I have made a point of reading the OUSA (Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance) Blog for the last couple of weeks. It is really interesting and offers some great points of view. Yesterday, the OUSA blog mentioned about the situation with International Students and how they are still unable to work off-campus despite the government saying they would be able to.
Here is the OUSA Blog Entry: http://www.ousa.on.ca/sef/archive/id/9/International+students+working+off-campus%3A+still+waiting+for+government+follow-through.html
Some excerpts:
In April the federal government announced that they would begin negotiating a memorandum of understanding with the provinces to allow international students to seek employment off-campus. The Ontario government, in a July memo to OUSA and other stakeholders, announced that they would begin negotiations with a goal of having the program off the ground by the beginning of the school year.
A full 6 weeks into school, and we’re still waiting.
It appears that this initiative has been caught up in the politics of negotiating a broader immigration agreement between Ontario and Ottawa.
…
We’ve communicated to both the federal government and provincial government that this issue should be de-coupled from the broader immigration agreement. I’d encourage all international students to write the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities in Ontario and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in Ottawa and ask them to put inter-governmental politics aside, and negotiate the off-campus work program separate from the broader agreement.
Go to the OUSA blog and find out how you can make a difference by contacting the revelent ministers.
As a sidenote to this, I am very impressed with OUSA blog and how it dicusses issues and offers interesting incite. Definitely a blog I will continue to follow.