Foreign Students Lied to Canada
There are two sides to the story. Canada and foreign students in this case. We are hearing one side of the story, which paints Canada as the bad guy for tightening screws on foreign students, for no apparent reason. There is a reason. Broken trust, or regarding Canada as a stupid country that can be easily duped. It was duped.
Some foreign students from India, 700 in fact lied to immigration. The government discovered them years later when they applied for citizenship. How? The government found out they used fake admission letters from colleges that do not exist; online colleges and store-front colleges not registered with educational licensing bodies. I don’t own a college but there must be a system of accreditation in all 10 provinces. Can you imagine going to a dentist that did not go to dental school?
Traditional media, projects the government as the big bad wolf. Show me one interview where individuals confess they run a college that doesn’t exist in Canada, that they write fake admission letters complete with official college stamps, that they work with fake immigration consultants in various countries, that they have been doing it for years, and that some of their clients are now Canadian citizens, through the back door.
Show me just one story from either Ontario or British Columbia. Instead, we are inundated with stories of ‘innocent’ students that did not know the back-door-immigration was a scam. We are tired of stories of how foreign students are good for Canadian cities because they buy winter boots, used cars, keep buses full in winter, rent apartments and do jobs we don’t want. We know that. Check back copies. We always admit that.
What Canadians object to, is disrespect for Canada, for immigration and other laws. There should be criminal cases about fake principals in fake colleges. The foreign student scam has been going on for so long because of word of mouth, but Canadians are expected to believe foreign students are as innocent as snow. Some of them are lying.
Canadian media outlets should stop printing stories that imply lying foreign students are doing Canada a favour by coming here. It’s a two-way street. They benefit from being in Canada even if it’s under false pretences. We benefit from them, but both sides of the story must be told. Can we have a headline that says: How I Ran Fake Colleges in Brampton and Vancouver.
You will never see such a confession, because portraying Canada as evil generates page views.
Nonqaba waka Msimang
Executive Blogger
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