kcho@watdaisy.UUCP (03/05/87)
A copy of a letter sent to B. Mulroney: Foreign students in Canada face many problems. At least two national organizations have recognized the lack of coherent planning and the confusion of international responsibilities: 1) The North-South Institute issued a report entitled "Foreign Students in Canada - A Neglected Foreign Policy Issue" in November 1985. 2) In the report entitled "Closing the Doors?", the Canadian Bureau for International Education places the blame for the drop of the number of international students in Canada on federal and provincial governments which have failed to agree on policies. (See Shore86b for a summary) FOREIGN STUDENTS PROBLEMS. International students have problems at national, provincial and county level. The most important ones are: a) Foreign students pay tuition fees that exceed the cost of their education. (Green87) b) Graduate foreign students must contribute part of their Teaching or Research Assistantship salary to the Unemployment Insurance Plan. They are not allowed to collect benefits. (Shore86b and Mota87b) c) For FS, the procedure to collect Family Allowances and Child Tax Credit is very complex. (Fam86) d) Foreign graduate students must pay $50 to obtain an Employment Authorization. They also contribute $50 for the renewal of their spouses' and children's visas. These expenses are not tax deductible. e) FS cannot collect the Ontario Tax Credit. (Ont85) f) Some provincial health insurance schemes require special premiums from foreign students or do not cover them at all. (VISA87b) g) The county boards of education could deny education to the children and spouses of foreign students. This has happened at least once in the past. h) FS are not informed by the Universities about these issues. They find out only when they have committed themselves to a program of study. i) Foreign students and their families are not allowed to engage in employment or self-employment. (VISA87a) One exception is Graduate Students that can work as Teaching or Research Assistants. Many of these problems are generated by rules that violate not only the Canadian Charter of Rights but also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other International Covenants (UN87). In the future, most of these laws will no doubt be abolished because they are "unfair". For example in British Columbia, the issue of Medical Insurance for foreign students was taken to Court. The students finally won. The issue of Unemployment Insurance is also being taken to Court using the Charter of Rights as the main instrument. (Mota87c) It is very likely that again this case will be win. Foreign students were invited to come into Canada by the Universities. There should be a good understanding between them and the government. IT IS A SHAME THAT INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS WITH LIMITED RESOURCES MUST USE THE CANADIAN LEGAL SYSTEM TO FIGHT FOR THEIR RIGHTS. EVERY COURT CHALLENGE IS A WASTE OF TIME, MONEY AND A LOSS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL IMAGE OF CANADA. Canada does not have any obligation to bring in Foreign Students; however if they are accepted, they should not be discriminated. The benefits for receiving foreign students are countless yet very difficult to quantify. For instance: * Did you know that your colleague, the President of Mexico, Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado obtained a Master's degree in Economics at Harvard. Without doubt, his policies have been influenced by the fact that he lived for a while in a free and democratic society. * The former Ministry of Finance of Mexico, Jesus Silva Herzog; who has been in Ottawa many times renegotiating the external debt was a foreign student at Yale. If he had been an alumnus from a Soviet or French University, he would probably have already repudiated the debt and unbalanced the capitalist system. Canada would certainly be affected. * Vinicio Baqueiro an alumnus from the University of Waterloo with a master degree in Computer Science returned to his country , Ecuador, in 1983. In six months, he developed the computer environment necessary for the presidential election of January 1, 1984. The opposition (right wing) charged him with a "plot to commit a scientific fraud" (this was the first time a computer have been used). In April 17, 1984, there was an attempt to kill him. He suffered a broken leg. He is now working in the University trying to bring democracy back into his country. Was