SURREY - Canadian citizens and permanent residents who want to enroll in Kwantlen Polytechnic University's English Language Studies program this spring semester are being turned away, while applications from international students are being accepted.
"There's something wrong with this picture," says Surrey North MP Jasbir Sandhu, referring to a message on the university's website.
He says it's "appalling" and "un-Canadian."
Kwantlen's website states it is "not accepting applications" from Canadian citizens or permanent residents at this time, but is "currently accepting applications from international students holding a valid study permit."
The English Language Studies program helps students develop proficiency in the English language to function better academically as well as in society as a whole. It features a "traditional" 15-week program or an "accelerated" sevenweek program.
Diane Walsh, a professor and chairwoman of Kwantlen's faculty council, said the university's move is in response to the federal Conservative government's decision to cut funding to Citizenship and Immigration's resettlement assistance program, to take effect April 1, 2014.
"It's sort of a long, sad story," she said. "We (faculty members) think it's absolutely atrocious. This is not right. It beggars belief."
It will affect 1,600 student spaces, she said. A major part of the funding for citizens and permanent residents came from taxes, whereas international students are recruited outside Canada and pay "somewhere between three and four times the tuition fee."
Sandhu said the federal government downloaded the funding responsibility onto the provincial government, and since then both levels have been tossing the hot potato back and forth.
Sandhu said it's appalling that the federal and provincial governments cannot work together to make this program available for its own people, from whom, incidentally, they are collecting the taxes.
Walsh echoed this. "It's a little puzzling," she said.
"We need to have an ongoing tax base."
Through this exclusion those Canadian citizens and permanent residents being turned away may then not develop sufficient English language skills to meet their potential in their chosen field of study. "They're not going to be able to succeed in their program," Walsh said.
Dr. Alan Davis, president of Kwantlen Polytechnic University, could not be reached for comment.
Sandhu said that he himself is a product of an ESL program and "that had a huge impact on my ability to be on the honour roll in a few years."
"I think Canadians should be upset our government is playing these kinds of shenanigans," Sandhu said. "This is appalling to me."
tzytaruk@thenownewspaper.com