Prior to Katrina Chen MP for Burnaby-Lougheed and Minister of State Child Care, she was a newly graduated foreign student with what is known as a graduate painting permit.
It is a transitional painting permit that gives foreign scholars time for paintings to delight in Canada to qualify for permanent residency.
“I would have dreamed that my paintings would allow them to expire,” Chen said to NOW. “I’m not kidding; I would wake up mid-afternoon and verify that the permit for my paintings had not expired. It’s bad.”
Chen, who is originally from Taiwan, eventually got her permanent residency and then Canadian citizenship, and she has put her SFU political science and history degree to work in local and provincial politics for more than a decade.
But she hasn’t forgotten how stressful this era was, so she’s involved with those who are going through the same thing today: a global pandemic.
International scholars recently in Canada with postgraduate paintings have lost their jobs due to COVID-19, and some are competing against time for the paintings to delight in the midst of a pandemic-related economic recession before their licenses expire.
A recent electronic petition from 3,033 signatures to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marco Mendicino, states that the federal government’s reaction to COVID-19 to date “has not taken into account that the negative has an effect on long-term plans and investments. foreign students, nor does the negative have an effect on the Canadian economy, if graduates do not have the opportunity to prove their value during their (graduate painting permit) due to a shortage of COVID-19-like paintings and layoffs.
One of the other people who signed this petition is Maria Landaeta Yoris, a resident of North Burnaby.
Landaeta Yoris first arrived in Canada from Venezuela for 8 months in 2013 to receive information in English, but said she fell in love with the country.
He returned in 2014, with an English program at the University of Capilano, then graduated by far from the school’s two-year film program.
Even with less than five months of paintings that revel in qualifying for permanent residency, he lost his job at a film industry smelting company in March due to the pandemic.
His three-year post-college paintings expire in August.
“You have a lot of anxiety,” she says.
“My paint permit is extensible, in accordance with existing regulations,” he said, “and due to the damage caused by the pandemic in the labor market, I will lose about 4 to five months of this paint permit” non-extensible,” a long time in my case.
She needs to return to her local Venezuela, a country devastated by political and economic instability and now COVID-19, and needs to lose the six-year investment she made in Canada.
The petition he signed indicates that the education export contributes $21.6 billion a year to Canada’s GDP and has created 170,000 jobs for Canadians.
“Integrating the skills of foreign academics in Canada is critical to the Canadian economy,” the petition states.
Landaeta Yoris has written letters to federal politicians, Burnaby North-Seymour MP Terry Beech and NDP leader and Burnaby South MP Jagmeet Singh describing their plight.
So far, you have not received a response, by confirmation emails indicating that your letters have been won.
Chen said it would be a disgrace if foreign students, such as Landaeta Yoris, had to give up their dreams of permanent and prospective citizenship because they ran out of time because of the pandemic.
“It would be unfortunate because we have trained so many professional staff in Canada,” Chen said. “They are trained in Canada, just like me. I went to high school here; I finished my four-year title here. I have the skills; I have my tongue to calm down. We have many new immigrants who contribute to our community I think we would prefer and probably would like to have those who have knowledge in Canada.
Speaking personally, she said she hopes the federal government will look at extending post-graduate work permits.
“I hope that, because of COVID, many others have lost their jobs, adding foreign workers, foreign academics, for the federal government to examine it and see what the flexibilities are in those situations.”
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor Email [email protected]