On Tuesday, March 5, Camosun College announced its provincial attestation letter (PAL) allocation as set by the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills. Between January 22, 2024 and January 21, 2025, the college will be able to issue up to 1,643 PALs to prospective international students. Both the college and the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) are pleased with this allocation amount.
On January 22, 2024, minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship Marc Miller announced that the Government of Canada will be setting a two-year cap on international student permit applications, issued amongst the provinces and evaluated by population. The government says that the decision was made in an effort to control and stabilize the growth of international students in Canada and to ensure that international students are provided the proper support to succeed. The measure will require every student permit application to be submitted to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) with a PAL (which are written by the province confirming the applicant is within the cap limit, then sent to the institution, who then sends it to the applicant).
The government first announced that the new limit means there will be approximately 360,000 approved study permits, a 35 percent decrease from the previous year. However, it later said that that number included students who are not subject to the cap, like those in K-12 and graduate students, putting the number closer to 292,000 for college and university undergraduate programs.
For BC, the allocation allows for 83,000 study permit applications.
Camosun acting vice president of enrolment and community engagement Richard Stride says Camosun sees its PAL allocation as a fair assessment by the federal government.
“IRCC has a record of typically approving about 60 percent of applications,” he says. “And so, rather than monitoring the number of students that we have approved study permits, they are monitoring the number of applications that they will review. So they give us a number like 1,643 so that if 60 percent applied, that would come at about our historical numbers for new study permits.”
Stride believes that the cap won’t affect the amount of students starting at Camosun during this period.
“We still have our complement of returning international students in addition to our permits for new students, “ he says. “So, based on the number that the IRCC has stated and the provincial government has given us and the 1,643, we do not see any decline in our international student intake and total number of international students over the coming year.”
CCSS executive director Michel Turcotte says that the CCSS is pleased to hear the figures for the allocated PALs but says the timing raises some concerns.
“The CCSS was very happy to hear that we had received up to 1,643 attestation letters because we feel that should applications materialize, that number will keep us whole,” Turcotte says. “That said, there’s still some concerns about summer semester, because this whole process is coming late in the game, and it will be hard to get the normal number of international students that we expect in the summer semester to actually materialize.”
Stride says the allocation will not bear any financial strain on student services and support.
“There should be no impact on the students at all at this point,” he says. “It’s a different process that the IRCC has stated for us, but our students should have the same opportunities that they’ve been having.”
During the federal government’s decision-making process over the international student caps, many institutions, such as Camosun, were left in the dark. Stride says that the college hopes to see better transparency by the government over the next two years so they can better prepare for changes.
“I would say that Camosun is hoping that on an ongoing basis, there is a clear expectation from IRCC and the federal government for new study permits so that we’re able to plan appropriately,” says Stride.
Turcotte says the former international student system resulted in international students being exploited, and he has hope that this is a positive decision by the government.
“The number of international student visas that Canada had been issuing was increasing at a significant rate every year, as more—private, particularly, but also public—institutions sought to substantially increase their numbers,” he says. “That was creating problems on campuses, off campuses, in terms of being able to provide services and quality education to those students.”
Turcotte says the CCSS is a firm believer that international students provide valuable diversity to post-secondary campuses. The opportunity that domestic students have to study alongside international students is something Turcotte sees as an asset for Camosun. However, post-secondary institutions relying on financial support from international students has led to negative impacts on the students, he says.
“Ultimately, yes, it helps having international students help to fund the system to ensure that there’s a quality education provider for our domestic students,” he says. “But in the process, we can’t seek to exploit international students just purely for financial benefit. And that, unfortunately, is what was happening in Canada and perhaps even making us a less desirable market for those international students.”