he influenced by Canada in his political views? Was there a change in his mind because he was out of the country for a year? Are there benefits for Canada in keeping Ecuador a democratic society? (I include a copy of a personal letter; it is written in spanish). * I am so impressed with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that I think Mexico, my country, may likely need something similar. Will there be benefits to Canada in the fact that Mexico may have a document inspired in the Charter of Rights? * Members of my family have made 20 visits to Canada that they would not have made if we were not here. They injected at least $20,000 into the Canadian economy. On the other hand, Canada is not obtaining all it can from foreign students. Most international students leave Canada with a Bachelor or Doctorate degree say in Engineering but without any knowledge of other things Canada has to offer. I would recommend the design of a course compulsory for foreign students that will introduce this information. For example: the export potential of Canada, parliamentary law, principles of democracy, the founding of a multicultural society, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (I am in love with it, as you can see), the division between federal and provincial governments, the solution of the Quebec problem, environmental issues, the equality of women, etc. Can you imagine 50,000 leaders all over the world being aware of these marvels of the Canadian system? Hoping that soon there would be a national policy toward foreign students, I thank you for the attention given to this letter. MAriaurora Mota
daford@watdragon.UUCP (03/05/87)
I find it difficult to get too upset about the plight of foreign students in Canada. They receive the advantages of a university paid for by the taxes of Canadians. We, our parents and our grandparents, worked hard and earned the money to pay for the system (as faulty as it is) long before Foreign students even thought they might come to this country as guests. We will continue to pay the mortgage long after they are gone. While I don't think they should be treated unfairly, I find it hard to get upset if they get charged $50 bucks for UIC and then can't collect. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel A. Ford daford@watdragon.uucp CS Department daford%watdragon@waterloo.csnet U. of Waterloo daford%watdragon%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
rgatkinson@watmum.UUCP (03/06/87)
In article <2396@watdragon.UUCP> daford@watdragon.UUCP (Daniel Ford) writes: >While I don't think they should be treated unfairly, I find it hard to get >upset if they get charged $50 bucks for UIC and then can't collect. I suppose that as a student at Waterloo I should also not object to being charged a "computer fee" that goes into general revenues, or an over-priced $850/year "coop fee" that supports overall operations? It's not so much the money behind these things (at least for me, perhaps I'm luckier than most) but the principle involved. What right do we have to charge people for insurance they can't collect? On what moral principle is that based? If you want to tax them *then call it a tax* If we start abusing this sort of thing, then it becomes too hard to keep track of what those in power are up to, and too easy for them to slip things under the rug. >Daniel A. Ford daford@watdragon.uucp -bob atkinson
brkirby@watdragon.UUCP (03/06/87)
I have just one question:
Can "domestic" students collect UI?
Bruce Kirby
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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
revolution inevitable."
--John F. Kennedy
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CSNET: brkirby@waterloo.csnet
UUCP: {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra}!watmath!watdragon!brkirbychapman@fornax.UUCP (03/06/87)
> I have just one question: > Can "domestic" students collect UI? > > Bruce Kirby Depends. If you are a full time student the answer is no. If you are not full time then it is possible to make a case to UIC that the courses you are taking in no way affect your ability to look for work or to accept work offered to you - in which case you can get benefits. Also time spent working will leave you with benefits when you leave school although regulations have changed in the past few years in order to make it more difficult for people like students to collect, e.g. weeks where you work <20hrs don't count towards qualifying for benefits.
