Tom Mulcair: Our universities are the light of the world. Stop selling them short

Immigration Minister Marc Miller was refreshingly candid in assessing the current situation for foreign students in Canada, calling it “out of control” and “disconcerting.”

I’m not sure everyone in the PMO was thrilled with his remarks. The Liberals are now in their ninth year in power and Miller’s broadside could only have been aimed at his own government.

It has to be acknowledged that Miller was not only courageous, he was spot on and deserves a medal for his forthrightness.

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Canadian universities are sorely underfunded. Some have fairly large endowments gifted by the…gifted! Graduates who’ve gone on to make their place in society give generously, recognizing their own good fortune to have attended such high quality institutions.

But those well-endowed universities are the exception, not the rule. Far more are struggling and even large, well-established institutions like Queen’s and Concordia are sounding the alarm about extremely serious financial challenges.

For most Canadian universities, the massive arrival of foreign students has been a godsend. Fresh ideas, great students and lots of cash -- because tuition for foreign students is usually not capped.

It’s easy to scold but any scaling back on those revenues is going to have to be replaced. If governments don’t pony up the cash, tuition for Canadian students will have to rise.

Many provinces cap the tuition for their own students. In short order, even more universities could be facing insurmountable financial challenges.

It’s not easy for families to come up with the money to cover the expenses of a top notch education. I come from a family of 10 kids and, like most of my brothers and sisters, had to borrow to be able to afford to attend university. The debt was sizeable but made manageable by the openings my McGill law degrees gave me in life.

The attraction of a Canadian university diploma is best reflected by the hundreds of thousands of top students from around the world whose own families make huge sacrifices to be able to send them here to pursue their dreams.

We really do have world-class institutions offering some of the best education anywhere. I’ve had the chance to teach at l’Université de Montreal since leaving politics and have met francophone students from a dozen countries with amazing skills, insights and experience.

Many will return home bringing with them knowledge that will allow them to contribute mightily to building their country of origin. Many more will choose to stay here, setting down roots and helping to build Canadian society and our economy, weaving their own unique threads into the Canadian tapestry.

The idea of allowing many top students from around the world to come to Canada, to study, to work and eventually become permanent residents and citizens is an excellent one. We’ve got to make sure we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater as we fix the problems that Marc Miller so aptly describes.

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. Miller announced new rules aimed at protecting international students from fraud, following an investigation this summer into more than 100 cases involving fake admission letters.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Miler alludes to abuses in the system and he’s right. I’d add that there also appears to be some racism. It’s apparently quite easy to get into Canada if you’re from France or Belgium. If you’re from Congo (the most populous francophone country) it’s likely to be much tougher.

One of the particular problems Miller refers to are institutions that seem to exist more on paper than in the form of bricks and mortar. They get to grant admissions to foreign students and haul in the big bucks because a province recognizes the school.

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What they’re actually teaching, where and with what resources, is less than clear. That is indeed something that has to be dealt with rapidly because it’s not fair for the students or for the real institutions that are struggling.

Miller has also decided to have a more serious requirement concerning available cash for students coming to Canada. Yes, we do have a real housing crisis, but if you don’t have money for rent, you won’t be able to afford housing at all.

To avoid the gaming of the system, Miller has also wisely chosen to reduce the number of hours foreign students can work. Massive admissions of students who have no time to study because they’re working so many hours betrays the system and its purpose.

Universities have been going through a series of major challenges in very recent times. University presidents have been forced to resign because they had no moral compass on big issues like antisemitism. This isn’t about free speech on campus, it’s about knowing right from wrong. And leaders of universities have to lead in the real world, not just in the theoretical one.

Cancel culture is a reality and the intolerance of finger wagging certainties and refusal to debate are anathema to the free exchange of ideas that is the heart of a living university.

The Quebec government recently attacked McGill and Concordia universities for, amongst other sins, bringing too much English to the streets of Montreal. A petty attack on excellence from a parochial nationalist government. Too bad those universities have been left to twist in the wind by the federal government.

McGill University campus is seen in Montreal on Tuesday, November 14, 2017. Not only is Quebec hiking tuition for out-of-province students to McGill and Concordia universities to $12,000, the government is also requiring 80 per cent of them to have a Level 5 intermediate knowledge of spoken French before they graduate. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Canada is blessed with resources, human and natural, that are the envy of the world. Our universities take their well-deserved and enviable place among the best in the various rankings that get published every year. They didn’t get to that level by sleight of hand and tricks to haul in sky-high tuition from foreign students.

Our universities need help. These are unprecedentedly trying times for them. Their role in our modern society is more important than ever as artificial intelligence is rapidly replacing credible research and analysis work that has until now been carried out by trained, experienced and critically-thinking academics.

The free exchange of ideas, even controversial or unpopular ones, is essential to enabling universities to continue to be the light of the world. Real research into our society and how it can be made fairer and better requires skilled scholarship. Spectacularly rapid advances in science and technology have to be mastered if Canada is to maintain its place in a world in transition.

None of that will be possible without affordable access to universities for the top talent from here and a sincere welcome to bona fide students from around the world.

Contributing more to our universities is one of the surest ways to remove inequalities in our own society and to make it a better place. Sharing knowledge with good students for around the world is a way of ensuring the arrival of skilled new Canadians and aiding positive change in so many other places.

Miller is right in his diagnosis. Now he’s got to prescribe the right cure without killing the patient.

Tom Mulcair was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017