of underutilized capacity, would the federal government be open to a Canadian university making a strong business case to enroll foreign students where there is a demand for STEM talent in industries such as tech, health care and finance?
Hon. Marc Miller, P.C., M.P., Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship: Senator, I don’t see why not. I said essentially the same thing to some people I met today: that I’m not here to stand in the way of great ideas, whether they’re pushed by universities, colleges or the needs of the labour market. Intuitively, there is nothing wrong with that. I could get behind that.
The challenge is one of jurisdiction and making sure the provinces are assuming their responsibilities. What I’ve told them is what I will tell you, which is that absent any particular federal responsibility — and I mentioned the responsibility toward vital francophone communities outside of Quebec — they have to convince their provincial counterpart to come and convince me. It’s an easy sell, but it is just that I haven’t seen anything from provinces, except for a small handful in very discrete areas. I should not stand in the way of it. I am the Minister of Immigration. I am not the Minister of Education or a demographer or a PhD in economics, but it is something that we can get right if we do it well and if we cooperate.
Despite the public-facing aspect of this, which sometimes spins out of control in the media, I have pretty good relationships with my provincial counterparts, and our job is to get things done for Canadians.
Senator Klyne: Maybe we can put a finer point on this. The University of Regina has a co-op program. It has vacant residency on campus and the capacity to increase enrollments in STEM. Would the federal government work with the province or directly with the university if there is a sector needing or wanting a scale-up that requires a recruitment of STEM talent?
Mr. Miller: They really should be working with the province and coming to give us that pitch but, more importantly, they should be pitching to those bright minds who will come here. I’ve said time and time again, without speaking directly about that institution, that recruiting practices have to change. They certainly need to change if we’re going to get the best and brightest under a visa program administered by the Government of Canada. Absolutely, but let’s get everyone on board and get it done.