brewster@watdcsu.UUCP (03/06/87)
>From: brkirby@watdragon.UUCP (Bruce Kirby) >I have just one question: > Can "domestic" students collect UI? Yes and no. I know of several people who graduated at the same time as I did, who arranged to start a full time job in September, arranged to work as camp counsellors at resort camps for the summer while being paid under the table, and collected UI for the summer as they had workterms to support minimum number of weeks worked. Ethically disgusting, but it happened. Now that this loophole has been mentioned publicly, do you think UI will be able to close it down ?? I don't think so because people who are willing to lie have an extremely easy job in scamming UI, which is a weakness of the system given that there will always be people who are willing to lie. I know of another student who worked at a company in Toronto that went bankrupt. The bankruptcy happened four weeks before the end of the workterm and so he couldn't find other employment. UI will not pay any compensation for this time out of work because "there was no reasonable expectation of finding suitable employment for the time period in question". Which brings up the point that UI is really a misnomer. UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE IS NOT AN INSURANCE PROGRAM !!!! In the UI program the people who are least likely to require support pay the most, the people who are most likely to require support pay the least or nothing. There is no concept of risk of being unemployed, so that the grade 10 dropout pays the same as the college grad, although one is more "employable" than the other. There is no concept of being allowed to withdraw based on what you had put in, which would have allowed the friend who was out of work three weeks to withdraw some of savings he had presumably built up in the plan over previous workterms. There is no concept of opting out of the plan. The plan is full of loop holes which any regular insurance company would close up before you could say "sinking profit margin" due to money lost through the loopholes to unscrupulous individuals. The point being, UI really isn't an unemployment insurance scheme in any normal manner of understanding of the concept of insurance. It is just a method of collecting general taxes from those who are employed. i.e. the UI you pay doesn't go into a special pot designated for payouts in the future, as normal insurance would, but rather goes into general government revenues. The regular insurance companies are worried because they don't think they're going to have enough in their "pot" to cover future payments if the courts keep awarding huge settlements. I am not sure if UI input has ever matched UI outputs, (and it certainly doesn't now with unemployment at 9%), but have you ever heard the government scream about this imbalance ?? How many hours would Brian last as leader if he proposed that UI output = UI input ?? The government doesn't even count UI payments as expenditures, but as extraordinary items. The deficit figures of approx 30 billion annually do not include approx 7 billion payed out for UI. This despite the fact that the "extraordinary" items happen every year, despite the accounting method having been argued against by the auditor-general. Given that Canadians have chosen to maintain a "safety net", I think we should at least be honest about how we go about collecting the revenue to pay for this net, as opposed to pretending that UI is an insurance plan to protect against unemployment, because it isn't. This would also stop confusion regarding who is entitled to the money, as has happened recently with some foreign students. Conclusion : foreign students pay UI only when they happen to get a paying job, and inasmuch as the UI they pay is being collected as general tax revenue, there is no reason to expect that they will ever see any back again, in the form of UI benefits. They see it indirectly however in the institution they attend as a large majority of at least the infrastructure of the place is supported by public money. It also is seen indirectly in the general state of society around them (no bombs in the streets, no guerilla-warfare on the campus, public hospital for life threatening emergencies in every town, publications devoted to free speach by all individuals, etc, etc). It takes money to provide and maintain this state of society, and in large part that is what the foreign student receives for their UI/tax dollar. I don't really think they should expect anymore. They can expect to be told the truth about the situation however, and have every right to be angry about the fact that they were mislead to believe that UI is somehow related to a regular insurance program that would necessarily cover any period of personal unemployment. I am not saying that this is the way things should be, but rather this is my interpretation of the way things actually are. Try not to become a man UUCP : {decvax|ihnp4}!watmath!watdcsu!brewster of success but rather try Else : Dave Brewer, (519) 886-6657 to become a man of value. Albert Einstein
brkirby@watdragon.UUCP (03/07/87)
In article <3094@watdcsu.UUCP> brewster@watdcsu.UUCP (Dave Brewer, SysDesEng, PAMI, UWaterloo) writes: >>From: brkirby@watdragon.UUCP (Bruce Kirby) > >>I have just one question: >> Can "domestic" students collect UI? > > Yes and no. I know of several people who graduated at the > same time as I did, who arranged to start a full time job in > September, arranged to work as camp counsellors at resort > camps for the summer while being paid under the table, and > collected UI for the summer as they had workterms to support > minimum number of weeks worked. > But, this doesn't really answer my question. As far as I can tell, there is no discrimination for foreign students, over domestic students, when it comes to collecting UI. Anyone that is a full-time student, if they earn any money, has to pay into UIC. However, none can collect from it. I pay UI, but am not eligible to collect. If may be easier for Canadians to cheat the system, but that is not the issue. What I'd like to know is: If someone is working here on a work visa and loses their job, are they eligible to collect UI? Note: I may be wrong about my understanding of students and UI, but I have always been under the impression that full-time students cannot collect UI. Bruce Kirby ----------------------- "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." --John F. Kennedy ----------------------- CSNET: brkirby@waterloo.csnet UUCP: {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra}!watmath!watdragon!brkirby