Dear Prime Minister Trudeau:
On behalf of Ontario’s 24 public colleges, I write with urgency to bring to your attention glaring omissions in the Post-Grad Work Permit (PGWP) Programs of Study Eligibility List released by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on October 4, 2024. Together with our colleagues across the country, Colleges Ontario continues to urge the federal government to ensure full understanding of the impacts of these policy changes on affordable childcare, dental care, health care, housing construction, and business investments in advanced manufacturing, including EVs.
We understand the federal government’s goal is to align international student intake with labour market needs. However, the list released by IRCC omits many critical fields of study that support Ontario’s economy and workforce. Some of the excluded programs are vital pathways for producing skilled graduates that help Ontarians access vital services, like affordable childcare, dental care, mental health support and health care in their communities. In many regions, colleges are already not able to keep up with demand for this talent.
We are particularly concerned about four key areas of labour market need:
- Early Childhood Educators: One of the most puzzling omissions under these new federal rules is the exclusion of ECEs which will result in a nearly immediate drop in the available stream of childcare workers. Ontario anticipates a shortage of 8,500 ECEs by 2026 and public colleges currently have 5,300 international ECE students enrolled – about 50 per cent of total enrollments. This federal policy change will make it more difficult for Ontarians to find affordable childcare and these impacts will be felt immediately.
- STEM: The new federal rules exclude engineering technician and technology programs which are vital to growth in advanced manufacturing, electrification, and EV scale-up. This includes key programs such as power engineering, motive power technician (for the automotive sector), construction project management and a slew of engineering technician and technologist programs. Over 8,000 international students are currently enrolled in college programs in these high labour market demand fields.
- Health care: Health care administration, dental hygiene and nursing degrees at college are among those excluded. Many of these programs are in northern and rural Ontario – making it harder for Ontarians in those communities to find health care close to home.
- Tourism and hospitality: This is a key sector in Ontario supporting many communities across the province. There are currently over 12,000 international students enrolled in programs that support this important sector.
Local industry and regional employers rely on public colleges to prepare and train workers for vital jobs in construction, advanced manufacturing and renewable energy. We will not be able to meet this mandate if critical programs in engineering, including in automotive, chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical and aerospace, continue to be excluded by the federal government’s eligibility changes to PGWPs.
The federal government’s approach appears to assume that only those with university credentials can contribute to Canada.
The program eligibility list acknowledges the role of university-educated registered nurses in healthcare, but not college-educated registered nurses – even though the program is exactly the same. University-educated dentists, but not dental hygienists. Engineers, but not engineering technicians. The changes will set back federal goals of expanding daycare and dental care, accelerating housing construction, and making progress toward a net-zero economy. The impacts will also be most acutely felt in rural and northern Ontario, including in Francophone communities, Indigenous communities and other under-resourced regions.
Ontario’s public colleges are proud of our contributions to local communities and to regional economic development. Many of our programs — designed in partnership with employers — are at-capacity, with domestic students receiving preferential enrolment over their international counterparts. Drawn by affordable tuition, high post-graduation employment rates and the promise of a bigger paycheque, so many of our students choose to enroll in Ontario colleges to provide for their families and to get ahead.
We believe that college graduates contribute just as significantly to Ontario’s prosperity as their university-educated peers.
We again urge reconsideration of the program exclusion list and meaningful dialogue with the province to ensure that Ontarians are not negatively impacted by unintended consequences.
Yours very truly,
Marketa Evans
President and CEO, Colleges Ontario